Grace and Frankie

How’s this for a dream cast: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen, and Sam Waterston? Those are the stars of the new Netflix sitcom, which came out all at once on May 8, as is their wont. And if you have long dreamed of seeing President Jed Bartlett plant a big smackeroo on the lips of District Attorney Jack McCoy, this is the series you’ve been waiting for!

The premise is simple. Sam and Martin are business partners, divorce attorneys married to Lily and Jane respectively for over forty years, each with two grown children. But for the last twenty of those years the boys have been indulging in The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Yeah, they’re gay. They announce this to their wives at a fancy restaurant, and their intention to get divorces and marry each other. Jane promptly pelts Martin with the remains of their dinner, mostly seafood.

Subsequent episodes deal with all the complex aftermath of that nuclear bomb, and most of it is pretty funny, though of course there is sadness mixed in. Did you know that Jane Fonda is seventy-seven? They are very well-off, sharing a beach house in La Jolla (actually Malibu), the girls don’t particularly like each other, and Jane desperately wants the house. But so far (episode three), they have become roomies, striking a lot of sparks. Jane is uptight, Lily is what she was so good at in The Late Show, a hippy-dippy New Ager. What will they do with the rest of their lives? So far, I’m on board with finding out.