What I’m Watching: Grace and Frankie

Grace and Frankie: Season 3, Episode 8 “The Alert” (B+)

This season has really had a lot to say about getting old and what that means, and it continued that in this installment. Bud buying Grace and Frankie panic alerts was both a physical and psychological way for them to feel old, and the ease with which Frankie’s was triggered, both at home and in the middle of a meeting, demonstrated just how other people looked at them. Having their photos airbrushed to make them look decades younger contradicted everything they had been working to build, and that negated the fact that they didn’t have to do anything since the ideas were being pitched to them. Wendie Malick played a much more normative character than she usually does as Mimi Becker, the prospective new partner. Sol helping Bud to fire his ineffective secretary really turned out to be a wake-up call for himself, enabling him to finally come home and join Robert in the wonders of retirement, silly shoes and all. I like that Mallory enjoys giving Brianna a hard time for the one thing that she’s able to make fun of her for, and Brianna finding out that her man of the night had a wife so that he could keep something real in his life was a serious blow to her self-esteem. Mallory also seems to be realizing that Coyote is a pretty great influence in her life and that of her children, and might be far more dependable than the truly lackluster husband that so rarely factors into this show’s universe.