Take Three: Grace and Frankie

Grace and Frankie: Season 1, Episode 3 “The Dinner” (B)

This show is proceeding along consistently, and though I don’t love it yet, I’m definitely getting attached to it and enjoying it. There’s plenty of uncertainty and awkwardness involved in figuring out how to navigate the new state of things, and I like that the fathers are being factored heavily into the plot of the show. It turns out that Grace and Frankie didn’t find out about the big family dinner being held without them, but they faced their own challenges unrelated to their ex-husbands. Grace going back to work only to find out that she was no longer the face of her own company because Brianna wanted to go with something more relevant was rough, and her meltdown at the checkout counter wasn’t pretty. Frankie’s humiliation wasn’t as public but it was still miserable, as she thought she was interviewing for a job but instead was being given a tour of a retirement home as a prospective resident. While Brianna is definitely the harsher of the two sisters, it was Mallory who needed a drink most to get through the dinner, which also gave us some insight into exactly what Coyote did to make her hate him so much. It’s interesting to see how something as simple as Robert taking Sol’s hand and calling him babe can so unsettle their adult children, and it is abundantly clear that there is nothing about this transition that is going to be easy or solvable with just one tasty if overdiscussed dinner.