While The Conners have struggled with Roseanne’s exit before, one season 4 episode saw the sitcom finally acknowledge her legacy and impact the show. The Conners have never been entirely comfortable with the exit of former series star Roseanne Barr. In its original 90s incarnation Roseanne, Barr was the heroine of the sitcom and the central creative voice behind the series.
Barr starred in 2017’s Roseanne revival but was fired for racist remarks made on Twitter before the series was renewed. Roseanne was then retooled into The Conners, with the character of Roseanne herself being killed off-screen via an opioid overdose. While the series showed that her husband Dan was affected by Roseanne’s death, The Conners did not mention Barr’s character often after her demise, leading some to find certain episodes awkward.
For example, Dan’s wedding to his new love interest Louise would have been an obvious chance for The Conners to address Roseanne’s death since her widower was remarrying. However, The Conners episode made no mention of her – something that felt inauthentic to many viewers given the show’s focus on family. However, The Conners season 4 has since made up for this misstep. In “Messy Situation, Miscommunication and Academic Probation” (season 4, episode 15), Dan’s long-time friend (and notably, Roseanne co-star) Chuck was worried about his wife Anne-Marie dying before him after she suffered a stroke. This led Dan to an atypically candid conversation about how much Roseanne meant to him and just how much his late wife held the Conners family unit together.
It was one of the first heartfelt tributes The Conners has made to the character of Roseanne since the initial aftermath of her death and, crucially, the scene showed that The Conners can eulogize the character without commenting on her real-life actor. In that regard, the speech was the opposite of a controversial joke earlier in The Conners season 4 wherein Becky made a comment alluding to Roseanne going to Hell. That gag worked at the time because the episode was a more sentimental one and needed an acerbic joke, and Roseanne herself constantly made those sorts of sharp remarks around her kids. However, Dan always authentically loved the outspoken, boorish Roseanne despite how often she clashed with him and their kids, and John Goodman’s speech proved that the secret strength of The Conners comes from the sitcom’s ability to ground moments of genuine pathos amidst the laughs.
Dan’s commiseration with Chuck’s plight was atypically heavy stuff for The Conners and having the family patriarch talk about his late wife in unabashedly nostalgic, uncritical terms was a good move for the series. The Conners has gone out of its way to avoid praising Roseanne, for fear of appearing to support the character’s real-life actor and her behavior. However, this particular episode of The Conners season 4 finally seemed able to separate the fondly-remembered fictional title character of Roseanne from Barr herself.
