Although Roseanne’s spinoff faces a lot of competition from other sitcoms, The Conners season 6 finale proves the show has one secret weapon every other series misses out on. The Conners has a large cast of characters and none of them are rich. Ever since Roseanne originally began in 1989, the Conner clan has been a blue-collar family who live paycheck to paycheck. While The Conners season 7 might set up a more promising future for the family, the Conners have never been very wealthy for very long. The lone exception to this rule is complicated.
In Roseanne season 9, the family did technically win the lottery and become incredibly rich overnight, with a windfall of over $100 million falling into their laps. If this sounds like an outlandish betrayal of the show’s entire premise, that’s because it was. The Conners getting rich was Roseanne’s greatest mistake and the ensuing season was not only the show’s worst outing, but is also frequently listed among the worst sitcom seasons ever. Roseanne season 9’s finale retconned the win, revealing that it was all a fantasy, while Roseanne’s season 10 revival retconned season 9 entirely in 2017.
The reason that Roseanne’s season 9 lottery storyline was so bad was that The Conners has an ability to address income inequality that is unique in the crowded family sitcom genre. This was highlighted in season 6, episode 13, “Less Money, More Problems,” when Mark struggled to save for his University of Chicago tuition fees. He ended up taking on a horrible third job as a repo man to save more money. The Conners subverted Roseanne’s oldest story an episode earlier when Dan finally made enough to pay off his mortgage, but this episode proved the family was still struggling.
Dan and Jackie tried to help Mark repo a car, but the plan fell apart when the car’s owner, a stressed single mother, confronted them. Mark immediately decided the work wasn’t worth the moral injury and gave up on the repo job, something his family members understood since they had endured confrontations with repo men years earlier. The Conners season 6 finale reminded viewers how precarious the family’s income is, with Mark eventually resorting to some sketchy tactics to save more money. Darlene offered to continue working in a college cafeteria for Mark, but his conscience wouldn’t allow it.
Mark eventually took a job with a group of online scammers, imperiling Darlene’s perfect season 7 ending by getting involved in a scheme that seemed legally dubious at best. Crime has always been an option for the hard-up family, but it hasn’t been one they’ve historically availed of in earlier seasons. Even though season 7 will be the spinoff’s final outing, The Conners doesn’t intend to give the titular family an easy last hurrah. The Conners season 7 could see Mark face serious consequences, allowing the show to keep Roseanne’s surprisingly unvarnished depiction of income inequality’s consequences alive.
