Netflix’s Grace and Frankie Ending With Its 7th Season Feels Like Losing Two Mentors
We've been stuck in the middle with them for so long.
According to a press release, Netflix announced today that Grace and Frankie has been renewed for a seventh and final season. With this final 16-episode order, Grace and Frankie will make history as the longest-running Netflix original series ever, out of both comedy and drama, with 94 episodes—but it will also mean saying goodbye to one of the best feel-good shows on Netflix.
Season 6, which wrapped production earlier this year, will premiere on January 2020, with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sam Waterston, Martin Sheen, June Diane Raphael, Brooklyn Decker, Baron Vaughn, and Ethan Embry all reprising their roles in the seventh and final season to help bring this wild journey to a close as the family unit we have come to love.
“It’s thrilling and somehow fitting, that our show about the challenges, as well as the beauty and dignity of aging, will be the oldest show on Netflix.” said co-creators and showrunners Marta Kauffman and Howard J. Morris.
Because I didn’t grow up watching films like 9 to 5 or really watch more than a few episodes of The Newsroom, this series, more than anything else, introduced me to Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as amazing comedic actresses. Grace and Frankie was fun, delivering the kind of physical comedy that you hardly ever get to see with actresses in their 70s, and wasn’t afraid to be sexy and deal with what it means to have sex as an older woman.
It helped me connect with my mother in a new way. Even though she is much younger than the titular heroines, it did make me think about her future, the comforts she would want, and to kind of anticipate what she might struggle with in the future. She lost her mother early, and so a lot of those aspects of intimate feminine aging are foreign to both of us. The show was educational, funny, and often cathartic.
I would watch and feel more excited about not just getting older, but thinking of the friendships I knew would sustain me in old age. It’s easy to picture your friends hanging out in the short term, but in the long term, I could start figuring out who would be there in the end. Along with Golden Girls, I think Grace and Frankie reminds us that those friendships—the ones that last to those grey-haired days—are invaluable.
Fonda and Tomlin commented on the ending of their show, saying, “We are both delighted and heartbroken that ‘Grace & Frankie’ will be back for its seventh, though final, season. We’re so grateful that our show has been able to deal with issues that have really connected to our grand generation. And their kids, and amazingly, their kids as well! We’ll miss these two old gals, Grace and Frankie, as much as many of their fans will, but we’ll still be around. We’ve outlasted so many things—just hope we don’t outlast the planet.”
“Since its premiere in 2015, ‘Grace and Frankie’ has expertly and hilariously demystified the experience of growing older and given a voice to the fastest growing segment of our population,” stated Netflix’s VP of original series, Cindy Holland. “Jane, Lily, Sam, and Martin have become role models for fans that span generations around the world, and we are so proud to have been a part of the show’s journey from day one. A special thanks to Marta, Howard, and the team at Skydance, who have been superb partners every step of the way.”
“David, Marcy and I, along with the entire team at Skydance couldn’t be prouder to have Grace and Frankie launch our television division. We are thankful to our partners at Netflix who stepped up to make a show for people who didn’t see themselves on television,” said Dana Goldberg, chief creative officer at Skydance, the production company for the show. “Seven seasons later Grace and Frankie has captured the zeitgeist and audiences of all ages thanks to the brilliant vision of Marta Kauffman and Howard Morris and the incredible talent of our cast led by legends Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.”
Now, on to the 9 to 5 sequel!
(image: Netflix)
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