BFFs Grace and Frankie take a bow

It’s going to be hard to live without new seasons of the hit TV show but there are always reruns to watch on loop

A confession: for the last ten days or so, all I have been doing during lunch is watching interviews of Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin promoting their seventh and final season of Grace and Frankie. This, in anticipation of the laugh-out-loud moments I was going to experience when watching the American TV show's season finale. By going over their interviews, I was only trying to prolong the inevitable–saying goodbye–to the lovable characters that Fonda (Grace), Tomlin (Frankie), Martin Sheen (Robert) and Sam Waterston (Sol) play on the show. Who would have thought that a show with four lead actors above the age of 80 was going to end up as Netflix’s longest running series?

Eventually I treated myself to two carefully rationed episodes a night to catch up with the last few adventures of the Bonida Banditos (Aha! For this,you need to see the last season, no spoilers here). Oh, to be 84 and 82 and having a blast like Fonda and Tomlin palpably do in Grace and Frankie. Not without their troubles, the duo sure make having to deal with creaky bones, dry vaginas, mobility issues, well-intentioned offspring and annoying ex-husbands seem like old age can also be fun, that is, if you just allow it to be fun.

Lessons apart

When the show dropped in 2015, it was, at first watch, an odd couple kind of show–frenemies turned besties who were going to give us gag-filled LOL moments. It’s turned out to be much more than that. The writers and actors have helped enact a narrative that’s about women finding deep friendships late in life, and beyond their partners and children. All this without sounding sanctimonious or self-righteous. It’s the dignity that old age truly deserves.

After seven years (actually, earlier), an uptight Grace has learnt to relax around the eccentric, perennially-in-nirvana beaming (or is it smirking?) Frankie. And Frankie? Well, Frankie seems to just get nuttier as we go along. Thank god for the Frankies in our life who temper our hyperbolic existence with large doses of kookiness and laughs. But their varying temperaments have clearly rubbed off on each other. While it’s Frankie with all the nutty ideas, Grace is clearly a willing accomplice.

In the midst of all the chuckles, the show has managed to pack in a great deal: coming to terms with mortality, assisted death, the desire for love, companionship and sex, memory loss, dementia, addiction, alcholism, the lack of accessible and affordable medication for the aged–all done through machine-gun repartee and jibes. Don’t take yourself so seriously, the show seems to be telling us. At other times, it’s telling us to take the aged more seriously, minus the pity or angst though. The elderly aren’t without their wants and desires, whatever these may be. When they break free out of a retirement home and go up in a gas balloon,you are right there with Frankie and Grace, hooting for them and joyful in their joy.

Conflicts galore

What I particularly loved about the show is how the actors and writers have handled the concept of conflict. Conflict is that much needed ’X’ factor for cinematic stories; it helps unfold characters, fast-track static situations and, well, generally accelerates the pace of any narrative. In Grace and Frankie, everyone is fighting with each other–Grace with Frankie and Robert and sometimes Sol, and her kids, Brianna and Malory. Frankie is startlingly assertive for such a free thinker, and the moments of friendship between Brianna and her left me beaming. Maintaining and building boundaries is a lesson that’s been reinforced many times over by the titular characters.

Brianna (an outstanding June Diane Raphael), the sarcastic diva who has inherited her mother’s cosmetics empire on a silver platter, is another standout character. News reports seem to suggest that Raphael is developing a show about Brianna now, so maybe we’ll still get to see Grace and Frankie on fresh adventures, after all. The show’s first episode was titled The End and the last one is called The Beginning;’ to say anything more would spoil it. One big lesson I have learnt from these feisty old women is to stay in the present.

Comedian, actor and writer Pete Davidson probably said it best when he rapped in praise of the show on Saturday Night Live a few years ago: “My favourite TV show is motherfucking ‘Grace and Frankie!’ Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen, Sam Waterston…It’s a Netflix Original, one of the first to be on for five seasons—two sweet old ladies is the reason. You’ll thank me. I watch that show every day on the reggy—you laugh, you cry, you better grab a hanky. That’s right, I’m talking about…”

Yes, Pete, while we will miss the duo’s midnight bonfires on the beach, their martini-giggling and marijuana- and peyote-fueled antics, we thankfully have the reruns to look forward to.

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