What’s Worth Watching: Grace and Frankie Are Golden-Age Girls

Grace and Frankie (Friday, May 8, Netflix)

Demographics be damned. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, still resplendent in their mid-70s, team for the first time since their comedy classic 9 to 5 as Grace and Frankie, shining as women of an uncertain age whose world is rocked when their law-partner husbands announce they’re in love with each other and leaving their wives to get married. (Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston play the hubbies, and they’re pretty terrific, too, especially Waterston as guilt-ridden Sol.)

Ain’t social progress grand? Maybe not so much, when relationships of 40-plus years are shattered in the process. Adding to the agita of being abandoned in what should have been their golden years, uptight socialist Grace (Fonda) and free-spirited bohemian Frankie (Tomlin) can’t abide each other. But in this comedy from sitcom veterans Marta Kauffman (Friends) and Howard J. Morris (Home Improvement), they learn to lean on and learn from each other, loosening and wising up in a series of droll misadventures. Doesn’t hurt that they have a gorgeous beach house in which to nurse their sorrows.