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TV TATTLE

Why wasn't there more hoopla surrounding Grace and Frankie's series finale?

  • Netflix's longest-running TV series wrapped up seven seasons and 94 episodes last week with very little fanfare, says Mary McNamara. "Marta Kauffman’s Netflix series Grace and Frankie came to an end last Friday, and I don’t think we are making a big enough deal over this," says McNamara. "Still sticking with its signature binge model, Netflix is not and never has been about finales, just as it has never been about premieres. After a brief moment in the sun of 'Trending on Netflix,' each subsequent season of every show is simply shoved into the streamer’s overstuffed library, neither celebrated nor mourned. Grace and Frankie, which stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and became, in absolutely related news, the streamer’s longest-running show, deserved something better, something special." McNamara adds: "Grace (Fonda) and Frankie (Tomlin) aren’t out to save the world or reveal any grand conspiracy (other than society’s insistence that women over 70 should have the decency to quietly fade into the wallpaper). So maybe the show did not warrant the kind of media crescendo that preceded the end of Game of Thrones (I mean, look how that turned out). But surely Netflix could have conjured a catalog of quasi-caftans and exquisite white button-downs, or a national Old Broads Appreciation Day, or a Grace and Frankie Beach House Collection at Nordstrom. I don’t know; something."

    TOPICS: Grace and Frankie, Netflix, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin