A warning, this episode contains mention of assisted suicide.

If you mashed up the odd couple and the golden girls and updated it for an audience

reared on Nancy Myers movies, you'd have race and Frankie.

The delightfully cheesy Netflix sitcom stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as

frenemies turned co-dependent besties who navigate life and aging in a

chicly manicured California beach house. The final episodes of the seventh and final

season are out now, and perhaps more than ever, the shows attuned to the realities of

senior aches and pains, as well as the importance of bonds both familial and romantic.

I'm Ayesha Harris and today we're talking about race and Frankie on pop culture happy hour from NPR.

Joining me today is film and culture critic Kate Young. Welcome back Kate.

Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to get into this one.

Oh yes, me too. So for those of you who may not be familiar, on

Grace and Frankie, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin play Grace Hanson and Frankie Bergstein.

Grace is a straight-talking business woman who loves her vodka, while Frankie is a free

spirited art teacher who loves her psychedelics. They begin this series as adversaries,

whose husbands Robert and Saul, played by Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, are divorce lawyers

at the same firm and close friends. After Robert and Saul come out as gay and announced their

leaving Grace and Frankie to marry each other, the women eventually become best friends and business

partners. They live together in a beach house, the couples bought before their divorces.

Now we're going to be diving into some spoilers within season seven, so if you are not fully caught

up yet, go ahead, pause and come back to us once you have caught up. Now the show has always

dealt bluntly with aging, but in the final season it's especially pronounced.

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