by Ryan Brown, staff writer
What show teaches the viewers that the oldies are still goldies and can still give us a good round of laughs? That’s right, they’ve really come back for another round. Grace and Frankie is a Netflix original American comedy-drama web television series created by Marta Kauffman (best known as being the co-creator of the popular sitcom FRIENDS alongside David Crane) and Howard J Morris. The show also features various similarities to multiple shows such as Scandal, The Good Place, Last Man Standing, and several others.
The series follows Grace Hanson (portrayed by Jane Fonda, also the executive producer), a retired cosmetics module, and Frankie Bergstein (portrayed Lily Tomlin), a hippie art teacher, whose respective husbands Robert (portrayed Martin Sheen, known for his lead role in Apocalypse Now in 1979, also the father of actor Charlie Sheen) and Sol (portrayed by Sam Waterston, known for his role as Jack McCoy in Law and Order) are successful divorce lawyers in San Diego, California. However, Grace and Frankie’s lives are suddenly turned upside down when Robert and Sol announce that they are leaving their wives and getting married to each other, and it’s especially shocking since they reveal that they had been having an affair with each other for the past 20 years. Now the women, neither of whom had ever actually particularly liked each other, are forced to live with each other and learn to unite and cope with each other’s differences, and before the two of them even know if they end up the best of friends.
Every season of Grace and Frankie up to this point has had a minimum of 14 different songs with season 4, and season 2 holding the highest number of songs with 45 different songs throughout the course of the season. The songs are usually used towards the end of each episode or when a major plot development comes into play, in order to symbolize how important it is to the show. The scenes of each episode are also dragged out to a minor extent, with a combination of interior and exterior shots.
Following the ending of season 3, Frankie had moved to Santa Fe with her boyfriend Jacob and the season begins with her returning to visit Grace back in San Diego, only to find that she is now lodging with her manicurist, a widowed woman by the name of Sheree. Among other changes and developments, Bud and his girlfriend Alison are preparing for the arrival of their child, later revealed to be a girl.
Grace and Frankie do have some rather questionable choice of language a large part of the time, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a great comedy that reminds us of how important family is, no matter what shape or form it may come in. No matter what, family is family, even if it is cliche.