Grace Hanson (Jane Fonda) has been through a lot over the last six seasons of Grace and Frankie. She's had to rebuild her life after her husband leaves her for his business partner Sol, she's had to confront her age, and try to move on in her love life and business career.
Although she's going through many external changes she tends to not change much about her personality and stays more of a static character, which can be frustrating to watch throughout the series.
Not Learning To Ask For Help
Although it makes sense that Grace doesn't want to accept that she's getting older and might need to make a few lifestyle changes for her safety and health. And although she experiences issues time and again with her knee surgery, back issues, and being scammed by a contractor she refuses to ask for help. It's part of her personality, but the longer the show goes on the more frustrating this trait becomes.
Unable To Compromise
After being married to Robert for decades it seems that her inability to compromise was an issue for them in their relationship and yet she doesn't try to work on this throughout the series. She even acts like this in her relationship with Nick in the later seasons and it causes a lot of arguments between the two, but somehow they look past it and get married, which seems unlikely.
Continued Vanity
Every so often Grace shows that she might be willing to accept the fact that she's aging, for example refusing to let her image be photoshopped for Vybrant ads, but then she continues to fall back on her vanity. It would be an interesting storyline for Grace to truly come to terms with her aging image, but it hasn't fully appeared yet on the show.
Attempting To Change Frankie
Although Grace and Frankie have certainly become good friends over the course of the six seasons it's still odd that Grace continually tries to change Frankie. Frankie is strong and opinionated, but she accepts Grace for who she is without attempting to change her much throughout the series. In contrast, Grace continues to try to change Frankie throughout the series and it's odd that Frankie would put up with this and that Grace would continue to do it.
Not Changing After Her Marriage With Robert
Robert seems to change completely after he finally tells Grace that he and Sol are going to be together and their divorce goes through. Although Grace begins a new life with Frankie and eventually Nick and experiences new things she doesn't really go through a personality change. And what little she does go through isn't as engaging as Robert's personality change.
Continuing Need To Control Everything
After living with Frankie for years it would make sense that Grace would learn to give up some control since Frankie is uncontrollable, but she continues to hold onto that need specifically in her relationship with Nick. After finally getting some freedom from control with living with Frankie, Grace backslides into controlling how she looks whenever Nick is around instead of being herself like how she can be with Frankie. It's a frustrating, but understandable, character move for her although the audience would like to see her move past this character flaw.
Relationship With Nick
Nick tells her time and again that he doesn't care if Grace is older, he loves her for her, but Grace never seems to fully accept this. Nick has a past of dating younger women, which understandably makes Grace insecure, but it is frustrating that she doesn't trust him more.
All of their issues and break-ups considered, it's surprising that they still agreed to get married to each other. And even after they're married Grace refuses to fully trust him or be her true self around him.
Continuing To Bottle Up Her Emotions
Grace tends to bottle up her emotions with her tough exterior, but she's broken this time and again specifically with Frankie. It's odd that she goes through the same repeated pattern of holding onto her emotional responses until the last possible second, although she's shared emotions on the show with most of the family.
It would seem that she'd be a little quicker and more comfortable in sharing her emotional side after doing so over and over again, but she doesn't really change much.
Abusing Alcohol And Pills
The show approaches Grace's addiction to alcohol and pain pills through a comedic lens and the show hasn't given appropriate weight to the storyline. It seems to increase as the show goes on and she begins to feel her age more and more. Before her knee surgery, she can't have alcohol, and her mood changes entirely, and after it, she has access to pain pills. No one seems too concerned, but it's obvious she is dependent on both.
Not Trusting Brianna With Her Business
Although Grace is known not to want to give up control and not wanting to age out of relevance, it is still continually frustrating that she won't let her daughter run her old business. The audience sees the moment when Grace decides to retire and give her business to Brianna, and even though she claims to believe in her daughter the series never shows that and instead shows Grace try to take over after Brianna lets her start working for the company again.