Netflix's Grace and Frankie returns early with four surprise episodes from the final season
The episodes were released as the seventh season wraps up production
Christmas has come early for Grace And Frankie fans, with Netflix releasing the first four episodes of the seventh season ahead of the 2022 premiere. The sixth season hit the streamer in January 2020, so Netflix must’ve decided we’ve been patient enough, debuting four episodes to hold fans over until the remaining twelve air in 2022.
“We’ve missed you,” Lily Tomlin says in a press statement. “But more importantly, you’ve missed us.”
“We just wanted to give you something special while we finish the rest of the season,” Jane Fonda says.
“It was between this or Del Taco gift cards,” Tomlin addds. “I wanted to go with the gift cards.”
The seventh season marks the end of the road for the popular Netflix series, which after these final 16 episodes, will become the longest-running Netflix original series ever, with 94 episodes total. According to Deadline, these four episodes were completed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down season seven production on March 12, 2020.
The series started in 2015, introducing retired cosmetics executive Grace Hanson (Fonda) and artist Frankie Bergstein (Tomlin) just as their husbands—played by Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, respectively—left them for each other. In a way not seen since The Golden Girls, Grace And Frankie became the rare comedy about the lives of older women as they traverse their friendships and relationships. In addition to Fonda, Tomlin, Waterston, and Sheen, the series also stars June Diane Raphael, Brooklyn Decker, Baron Vaughn, Ethan Embry, and Peter Gallagher—all of whom reprise their roles for the final season.
Over its six season run, Grace And Frankie has been nominated for 13 Emmys, with Tomlin accruing four nominations for her portrayal of Frankie. The final 12 episodes of season seven (and the series) will premiere in 2022.