Grace And Frankie - Season 1 May 2026
Release Date: May 8, 2015 (Netflix) Episode Count: 13 episodes (approx. 25-35 minutes each) Creators: Marta Kauffman (Friends) & Howard J. Morris (Home Improvement) Tone: Bittersweet comedy, dramedy, farce, and heartfelt drama about starting over at 70.
Season 1 subverts the traditional Hollywood trope of the "invisible older woman." It begins with a high-concept hook: two rival women, Grace Hanson (Jane Fonda) and Frankie Bergstein (Lily Tomlin), are brought together when their husbands, Robert (Martin Sheen) and Sol (Sam Waterston), announce they are leaving them to marry each other. The season is less about the gay rights angle (which is treated with matter-of-fact normalcy) and more about female friendship, reinvention in the "third act" of life, and the dismantling of ageist stereotypes.
Season 1 consists of 13 episodes, each running roughly 30 minutes. Unlike modern prestige TV that takes three episodes to "get good," Grace and Frankie hooks you in the first five minutes.
Upon release, Grace and Frankie - Season 1 earned a 90% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The New York Times called it “a quiet revolution,” while Variety praised its “refusal to patronize its characters.”
However, initial viewership was slow. Audiences over 50 were still skeptical of streaming; audiences under 30 assumed the show was for their grandparents. But word-of-mouth exploded. By the end of 2015, the show had become Netflix’s secret weapon—a bingeable comfort watch for every generation. Grace and Frankie - Season 1
The first season sets up the themes that would carry the show for seven seasons: resilience, absurdity, and the radical act of choosing joy after loss.
Frankie: "You are a human Xanax with a blond rinse, Grace." Grace: "And you are a walking, talking panic attack in a caftan."
Frankie: "We are not friends. We are two women thrown together by the catastrophic betrayal of our gay husbands."
Grace (to Robert): "You wasted my life. Forty years of my life because you were a coward." Release Date: May 8, 2015 (Netflix) Episode Count:
Frankie (to Sol): "I thought we were weird together. I didn't know you were weird without me."
Season one introduces us to Grace Hanson (Jane Fonda) and Frankie Bergstein (Lily Tomlin). Grace is a retired, hyper-controlled businesswoman who built a successful cosmetics line. She drinks scotch, wears starched white shirts, and prides herself on emotional stoicism. Frankie is a free-spirited, pot-smoking artist who teaches yoga, believes in crystals, and cries at the drop of a hat.
For two decades, these women have tolerated each other only for the sake of their husbands: Robert (Martin Sheen) and Sol (Sam Waterston). Their law firm, “Berger & Bergstein,” is the final thread connecting them.
The bomb drops at a tense, awkward double date at a sushi restaurant. Robert, trembling with a mix of fear and relief, announces that he and Sol are in love. They have been secretly having an affair for 20 years. They are leaving their wives. For each other. Frankie: "You are a human Xanax with a blond rinse, Grace
The reaction is perfectly tuned to their characters: Grace smashes a plate and storms out. Frankie collapses into hysterical, wailing sobs on the floor of the restaurant.
What follows is not a revenge fantasy. It is a survival manual.
Absolutely. Grace and Frankie - Season 1 has aged remarkably well. It is not reliant on current pop culture jokes or viral memes. Its humor comes from character, and its drama comes from universal truths: fear of abandonment, the terror of being alone, and the stubborn refusal to give up.
Who will love it?
A word of warning: The first episode is heavy. The gleeful sitcom energy takes about two episodes to settle in. Stick with it. By episode four, you will be emotionally invested.
Hollywood typically writes off women over 50 as grandmothers or nosy neighbors. Here, Fonda and Tomlin (both in their late 70s at the time) are the leads. The season explores how society looks through them—waiters ignore them, real estate agents patronize them, their own children try to manage them like children.