‘Grace and Frankie’ Season 5 Gives a Lot of F*cks–Literally

Old ladies cursing or just generally acting hard AF for their age, it’s an easy joke. Younger generations know Betty White for cursing up a storm in Lake Placid (okay, I guess they know the memes and clips more than the actual movie) and the rapping/hard rock granny is a stock character that pops up in everything from commercials to Christmas specials (shout out to A Garfield Christmas‘ tough old broad). There’s just something funny about seeing a sweet old lady giving zero fucks, but the trope is beyond tired. Leave it to Grace and Frankie to revitalize it.

The Netflix show somehow avoided the trope for its first four seasons. Sure, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin’s titular characters have always had sass to spare, and the show hasn’t shied away from the f-word in the past. But while watching Season 5, the amount of f-bombs–and specifically how and when they were deployed–stood out to me. Grace and Frankie Season 5 gives no fucks by giving us a lot of fucks.

And these aren’t superficial, easy-laugh “fucks” either. Grace and Frankie coulda been giving us those for years now, but the show’s smarter than that. The “fucks” are out in full force in Season 5 because Grace and Frankie have finally had it.

After spending Season 4 in a bit of a downward spiral of physical and mental missteps, missteps that got them tricked into moving into an assisted living facility by their kids, our heroes spend all of Season 5 raging against the machine. I mean that metaphorically for Grace, who asserts herself at the company she founded and in her relationship with Nick (Peter Gallagher), and literally for Frankie, who takes on an agist crosswalk sign (with help from Grace).

This is all deliberate, too. Grace and Frankie literally take up “fuck it” as their new mantra, first using it to swat away their buzzing children while they squat in their former home. The show’s writers really hit this “fuck it” point home, nearly doubling the amount of “fucks” used in the show. Seriously, we counted! The premiere episode alone gives us almost twice as many fucks as the previous season premieres.

The rest of the season doubles down on its favorite obscenity with scenes where the “fucks” just fly.

While it’s all noticeable (it’ll never not be a shock to hear the prim and proper Grace curse like a drag queen), it’s all reasonable. None of it is exploitative or cheap. All those “fucks” are there for a reason, to show that there’s still plenty of fight left in these feisty women. The cursing granny may be a tired pop culture trope, but that’s not the case here. It’s not a trope on Grace and Frankie, it’s a battle cry.

Stream Grace and Frankie Season 5 on Netflix