The third season of Netflix’s Grace and Frankie became available for viewing Friday, March 24, 2017 and the seventy-something year old twosome are on a roll. The launch of their online business is happening – a business catering to women of a certain age and their vibrator needs. You read that correctly. That’s where we’re going this season.
The thirteen half-hour episodes revolve around the lives of Grace Hanson (Jane Fonda) and Frances (Frankie) Bergstein (Lily Tomlin), the ex-wives of Robert (Martin Sheen) and Sol (Sam Waterson), respectively. Robert and Sol are gay and now married to each other. The ladies want to prove that they are still relevant and productive, so using Grace’s business savvy and Frankie’s creative artistic talents, their business Vybrant (“spelled with a ‘y’ for extra fun”) becomes a reality. The hook is that it is for aging women with arthritic hands, wrists and failing eye sight.
The series is amusing enough to watch but unfortunately moved into exploiting church women for no apparent reason – other than to mock them. In Episode 3 – “The Focus Group”, Grace and Frankie want to present their prototype vibrator to a focus group of their peers for feedback and to watch their reactions. Their friend Arlene (Marsha Mason) brings a group of her friends, which turn out to be a women’s bible study group from St. Erik Lutheran Church, her new church. One lady leads the group in prayer as the meeting gets underway – she gives thanks for new friends and helping with their new endeavor. She is rewarded with eye rolls and snark from Grace and Frankie. Frankie says to Grace, “I’ve been waiting my whole life to talk to a bunch of Bible thumpers about my naughty bits.” As Grace hands out gift bags with the product in it, she tells the women, “It might make you feel born again.” Grace decides she’ll talk to the women about masturbation and vibrators since she is more conservative than hippie dippy Frankie. As you might imagine, the ladies are not comfortable with any of this presentation and decide to leave.
Turns out, their friend Arlene took one home and came back the next day with her tale of happiness. She took several for her friends on her way out and told the women they were “doing God’s work.” OK, then. Why did the group have to be a church Bible study group? Why couldn’t it just be a group of older women friends? It was unnecessary exploitation for cheap laughs.
Next up was the subject of guns. In Episode 4 – “The Burglary”, Grace and Frankie’s home is robbed of computers and televisions. Grace, it turns out, is a gun owner. Frankie discovers this fact one night after the burglary when Grace shoots a mannequin Frankie created as a decoy. Frankie freaks out at the very sight of a gun and demands Grace get rid of it. Grace refuses and tells her it was a gift from Robert when they became empty-nesters and he was gone so frequently for business. She was alone in their big house and the gun was for personal security. Plus, she’s trained. This leads to a blow-up between the two women and it goes into Episode 5 – “The Gun” as the rest of their families becomes involved to help settle the argument. Grace explains she keeps the gun in a safe, locks the bullets separately, and is an excellent shot. In other words, Grace is a responsible gun owner who utilizes her Second Amendment right to own a gun. Frankie refers to the gun as “a repulsive implement of death”. In Episode 6 – “The Pot”, the gun issue and argument is resolved just as you would expect from liberal Hollywood – Grace agrees to get rid of her gun. This outcome was totally predictable. In Episode 7 – “The Floor”, Frankie gets in one last dig by burning sage to remove the “negative gun energy” from the house. Yeah. Just lame.
But, wait, there is a final slap at people of faith portrayed in the worst way possible. Robert is starring as John Adams in a gay men’s community theatre group’s production of 1776 and in Episode 11- “The Other Vibrator”, homophobic protesters show up. Identified as a group from a church in El Cajon, one cast member tells Sol that this group is known for protests. Sol is determined to mix it up with them but Robert implores him to not engage. Sol uses the quote most often attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
As Sol continues to engage with the protesters, very ugly name-calling from the church members continues, both verbally and on their signs. All of this happens in front of the protest leader’s young son. This man is determined to be the owner of a bakery and the theatre group counter-protests at his place of business. This back and forth continues running through Episode 12 – “The Musical” where the bakery owner disrupts opening night of the play by heckling the actors, and then ends in the final episode of the series, Episode 13 – “The Sign”. In the end, Robert joins Sol in civil disobedience and is arrested along with the others. Apparently, Sol’s virtue-shaming worked.
This series has its moments of entertainment with quips and scenes using physical humor. For example, in Episode 7 – “The Floor” both Frankie and Grace pull out their backs and end up on the floor in pain. “I believe we’ve fallen and we can’t get up”, says Frankie. Too bad liberal writers can’t just let a good script carry the day without mucking it up with insulting stereotypes slamming people of faith and gun owners.
