Grace and Frankie: The 3 best parts of season 4

Grace and Frankie season 4 production still. Photo: Melissa Moseley/Netflix

All of the characters making Adult Decisions

One of the running themes in this series is that all of these adults make decisions that would be mind-bogglingly terrible in real life — for example, Coyote buying a tiny house that he parks in front of Mallory’s real house, Frankie being … well, Frankie, et cetera. You get the picture.

This season took itself a lot more seriously and delved into a lot of issues, from the struggles of long distance platonic and romantic relationships, to some of the problems that come along with aging, to having to have really difficult discussions with your loved ones, to the value of marriage counseling.

There is a lot of serious stuff in this season, guys. It kind of took me by surprise, but I ended up really enjoying it. If you go into this season expecting the same old shenanigans, I think you’ll be surprised, too.

I actually loved that Frankie and Jacob broke up because there was no way that was going to work out with Frankie in California and Jacob in New Mexico. Both of them wanted to be in their own places, and they had to figure out a way to do it, and they couldn’t.

I mentioned earlier that Robert and Sol are not really getting along, due to a lot of differing expectations and needs. They decide to start seeing a marriage counselor after their former secretary, Joan Margaret, comes to visit and convinces them to give it a try. It winds up being incredibly beneficial for their relationship, though it gets there through ways that they find very unconventional.

One of the best things I saw done in this season was showing the realities of getting older. Robert and Grace have to go to tons of their friends’ funerals, to the point that they have a gravestone rating system. Frankie is as forgetful as ever, but it causes a problem when she gets lost after following an ice cream truck to Mexico with her granddaughter, Faith, in the car. She winds up with a problem because Bud has no idea where they went, and loses her ability to babysit Faith without Bud or Allison present.

Grace has to have her knee replaced, walk with a cane, and even use a scooter, despite being “not a scooter person” by all accounts. She gets scammed by a contractor who steals all the copper pipes from their home, and the kids inevitably find out.

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This leads to them being placed in an assisted living home, which they hate. I’m intrigued to see where this takes us in season 5.

What did you think of this season of Grace and Frankie?