There's something really heartwarming about seeing strong, enviable female friendships on television. There have been a lot of shows about girl gangs from various walks of life (Sex and the City comes to mind), but what Grace and Frankie brought to the table was something unique, something more realistic and complex.
Grace and Frankie comes from creators Marta Kaufman (Friends) and Howard J. Morris (According to Jim) and features Jane Fonda as Grace Hanson and Lily Tomlin as Frankie Bergstein. It's also the longest-running Netflix original series with seven seasons and 94 episodes. The Netflix original comedy-drama series explores two very different women brought together by fate who learn to create a remarkable bond despite their trying circumstances. These two women show us that female friendship is about more than hanging out together or sharing relationship problems. It’s about dealing with the realities of life, standing by each other in sickness and in health, in sanity and insanity, and learning how to hold onto that relationship, especially when the odds in life seem to be stacked high.
And the best part? They get tired of each other but never want to quit. Finding a friend like that in the second act of your life is not just beautiful, it’s monumental and a treasure that you would cherish till your last days. And now, as the story of Grace Hanson and Frankie Bergstein is about to come to an end (not that their friendship can ever end), let’s take a walk down memory lane and look at the most applaudable moments of their relationship. Each of these moments is a milestone for their respective lives as well as their friendship. And, of course, they make for some great streaming!
That Time When Grace Almost Falls and Frankie Saves Her
This happens soon after Grace and Frankie start living in the beach house after their husbands divorce them. The girls are out at a frozen yogurt place with Grace’s daughter, Brianna (June Diane Raphael) and suddenly Grace slips on the wet floor but Frankie catches her in time to stop her from falling and hurting herself. In the micro-seconds between her slipping and Frankie saving her, a series of what-ifs flash in front of her, where she sees herself injured, hurt, and emotionally broken. She is scared of dying alone and even living alone. And that’s when Grace realizes how important Frankie is in her life and that she can always count on her. This incident turns out to be the first major step in what would become the most incredible relationship between the two women.
That Time When Frankie Comes Up With Business Ideas to Help Grace
The highlight of Grace and Frankie’s life is not the oddity of their relationship. It’s not even how they manage to stick around for each other, but rather, how they try to build things from the ground up together, for each other. This is evident from the businesses that these women have built in the years since they have been together. First, it was Ménage à Moi, a vibrator for older women, and then the Rise-Up, a hydraulic-powered toilet to help older people. Now, both the business ideas essentially come from Frankie when she sees her best friend struggling with basic physical activities in different situations. And in turn, Grace encourages Frankie with her newfound entrepreneurial spirit, to the extent of using her husband’s embezzled money to fund the business. Both these ventures prove to be an important step for the women where they graduate from being friends to becoming business partners.
That Time When the Girls Meet Babe For the Last Time
You know how sometimes there’s an external element that helps the relationship between two people? In Grace and Frankie’s case, it is Babe, played by Estelle Parsons (Bonnie and Clyde, Roseanne). A common friend, Babe is their next-door neighbor and very close to the girls. In Season 2, Babe returns from her travels and takes a life-changing decision that requires Frankie to make a very difficult choice. Despite her opposition, Grace joins Frankie to help Babe. Eventually, when Babe dies, both Grace and Frankie have certain realizations about their friendship. Much later in the future, when they individually reevaluate their relationship and imagine an alternative, Babe’s virtual presence acts as an affirmation that they're both meant to be with each other.
That Time When Frankie Learns About Grace’s Gun
This is perhaps the most eye-opening moment for the girls when their trust in each other is tested. There’s a break-in at the beach house, which results in Grace arming herself with a gun and shooting a dummy of Frankie. This leads to a huge showdown between them. After a lot of arguments and avoiding each other, Grace confesses to Frankie why she had the gun in the first place. The gun was a gift from her ex-husband Robert (Martin Sheen) and it made her feel safe in an empty house and a meaningless marriage. She eventually admits that she feels safer around Frankie and realizes that she doesn’t need the help of a weapon anymore. Whether it’s a rational thought or not, this moment shows how secure Grace has started to feel around her friend. That’s when she promises to get rid of that one thing that disturbs Frankie, and that’s purely out of love and affection.
That Time When Grace Takes Frankie on a Hot Air Balloon Ride
This is one of the many golden moments of Grace and Frankie’s friendships. Towards the end of Season 3, Frankie suffers a stroke, which shakes Grace to a great extent. Around this time, Frankie plans to move to Santa Fe with her boyfriend, Jacob (Ernie Hudson) but Grace keeps trying to stop her. When Frankie herself decides to cancel the plan, much to her own disappointment, Grace feels a little guilty. We soon learn that the fear was not just about her friend’s health but about losing her and missing her presence in the house. So, Grace takes Frankie on a hot air balloon ride, something Grace really hates, but she does it anyway because her friend loves it. The balloon ride is symbolic of them riding out their fears together. For Frankie, it is about moving to a new place among new people, and for Grace, it’s about being lonely without her friend. This event shows that from trusting each other, they have now evolved to the point in their relationship where they have learned to let each other go if life calls for it.
That Time When They Break Out of the Retirement Home
We have seen and heard about friends helping each other escape the worst of situations, even prison. But how many times have you heard of two old ladies breaking out of a retirement home? With Frankie and Grace’s health not being at their best, their kids manipulate them into checking into a retirement home. After some time, during one of their regular arguments (as usual), Grace and Frankie learn that they have been played by their own children. So, with their favorite items in hand, they steal a golf cart and make a run for it. As they land outside their beach house, they realize that though very different people, they both refuse to live by other people's rules. So, if they want to be on their own terms, they have to work as a team and learn to live with each other.
That Time When Grace Returns “Home”
By the end of Season 6, Grace is married to Nick (Peter Gallagher) and living in his penthouse but somehow, Grace never feels “at home”. From the furniture to the toilet, everything seems to be uncomfortable for her, considering her bad hip and knee. Around this time, she is also working on a new business idea with Frankie. Grace constantly seems to find a reason to be at the beach house whenever Nick is not home. Eventually, when the FBI arrests Nick and he is taken to prison, Grace doesn’t waste a moment going back to the beach house. It’s obvious that Grace misses Frankie, and that she always considered living at the beach house with Frankie as her “home”. This says a lot about how much Grace values her friendship and how significant Frankie is to her, probably more than her newly-wed husband. Even earlier, while she was dating Nick, she has always prioritized Frankie over Nick and this step reaffirms that.
There’ll probably be another major milestone in the friendship arc of Grace and Frankie in the last few episodes of the series. Until then, the above moments paint the perfect picture of how Grace Hanson and Frankie Bergstein have evolved as individuals and as friends and set BFF goals all the way.
The second part of the seventh and final season of Grace and Frankie streams Friday, April 29, 2022.