I'm not normally one to
watch sitcoms, they don't really appeal to me. Sure, I'll watch the odd episode
of Friends or The Big Bang Theory, but I could never binge watch it. I think
it’s because I think that they are all the same and they can get a bit tedious.
The foundations of the
show: relationships, budding friendships and funny one-liners, are all the same
as any other sitcoms and it may seem very cliché, but this show seems
different.
Grace (Jane Fonda) and
Frankie (Lily Tomlin) is about two women in their seventies who are trying to
move on from one simple fact: their husbands left them for each other. Grace is
a vodka sipping, poised and retired business woman and Frankie is a pot-smoking
wannabe “physic”. It’s a brilliant idea and each minute in the twenty minute
long episodes is not wasted. The Netflix original fills you with all the
emotions you want to feel during a TV show - happiness, sadness, anger,
anxious, and empathy.
Casting is pure brilliance
in this show; it’s like a big reunion for the cast. Fonda is reunited with
Tomlin from the satirical “9 to 5”, Tomlin gets to – yet again – work with her
co-star from “The West Wing”, Martin Sheen who plays Grace’s husband, Robert.
Finally, Fonda is reunited with Sam Waterston – her co-star from “The Newsroom”
– who plays Frankie’s husband, Sol. So as you can see, the casting is huge and
they’ve already had previous chemistry with each other, which is one of the
reasons why the show is so brilliant.
After they find out that
their husbands have fallen in love with each other, Grace and Frankie – who, in
the past haven’t gotten along at all – can only now rely on the other to get
through their nadir.
I think this show is genius
but the only downside is that there are too many different relationships going
on. I think the main focus for the premiere season should be that Grace and
Frankie’s husbands have left them to get married to each other. That should be
the main focus throughout the whole thing. But then you’ve got these little
relationships in the background that you don’t really need. For instance,
Coyote (Ethan Embry) – who is fresh out of rehab – has this weird infatuation
with one of Grace’s daughters, Mallory (Brooklyn Decker) – who is, by the way,
married to another man. I just think that there’s no need to incorporate small,
meaningless background relationships for fillers if you’re not going to expand
on them.
However, all in all this
show is good, it’s different to the other things that I watch and it was a
breath of fresh air. I just hope that in season two, the co-creator’s of
Friends have a proper sit down with each other and decide what they want their
show to be. A heart-felt show about two women leaning on each other after a big
shock to their lives, or a comedy where the two women want to feel young again
by keep on going on dating sites, taking drugs and making out with ex-convicts.
I do fully recommend this show, I really do and I can’t wait until season two
comes out.
No comments:
Post a Comment