Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin’s titular characters prove that women can still enjoy life while aging in the upcoming fourth season of Netflix’s “Grace and Frankie.”
“The fastest growing demographic in the world are older women,” Fonda told Variety. “I think it’s one of the reasons that the show is popular because Lily and I are old, and we show that it doesn’t have to be all bad.”
Tomlin joined Fonda and added, “Certainly not. Look at her.” “Look at her!” Fonda replied.
Both women addressed the season’s heightened topic of physical pains and changes that accompany aging. “One of the things people like about the show is that it’s funny, but it is also reality based.” Fonda said.
Tomlin said, “All these things could befall people of a lesser age, but it’s more fun when it befalls us.”
Show creators Howard J. Morris and Marta Kauffman wanted the theme of breaking down to be a focal point in fourth season because of the societal view of older people.
“There’s this constant sense that anybody who’s above a certain age is incapable,” Kauffman said.
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Morris agreed adding, “We want to give voice to those people and that’s our show.”
Actors Peter Gallagher and Ernie Hudson, who play Grace and Frankie’s love interests respectively, commented on the significance of having a show starring older women.
“When I was younger, I used to love watching older actions,” Gallagher said. “I loved watching the lines in their faces and imagining where they’d been and their wisdom and all that life. Of course our cast has no lines on their faces, but they still have a lot of life. That is has less to do with age than lives well lived — lives and stories well told.
Hudson specifically spoke on the importance of the show given the current #MeToo and Time’s Up movements. “They say women have been disenfranchised for a while. Can you imagine older women?” Hudson said.
In the past, he added, his character would have made decisions without discussing it with his partner.
“These are older women who have power and who claim their power,” Hudson said. “They make their demands known, and they’re right to do and live is as important as mine. It is a little hard sometimes for men to accept that, but that’s life.”
Brooklyn Decker, who plays Fonda’s daughter, gave credit to the women on the show’s writing team for helping develop strong lead characters that experience multiple stages in life and display different layers.
“I think having a show that is written really heavily by females proves that women can do it and do it really well,” Decker said.
“Grace and Frankie” Season 4 premieres Jan. 19 on Netflix.
Season 4 reframes a question of maturity into one of capability, as Grace and Frankie stare down the barrel of assisted living.
When does a funny story become sad? Typically in television, this kind of question is framed around arrested development: A grown man is still acting like he’s in college, and certain events force him to look himself in the mirror and say, “Getting that drunk and acting that dumb isn’t funny anymore. It’s sad.”
But what if it’s not arrested development? What if it’s unstoppable regression? Continuing its fearless quest to address the anxieties associated with aging, “Grace and Frankie” dares to ask if its characters’ wild misadventures aren’t actually funny anymore. Maybe they’re scary. Maybe these two best friends are losing control of their minds, bodies, and lives. Maybe they don’t even know it’s happening, as it’s happening. Maybe they need help.
It’s a jarring choice, especially when framed around Lily Tomlin’s delightful larks as Frankie and Jane Fonda’s cutting quips from Grace. No one wants to imagine that either of them could be slipping beyond peak form, let alone need an assisted living facility. But that’s exactly what makes the show so effective in its message: To make these decisions for yourself or your parents is incredibly hard. Someone needs to talk about it, and these two — in this show — have proven perfect torchbearers.
“Grace and Frankie” is still the same beautiful, charming, funny, and heartfelt series it’s always been. It’s just found yet another way to be meaningful beyond expectations.
The label-skewing Netflix original has always smoothly shifted between comedy and drama, making it oh-so-fitting that co-creator and showrunner Marta Kauffman would ask the audience to shift their perspective in Season 4. What was once funny is now frightening — or it might be, and that means Grace and Frankie have to consider both interpretations. It also means Tomlin and Fonda have to find humor in harrowing moments and vice versa. They’re obviously up for the task, especially in the final three episodes, which set up a strong, surprising ending.
[Editor’s Note: The following section of the review contains spoilers for “Grace and Frankie” Season 4, through the finale.]
Season 4 starts in a very different place than it ends up — literally and figuratively. Frankie is living in Santa Fe with her boyfriend, Jacob (Ernie Hudson), and Grace has a new roommate: Sheree, played by Lisa Kudrow (who reunites with her “Friends” co-creator, Kauffman). Sheree is a manicurist, but she helps Grace sell the vibrators that Grace created with Frankie. This kind of insertion into Grace’s day-to-day life ruffles Frankie’s feathers, but the three of them work it out without anyone getting too up in arms.
Kudrow proves herself a good fit for the show, even if she doesn’t stick around that long. Sheree’s sweet-and-spacey demeanor is right in the former Phoebe’s wheelhouse, and she makes the most of her time with these other two comic talents. (Watching Kudrow and Fonda do a “Top Gun” high-five is as good as it sounds.) It’s also worth noting the territorial fight subtly sets the stage for an ending very much about the house, but it would be negligent to ignore the other well-utilized guest stars in Season 4.
Peter Gallagher is back as Grace’s younger, richer boyfriend, Nick, and he gets more opportunities to flex his chops, from pratfalls to speeches. (He even gets to sing a few bars with fellow music-man Martin Sheen!) Talia Shire continues her comeback as Frankie’s estranged sister, Teddy, and Jessica St. Clair (“Playing House”) shows up as Brianna’s (June Diane Raphael) business rival.
And, as always, “Grace and Frankie” delves into business affairs almost as often as personal ones. There are leases to examine and protests to attend; bail to be paid and dildos to be sold; corporate crises to avert and musicals to train for. One of the biggest challenges facing Frankie is an accidental death: hers. A governmental mistake forces her to reassess her priorities (including bonding with her estranged sister), but there are as many laughs as real moments of introspection.
Within this trademark balance, though, Kauffman is up to something more. She subtly builds scenes that would fit in any season — like Frankie taking the newborn baby for a drive and nearly ending up in Mexico — as a set up for the aforementioned reversal. In Episode 12, “The Rats,” Grace and Frankie’s kids discover all the “shenanigans” their parents have been up to, from Grace drunkenly running into a cop car with her scooter to a house that’s fallen into unnerving disrepair. In that moment, it seems like their moms are going off the rails — and not in a fun way.
Around midseason, Grace says, “It’s like my body is slipping away. You’ll see when you’re 70. One day it’s a hinge and the next it’s the whole damn house.” Though the metaphor is specific to what just happened, it comes to represent the season as a whole. Grace and Frankie end up in an assisted living facility, not in small part because it seems like they can’t take care of their beach house anymore. They lose their home due to the tightening shackles of age. And briefly, it’s hard to tell if they belong in a retirement community or not. They believe the other person does — convinced by their kids that their friend needs help — and they might even believe they do, too.
It’s such a difficult thing to assess: You don’t want to be careless, but you don’t want to deprive yourself of what makes you happy. In the end, the two find inspiration in each other. They blame their kids for tricking them (which they did), but more importantly, they find comfort in knowing they’re not going through this alone. They support each other and that buoys their courage. It’s a simple concept, but not everyone is as lucky as Grace and Frankie. We’re certainly lucky to have them, as guides and entertainers, to walk us through big, scary questions in such a way that makes it feel less big and scary. And no matter how old viewers get, they’re not going to forget it.
Grade: B+
“Grace and Frankie” Season 4 is streaming now on Netflix.
Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are the kind of ladies who lunch while talking frankly about bionic body parts and joint diseases. At least that’s the case today.
“I have a fake hip, a fake knee,” Fonda says. “I’ve got so much metal in my back. I have a fake thumb. I have osteoarthritis.”
“I have osteoarthritis and these joints poke out,” Tomlin adds, flexing her hands to demonstrate. “My hands are just ruined. I used to have lovely, graceful hands and now they’re kind of like a kielbasa.”
“They work, though,” Fonda reminds her.
“They work — exactly, exactly,” Tomlin nods in agreement.
Sitting side-by-side at a Hollywood hotel restaurant before the recent holidays, the longtime friends — all too familiar with how pervasive ageism is in the entertainment industry, particularly for women — are deep in conversation about the privilege of not having to slow down. Fonda, at 80, and Tomlin, at 78, are multiple seasons into their Netflix buddy comedy, “Grace & Frankie,” on which they star and executive produce. The pair are both nominees at this weekend’s Screen Actors Guild Awards
“Listen, to be 80 years old and on a steady job — that’s something,” Fonda says.
“And we love it,” Tomlin says.
“I don’t care how early in the morning I have to be there,” Fonda adds. “I love going into the studio and going to my trailer and working.”
In “Grace & Frankie,” created by Marta Kauffman (“Friends”) and Howard J. Morris (“According to Jim”), Fonda and Tomlin play two seventy-something sort-of friends who become roommates and eventual besties after their husbands, Robert and Sol (Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, respectively), reveal they are gay and leave the women to marry each other.
If “Golden Girls” broke new ground in the mid-80s/early-90s for its portrayal of senior women as complex — and sexual — beings, then “Grace & Frankie” is doing its part to help ensure nuanced depictions of older women carry over to the Netflix generation.
Melissa Moseley / Netflix Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as best friends "Grace and Frankie." Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as best friends "Grace and Frankie." (Melissa Moseley / Netflix)
Listen, to be 80 years old and on a steady job — that’s something. — Jane Fonda, who stars in Netflix's "Grace & Frankie."
Beyond the laughs and quirky shenanigans of the odd couple friends and their families, the comedy bakes in issues that affect people late-in-life, such as assisted suicide, dementia or the reality that funerals are now a more frequent part of one’s calendar. And it has kept the light shining on older women as sexual beings. The third season saw the friends launch a business selling wrist-friendly vibrators for the elderly.
With its fourth season, now available to stream, “Grace & Frankie” further delves into the psychological effects of aging and explores the disheartening realization there may come a day when the pair might need assistance for themselves. Of course, there’s laughter along the way, as the pair continue to expand their vibrator business and deal with new relationships and grandchildren.
“It really has to do with what happens when your age becomes a betrayal,” Kauffman said. “The big thing is really coming to terms with ‘What does it mean to be this age? What am I still capable of doing? What do I want for myself at this age?’”
This full-grown form of coming of age, the transition from being an adult to a senior, and the mental and physical quandaries it presents are something Fonda and Tomlin acknowledge they have long contemplated, and have come to peace with, on their own. Death included.
“I know the worst is yet to come, in terms of deterioration,” Tomlin says. “I’ve come to accept that … I’ve been conscious of that for my whole life in a way.”
“I’m a believer in intentional living,” adds Fonda, a recent honoree at the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards which recognizes individuals who’ve made significant contributions to the industry. “This is the last stage of my life, and I don’t want to get to the end with a lot of regrets. There’s always some regrets, but I believe in envisioning dying. We never know how we’re going to die, but I imagine I’m in bed and I’m surrounded by loved ones. And I have to earn that. I have to make sure that I mend the wounds, that there’s healing that goes on.”
“Oh, now she’s made me nervous,” Tomlin says, half-jokingly and half-introspectively.
20th Century Fox Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda in a scene from the 1980 movie "Nine To Five." Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda in a scene from the 1980 movie "Nine To Five." (20th Century Fox)
Dressed much in the way their respective characters might be — Fonda more streamlined, Tomlin more bohemian — the two arrived to the restaurant separately, embracing each other with loving “I’ve missed youuuu!” greetings. The pair, who met more than 30 years ago after Tomlin’s one-woman show, “Appearing Nitely,” and later joined forces in the ‘80s hit “9 to 5,” carry on like this is a catch-up session. The conversation shifts from the personal — Fonda mentions she stayed up until midnight wrapping Christmas gifts and Tomlin reveals she can’t make Fonda’s birthday gathering because she’ll be performing in Tacoma, Wash. — to the cultural, weighing in on the hard-to-ignore reckoning in Hollywood.
“It’s pretty dynamic what is happening,” Tomlin says.
“I think it’s a turning point,” Fonda says. “I don’t think this is going to go away. I think women are really ‘woke’...First of all, that the women are being believed is the most important.”
“I do think the reason that it became so big so suddenly is because the women were white and famous,” Fonda continues. “African American women have been speaking out about sexual harassment and violence in the workplace way longer than we have, way even before Anita Hill.”
They both say they’ve experienced inappropriate or questionable remarks in their storied careers but not behavior that would rise to the level of recent accusations leveled against Harvey Weinstein.
“There’s a lot that’s going to be happening. And I think that it will speak to the root cause of all this, with systemic change,” says Fonda.
It gets the pair talking about the power of women banding together, referencing the Women’s March of 2017, which came a day after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th president and served as an act of resistance to the current administration. But resistance isn’t enough, they say.
“We have to be doing more than resist,” Fonda says. “We have to be creating the kind of future that we want.”
“We have to diverge the river,” Tomlin says before adding: “But on a pure level, to see women coming together and having each other’s backs … it’s just amazing.”
[Season 4] really has to do with what happens when your age becomes a betrayal. — Marta Kauffman, co-creator of "Grace & Frankie"
It’s something that “Grace & Frankie” celebrates at its core — women empowering women.
“I think female friendships are incredibly important,” Tomlin says.
At the end of season 3 of Grace and Frankie, things were up in the air for the ladies, literally — they took a hot air balloon ride ahead of Frankie’s (Lily Tomlin) imminent move to Santa Fe — but also figuratively, as Grace (Jane Fonda) considered a relationship with a younger man and both ladies struggled with the prospect of living apart.
We land back on earth for season 4 a few months later, with Frankie returning to town for Bud and Allison’s baby’s gender reveal party — just one of many pre-birth parties to come. Only things aren’t quite as she left them.
When Frankie gets back to the beach house, she discovers that bubbly, rhinestone-encrusted manicurist Sheree (Lisa Kudrow) has replaced her as Grace’s roomie. “She’s an incredibly sweet, lovable character — no matter how Frankie feels about her,” says executive producer Marta Kauffman, who worked with Kudrow for years on Friends. “As soon as the part was written it was like, ‘Oh my God, Lisa would be amazing!’ The joy of getting to work with her again was like going home.”
A new face isn’t the only thing the girls have to contend with: Grace’s romance with great-haired entrepreneur Nick (Peter Gallagher) brings up plenty of age-difference conundrums (and, of course, hilarity) as Grace tries to keep up with a younger man in the bedroom. The ladies’ vibrator business is still buzzing along too, and with that come the indignities of running a company at a certain age. “A lot of what happens in these episodes uses the business as a backdrop of fabric to explore other things,” says Kauffman. “Part of what this season is about is how people perceive you as you age, both in terms of love interests and in terms getting people to trust that you’re okay. But things make a turn for the ladies as the season goes on.”
Four seasons in, there’s no danger of the jokes getting, um, old. “Age is just part of who the characters are,” Kauffman says. “To make jokes about age is actually dismissive of the challenges that it brings.”
In addition to illuminating the intricacies of forging new relationships and pursuing unfamiliar endeavors later in life, Kauffman wants the show to bring light and lightness to people of all ages. “It’s my true hope that in times that are incredibly challenging and difficult that the show, as well as bringing an awareness, is like comfort food for viewers,” she says. “It’s macaroni and cheese.” Add one of Grace’s martinis, and it sounds like a recipe for success to us.
Grace and Frankie season 4 is available to stream on Netflix now.
