Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers from the Season 10 finale of Roseanne, “Knee Deep.”
The Conners are done for the year.
Roseanne returned for a 10th season this spring with a boom, generating headlines, controversy and blockbuster ratings, which eventually came down to Earth.
The season finale was a surprisingly somber turn for a sitcom, and while not overtly political, still dabbled in hot spots and Trump tweets. The episode finds the Conners reckoning with healthcare costs and natural disaster damage, only to be saved at the last minute by a tweet from President Trump declaring a state of emergency in Illinois. (Although the fictionalized president, as Darlene (Sara Gilbert) points out, misspelled “Illinois” in the tweet.)
The episode picks up after last week’s “Netflix and Pill” in which Dan (John Goodman) discovered that Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) was addicted to her pain medication for an ailing knee. He vowed to figure out a way to pay for surgery and this week, after helping Roseanne get up from the toilet in the middle of the night, he explains his plans: He’s going to underbid for a construction job by using undocumented immigrant laborers. Roseanne (after making cracks about “illegals”) is worried that using non-union workers could ruin Dan’s friendship with Chuck (James Pickens Jr.), whose union crew he’d been working with.
Roseanne tries to raise the money herself by checking old storage boxes in the basement for anything they might be able to sell. She and Jackie (Laurie Metcalfe) find their mother’s doll and think it might be worth $5,000, only to find out at an antique shop that it’s worth $100. (Also, hi French Stewart, as a creepy doll salesman).
Things only get worse, as torrential rain that’s been in the backgroundcauses a massive flood in the Conner basement. Dan is trying to clean it up when Chuck visits, angry that Dan didn’t hire his crew for the construction job. Dan tries to explain that he couldn’t afford Chuck’s crew and needed to take care of his family, but Chuck argues that he’s doing the same, and now he’s unemployed. “I always said that when I’m eating, you’re eating,” Dan says to Chuck. “I’m not eating.”
Roseanne comes down to see the flood damage and Chuck leaves, offering what seems like a potentially permanent goodbye. She tries to cheer up Dan but he waves her off and continues trying to salvage their belongings. When a shelf of stuff he’s just saved collapses, Dan breaks down and starts bashing in the door with a crowbar.
The family tries to keep their spirits up in the living room, where remnants from the basement are stored, including, as Harris (Emma Kenney) notes, quite a few Halloween decorations, a nod to the original series’ famous holiday episodes.
When the family learns Trump might declare a state of emergency, Dan realizes that they can get money from FEMA to repair the basement and, since he could do it under budget, use the savings for Roseanne’s surgery. The family ends up chanting “state of emergency!” until the tweet comes in.
The episode ends with Roseanne, on the eve of surgery, surrounded by her family, who has prepared her favorite foods, even if she has to start fasting eight minutes later.
It’s an uneven end to an uneven nine-episode season for the revival, with 13 more episodes due this fall. It doesn’t really address the big revelation of Roseanne’s addiction (she’s still in pain, but there’s no mention of popping pills, withdrawal or any side effects). But it brings the show back to the essence of the Conner family: their big dinner table with mismatched chairs. And there’s room for improvement in a Season 11.
