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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

weekend review

70-year olds and peyote: "Grace and Frankie" provides complexity in new comedy

ENTER TV-GRACEANDFRANKIE 4 CC

If you had told me a week ago my new favorite comedy would star Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, I would have asked you who the hell Lily Tomlin was. And when you told me she played the voice of Ms. Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus,” I would face palm myself and go live out the rest of my days in eternal shame.

Alas, that is exactly where we stand. Because Fonda and Tomlin’s Netflix series “Grace and Frankie” is a work of comedy gold, and here I sit with a bowed head and a red face for bringing dishonor to my favorite teacher of all time.

“Grace and Frankie” has one of the most unusual and perhaps even complicated plots I’ve seen in a comedy. Not complicated as in hard to understand but complicated in that it makes you question your opinions of the characters repeatedly, and if there are sides to be on, which side is the right side?

Here’s what’s going down in Grace and Frankie’s world, Grace Hanson, played by the seemingly immortal Fonda, is married to Robert, played by Martin Sheen. Tomlin, flawless and timeless as ever, plays her arch nemesis Frankie Bergstein who is married to Sol, portrayed by Sam Waterston.

The opening scene of the first episode depicts Grace and Frankie waiting for their husbands to show up for dinner. They assume their husbands, who are business partners, are going to announce their retirement.

Instead, Robert announces that the two men have been having an affair. With each other. For 20 years.

From there the episode spirals along with Grace and Frankie through their different reactions to the news. Grace takes the angrier approach, barking “fuck you” at the innocent delivery guy and even telling her husband she wishes he had died. Frankie drowns her sorrows in Jameson and some Ben and Jerry’s. When that doesn’t work, she moves on to some stronger stuff, which eventually leads to both women frolicking on the beach high off their asses on muscle relaxers and peyote tea.

I’m telling you: comedy gold.

Here is where we get into our complications. It’s instinctive to sympathize with Grace and Frankie. Their husbands are leaving them after decades of marriage. It’s easy to write the men off as assholes.

But then we see this touching scene between Robert and Sol in which Robert tells Sol to stop feeling guilty because he’s certainly done feeling that way. You realize that these two men spent 20 years hiding their love for each other, and you kind of want to see them be happy.

But you also remember they cheated on their wives for 20 years and finally decided to tell them when they’re in their seventies and more likely to have a heart attack, which is a dick move if I’ve ever seen one.

The first episode ends on a bitter note but with the unspoken promise that these two women are not going to just sit around and wait for the reaper. They have the kind of relationship which guarantees a lot of trouble and plenty of awkward conversations.

Let’s also take a moment to appreciate the fact that both Fonda and Tomlin are in their seventies, but they’re out here making my stomach hurt with jokes about dildos and sitting on Ryan Gosling’s face. This is the kind of brash comedy you see being played out by 20 and 30-year-olds, not Ms. Frizzle and the Oscar-winning actress from “Coming Home.”

But here they are, giving us a hard look at the modern, postmenopausal woman, and it is dark and raunchy and they are completely unapologetic about it. And all I can say is I want more. Which I can get because all 13 episodes are up on Netflix. God bless the Internet.

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