MovieChat Forums > Grace and Frankie (2015) Discussion > The Goodbyes (spoilers)

The Goodbyes (spoilers)

posted 9 years ago by SpencersMomInPA
2 replies | jump to latest

As a mother thru adoption, I have a real problem with the way they portrayed the meeting of Coyote's birth mother. Why did Frankie have to shame her in the end? Coyote reached out to the adoption agency, Crystal agreed to unseal the records and to give Coyote her number, she spoke with him and then jumped on a plane to fly from Louisiana to CA to meet him. She met his family and, while completely ditsy perhaps over the top Southern stereotype, she was kind. So Crystal never told her family about having given birth to a baby she then put up for adoption and didn't want to reopen that can of worms now with her husband and other children. Why was that so wrong?

I was not pleased that Frankie felt she needed to shame Crystal and question her motives for wanting to meet the baby she'd given up decades ago. The baby who made Frankie a mother, something Frankie so desperately wanted. I can understand Coyote's disappointment because he's naive but Frankie's behavior just seemed out of character for her and put a taint on a once in a lifetime event for her son. Frankie should have understood and given Coyote the space to form his own opinions.

The writers really missed the mark on this one, in my opinion, and placed an unnecessary stigma on birth mothers meeting adopted children later in life.

[–] ascaav 9 years ago

Um, I can hear you but I disagree. She was not honest and her need to she Coyote was for selfish reasons. Her rejection of him, again in his eyes, was cruel. He still was not good enough. Had she been honest from jump them maybe he might not been interested if a further relationship was not possible. She never gave him the choice. Frankie was simply protecting and defending her child.

[–] rachael709 9 years ago

I'm not close to any adoption situations so I might be out of school here but I took it as Frankie defending Coyote after his birthmother hurt him as opposed to her shaming the birthmother over her motives for coming in the first place. We weren't shown the phone call between Coyote and Crystal but we were obviously supposed to infer that Crystal misled Coyote into thinking she'd allow him into her life in a greater capacity than she actually planned. In my book that's a pretty awful thing to do. I would think in a delicate situation like that, everyone needs to be up front about how far they're willing to go. Obviously they chatted about Coyote's half brothers and sisters since he knows their names, so you would think that "Oh, BTW, you can't meet any of these people because they have no idea you exist" would come up at some point. So the way it ended I just took as Frankie shifting into mama bear mode because she just saw her son get crushed.

Now, the way she was acting during the dinner annoyed me to pieces. I feel like violent responses like throwing the hot sauce are OOC for Frankie. She's immature, but she's also very pacifist hippie, so it didn't work for me.

Maybe for balance they'll introduce Bud's birthmother or perhaps a sibling and let it be a positive experience.