What I’m Watching: Grace and Frankie

Grace and Frankie: Season 4, Episode 7 “The Landline” (B+)

I’ve read recently about how this show has evolved from a light comedy about two women post-divorce later in their lives into a more serious show dealing with actual issues related to getting older. Grace is now walking with a cane, but more crucially, she’s attending funerals nearly every day. It was sweet of Nick to offer to take Grace to the latest one he heard about, though it wasn’t particularly appropriate of him to just show up and crash it. While Robert was surprised by his age, he warmed to him very quickly and the two got along swimmingly, singing together while everyone else was acting in a more fittingly somber way. Grace seemed to be doing okay until she learned that Phil, her contractor would-be boyfriend, had died, hitting her way too close to home, but she did get in a good win against her judgmental friend played by Swoosie Kurtz by cozying up to her much younger boyfriend when she was ready to leave. Sol and Frankie had their own little caper reminiscent of freer times in an effort to get Frankie reinserted back into society, and though they really didn’t succeed mainly because the place they wanted to liberate had long since moved, they did manage to have some therapeutic conversations about Robert. Mallory was rather belligerent and insistent in getting Brianna to listen to her idea, which was related to the admittedly less stable kids’ market, but it turned out that Brianna was covering up her own financial misfortune which could soon lead to being embarrassed in front of her mother.