S02.E02: The Vitamix

[OnceSane]

Brianna, Mallory and Bud help Sol deal with wedding details.  A visit to Robert and Sol's house brings up strong emotions for Grace and Frankie.

[OnceSane]

I knew Bud's message would be sent.  I wasn't expecting the auto-correct to save the day, though.

l loved Grace stealing the Vitamix for herself AND the salt-and-pepper shakers for Frankie.

[Chaos Theory]

I loved the scene where Grace figured out why everything was out of place.  It was a house where two people who didn't care how it looked as long as they could be together.  It was warm and the realization that when she lived their it wan't.   These kind of moment are why I love the show and even during the awkward parts it works for me.  

[maraleia]

Rita Moreno FTW. God I love this show so damn much. Lily and Jane are so wonderful together and the best part was when they were in Robert and Sol's house.

[Maysie]

Quote

Rita Moreno FTW. God I love this show so damn much. Lily and Jane are so wonderful together and the best part was when they were in Robert and Sol's house.

That was Rita Moreno!!! I had no idea. Love her!

Question: Frankie was stuck in the upside down thing - whatever that is called. So she finally gets herself upright but can't get her feet out of the restraints. She goes back to being upside down and sees the crackers under the bed, which apparently has some multi-purpose tool with it because of Sol's crazy little (annoying to me, wonderful to her, I'm sure) idiosyncrasies. Can someone please tell me how she was able to reach that box of crackers to get the tool to extricate herself while still being fastened to that machine??? It took me out of the episode for a while because if she could somehow finagle her way to a box under the bed while she's strapped in the damn thing . . . I mean, if she was able to reach the cracker box, then she probably didn't need the help, unless I totally misunderstood that scene.

Please tell me I'm missing something because stuff like that drives me nuts. It smacks of trying to be cute on purpose to drive home the point (yet again) that Frankie knows Sol so well she knew the box of crackers would somehow help her get out of the situation. I got it before she was stuck on the machine: the eyeglasses, the sweater: even in someone else's home, Frankie understands Sol so much she'll know where his stuff is better than he does.

[zxy556575]

I suppose we were to assume that the cracker box under the bed was within Frankie's reach when she was inverted, but it sure didn't look that way from the camera angles. I also didn't believe the ankle clasps would get stuck and not be able to unlock in the first place, so realism went out the window in favor of a bit of physical comedy and more of the "Sol inhabits Frankie's head" anvils.

It was sweet that Grace and Frankie ended up on the couch using the ottoman together. Their relationship is so much more interesting and important to me than Sol and Robert's. I mean, duh, that's the point of the show, but I'm not sure I'm supposed to dismiss/discount the men as much as I do.

Edited May 9, 2016 by lordonia

[AuntieMame]

I loved Grace and Freankue sitting close too. I also like Frankie quipping that Grace was likely to spend the rest of her life with Frankie in the beach house and the two of them realizing there were far worse  fates. Loveless marriages being one of them. Grace and Frankie are developing a genuinely loving friendship. In my opinion one of life's most underrated relationships.

[DoubleUTeeEff]

23 hours ago, lordonia said:

It was sweet that Grace and Frankie ended up on the couch using the ottoman together. Their relationship is so much more interesting and important to me than Sol and Robert's. I mean, duh, that's the point of the show, but I'm not sure I'm supposed to dismiss/discount the men as much as I do.

Yeah, the show is named Grace and Frankie after all.  I'm enjoying this season more than the first because Grace and Frankie's friendship has been established and they are very supportive of each other now.  I like watching that.  Of course, they can still drive each other nuts but they are constantly asking each other if they are OK.  I feel more empathy with Grace on the being driven nuts part, though.  Frankie is really something else.  She's fun to watch but would be horrible to live with IMO.

[Empress1]

I'm happy to see Rita Moreno anywhere. I also liked the realization of what the furniture meant in the house, that they just wanted to be close to each other and that there was a warmth there that didn't exist when Grace had lived there.

12 hours ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

Frankie is really something else.  She's fun to watch but would be horrible to live with IMO.

She would drive me batshit crazy. She doesn't clean and your place would smell like weed all the time. She's a wonderful, kind woman, but she'd be a tough roommate.

21 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

I loved Grace and Freankue sitting close too. I also like Frankie quipping that Grace was likely to spend the rest of her life with Frankie in the beach house and the two of them realizing there were far worse  fates. Loveless marriages being one of them. Grace and Frankie are developing a genuinely loving friendship. In my opinion one of life's most underrated relationships.

I agree. Society puts so much emphasis on romantic relationships, especially for women - finding a partner is the most important thing we women can do. And romantic love is wonderful, but I have friends I love and I am so grateful for them.

[hnygrl]

Oh man, this show, this season!!! So good!!! So sad, so funny, so poignant. How can one show be funny and heartbreaking at the same time? When Frankie had to marry her ex husband and the man he left her for? Heartbreaking. You know you gotta do it, no question, but that couldn't have been easy.
 

And seeing the undeniable evidence of the depth of feeling those two men have for each other with her own eyes had to be heartrending for Grace. SHE NEVER GOT THAT. Forty years. FORTY YEARS with a man who never, not even one day, loved her. Wow.

Love love love this show. I watched all 13 episodes, back to back, sitting on the edge of my bed this Saturday. Didn't realize I'd done that until the last episode was done and no more "next episode starts in 12 seconds" thing popped up.

[Julia]

18 hours ago, hnygrl said:

And seeing the undeniable evidence of the depth of feeling those two men have for each other with her own eyes had to be heartrending for Grace. SHE NEVER GOT THAT. Forty years. FORTY YEARS with a man who never, not even one day, loved her. Wow.

Love love love this show. I watched all 13 episodes, back to back, sitting on the edge of my bed this Saturday. Didn't realize I'd done that until the last episode was done and no more "next episode starts in 12 seconds" thing popped up.

I think on some level Grace probably realized Robert didn't love her. The heartbreaking thing for me is that she probably just assumed he couldn't love anybody, and he could. Just not her. 

And for all that she would probably have my spines up five minutes after I met her, it has to be pretty awful for her to have pretty much earned her place in the world by forty years of eternal vigilance and making the trains run on time, and then in the end nobody likes her very much brcause she's too controlling. 

[hnygrl]

Thank GOD for Frankie. "You're a controlling Bitch. Let's be besties!" And they ARE.

Love her for that.

[Chai]

Can anyone else please tell me where I may have seen Rita Moreno in the past few years? I know I saw her somewhere but can't remember where. I showed my husband, and said, you know exactly who this is... but he had no clue!  I eventually came onto this site and read who her name was from  here. (A great big THANK YOU! ;-)  I was thinking I saw her on another  show with "mature " ladies, but I really can't remember.

[morakot]

Jane the Virgin? She was in about 4 episodes.

[wendyg]

If you can remember that far back, THE FOUR SEASONS, Alan Alda's 1980s film about four adult couples who are in the habit of vacationing together and the difficulties they have adjusting when one of their number gets divorced and remarries.

[ProudMary]

About 3 or 4 years ago, Rita Moreno played Fran Dresher's mother in "Happily Divorced."  (She had also played Fran's high school gym teacher in an episode of "The Nanny" many years ago.)

[OnceSane]

And I am currently watching her episode of The Muppet Show (my son is obsessed with the original show).  She won an Emmy for her performance.

[Julia]

2 hours ago, wendyg said:

If you can remember that far back, THE FOUR SEASONS, Alan Alda's 1980s film about four adult couples who are in the habit of vacationing together and the difficulties they have adjusting when one of their number gets divorced and remarries.

She's just so delightful in that.

[rubaco]

On May 10, 2016 at 7:54 PM, Chai said:

Can anyone else please tell me where I may have seen Rita Moreno in the past few years? I know I saw her somewhere but can't remember where. I showed my husband, and said, you know exactly who this is... but he had no clue!  I eventually came onto this site and read who her name was from  here. (A great big THANK YOU! ;-)  I was thinking I saw her on another  show with "mature " ladies, but I really can't remember.

Moreno looks a lot different now, but she did appear on The Golden Girls, the attempted backdoor pilot episode called "Empty Nest." You said "mature ladies" so that's the first thing I thought of. She has, of course, been in a ton of shows and movies over her storied career.

[WendyCR72]

Moreno has literally been on tons of shows. As mentioned, she was in a backdoor pilot on Golden Girls, appeared in West Side Story, and I also recall her playing Bobby Goren's schizophrenic mom on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, but those are just three of many, many things.

She was a Kennedy Center honoree this year, too.

Here is her extremely lengthy IMDB listing if none of the above "place" her for you!

(As an aside, I see she is going to be on the One Day At A Time reboot on Netflix.)

[Chai]

Thank you all so much! I had a trip down memory lane thinking of all the shows I didn't know I remembered until I read   here all the shows Rita Moreno was on! She is such a great talented actress, isn't she? I think it was the role  Proud Mary described on Fran Drescher's "Happily Divorced" that I was thinking of. It used to be my favorite!

Thank you everyone! ;-)

[Julia]

We were actually just talking about this over at the TCM thread - if you see Singing in the Rain come on TV, Zelda the flapper movie star is baby 18yo Rita Moreno, and she was Tuptim in The King and I.

[WendyCR72]

This will be the last of the tangent where Ms. Moreno is concerned, but it does connect to Lily Tomlin: I had no idea 9 to 5 was made into a TV series but, per that IMDB listing, Ms. Moreno played Lily Tomlin's role in the TV version, Violet Newstead! Cool little connection there.

I do like this show embraces older actors rather than shuns them.

[Bastet]

Always a treat to see Rita Moreno.

I put this in the episode one thread initially, so I'll have to delete it (this is why I hate watching several episodes in a row of something I want to discuss here; I can't remember what happened when), but I liked the scene of the two sets of siblings sharing couches to sleep on as they waited for Robert to come out of surgery.  Nice touch.  Also that everyone but Grace was lying down, and asleep, while she was sitting awake in a chair.

I thought the thing with the billing department was weak, but the stuff between Grace and Frankie at the house more than made up for it. I loved all of it, and Grace stealing the Vitamix (and the salt and pepper shakers for Frankie) was predictable, but the perfect cap.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Bastet

[AuntieMame]

On 5/9/2016 at 11:17 AM, hnygrl said:

Oh man, this show, this season!!! So good!!! So sad, so funny, so poignant. How can one show be funny and heartbreaking at the same time? When Frankie had to marry her ex husband and the man he left her for? Heartbreaking. You know you gotta do it, no question, but that couldn't have been easy.
 

And seeing the undeniable evidence of the depth of feeling those two men have for each other with her own eyes had to be heartrending for Grace. SHE NEVER GOT THAT. Forty years. FORTY YEARS with a man who never, not even one day, loved her. Wow.

Love love love this show. I watched all 13 episodes, back to back, sitting on the edge of my bed this Saturday. Didn't realize I'd done that until the last episode was done and no more "next episode starts in 12 seconds" thing popped up.

 

On 5/10/2016 at 5:57 AM, Julia said:

I think on some level Grace probably realized Robert didn't love her. The heartbreaking thing for me is that she probably just assumed he couldn't love anybody, and he could. Just not her. 

And for all that she would probably have my spines up five minutes after I met her, it has to be pretty awful for her to have pretty much earned her place in the world by forty years of eternal vigilance and making the trains run on time, and then in the end nobody likes her very much brcause she's too controlling. 

These two posts really resonated for me. I don't think Grace assumed at a deep level that Robert couldn't love anyone, though I think this might be true, I think poor Grace assumed that she wasn't lovable. This is why she not only stayed in a dead marriage, but why she tried to make herself valuable by the service she gave others and why she holds herself protectively aloof and why she drinks to kill the pain. Its why she chickened at the last minute with Phil, because if she found that he couldn't really love her she wouldn't be able to bear it. So, so heartbreaking.Oh poor Grace and how many control freaks with damaged self esteem are like this? Wow, this show is really brilliant. I think I want to binge a rewatch.

[wendyg]

If Grace is an alcoholic - and only she can say that - I think we would do well not to underestimate the impact of that. It takes two to make a dead marriage. One reason Grace might have feared a more intimate relationship with someone else, like Phil, is that her drinking might have come under a lot more scrutiny than it did from disengaged Robert, who cared mostly that she look and behave right at formal events.

[AuntieMame]

That's a good point @wendyg, but I feel like it supports my arguments and adds to them. Alcoholics are often drinking to deaden pain and deny things that seem to painful to face. Recovery of any variety is about dealing with these things, as well as the addiction. But, your point is well taken that two people do have to agree directly, tacitly or implicitly to continue a dysfunctional relationship. And having an alcoholic spouse, even a controlled and functional one has its definite downside.

[Julia]

On 5/25/2016 at 6:56 AM, wendyg said:

If Grace is an alcoholic - and only she can say that - I think we would do well not to underestimate the impact of that. It takes two to make a dead marriage. One reason Grace might have feared a more intimate relationship with someone else, like Phil, is that her drinking might have come under a lot more scrutiny than it did from disengaged Robert, who cared mostly that she look and behave right at formal events.

Not to in any way diminish the impact that living with an alcoholic can have on a family, but alcoholics are often responding in a destructive way to things in their life they can't face, and while dependence only makes things worse the problems often do exist. Grace signed up to be the perfect wife, mother, businesswoman and hostess, and she appears to have taken it for granted that the only support she could count on was the kind of mean girl contempt for the less perfect she shared with her country club friends.

In the mean time, Sol and Frankie, who Grace was forced unwillingly to share her family time with for forty years, are irresponsible enough that one of their children had to take over parenting duties in their house, and everyone in their lives - including her husband - loves them for being free spirits.

I don't think Grace has made the best choices, but I understand them. And I think it's maybe a little unrealistic to expect her to shed the icy control before she gets a little of the rage out first.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Julia

[Guest]

A couple things bugged me...  An inversion table is easy to right yourself on-- note the big handrails, and easy to free your feet.  If Frankie knew enough to get in the thing she'd know enough to get out of it.  

And why was there a checkout line at the hospital like it was a diner or something?  Insurance claims take MONTHS.  

Fonda's and Waterston's acting still bug me.  Though maybe they're both just weak actors.  They seem to over-enunciate and speak too slowly and emphatically like they're reading lines in a large theater of old folks or small children.  In many scenes I feel like Tomlin is probably cringing inside.  

I did like that they stole the Vitamix.  Though anyone who can afford that beach house can easily buy their own.