While The Conners season 6 wasn’t entirely upbeat, the outing did allow Roseanne’s spinoff to give a happy ending to one character I assumed was doomed. I never expected happy endings from Roseanne or its spinoff, The Conners. After all, the reason Roseanne became The Conners was that Roseanne’s eponymous heroine died of an off-screen opioid overdose, a devastating twist that aligned with the show’s broader commitment to addressing real-life social issues. I was glad The Conners moved on from Roseanne, but her death didn’t come as a huge shock. The sitcom has been hard-hitting since its inception.
Over the years, The Conners’ cast of characters dealt with addiction, unemployment, grief, poverty, unplanned pregnancy, unfair termination, and debt among other issues. That said, The Conners season 7 seems set to offer the titular clan a more hopeful ending than viewers might expect. The Conners season 7 will be the show’s last outing, but Roseanne’s spinoff already began setting up its grand finale back in season 6. The fate of one recurring character who I always assumed was destined for a tragic ending proved that The Conners may be more optimistic than anticipated in season 7.
The Conners season 6 wasted one of the Roseanne spinoff’s most underrated stars again, and I’m getting increasingly annoyed by this pattern. The Conners Season 6 Unexpectedly Gave Bev’s Story A Happy Ending
Even within Roseanne ’s milieu, where the entire central family shared an acerbic sense of humor, Bev was particularly cynical and mean-spirited.
Throughout Roseanne and The Conners, Roseanne and Jackie’s bitter mother Bev always seemed like she was heading for an inevitably tragic end. Bev’s role in Roseanne was a grim one, as she was often at odds with her daughters despite their close relationship. Bev lied, insulted her daughters, misled them, and put them down constantly. Even within Roseanne’s milieu, where the entire central family shared an acerbic sense of humor, Bev was particularly cynical and mean-spirited. Roseanne and Jackie often talked about how their mother’s callous cruelty impacted them, so it seemed like her story couldn’t have a happy ending.
That’s why The Conners season 6 completely surprised me with Bev’s return. While Mark’s The Conners season 7 ending seems likely to be a dark one, Bev’s fate proved that the sitcom can sometimes be hopeful and optimistic. I was shocked by Bev’s first appearance in The Conners season 6 when her nurses announced that her dementia had effectively been reversed by an experimental drug trial. I hadn’t expected such a grounded series to include such an uplifting twist, even though, in the grand scheme of the show’s heightened reality, Bev’s drug trial success wasn’t overly unrealistic.
Bev protected Jackie and Roseanne from their physically abusive father, but she was also emotionally distant and verbally abusive herself. Throughout Roseanne and The Conners, I always viewed Bev as a loving but deeply flawed, bitter parent and, as such, I had taken it for granted that she would eventually get a tragic send-off to match her sad story. Every once in a while, the original show would humanize her by illustrating more of her backstory. However, Bev would always ameliorate the impact of these moments by almost immediately insulting or dismissing her sympathetic daughters after these personal discoveries.
Roseanne’s spinoff wasn’t much kinder to Bev, and it certainly didn’t foreshadow The Conners stars Jackie and Dan making amends with her in season 6. When she first appeared in the spinoff, Bev hid the fact that she owned the Lunchbox from the family and then refused to give the deed to Jackie. Once again, she was left at odds with her only family and I assumed she would stay that way until she was killed off. Bev’s entire life was defined by her inability to be close to her kids, so I thought her lonely death was a foregone conclusion.
As Bev’s independence faded and Jackie learned about her mother’s good side, it seemed obvious that her death was just around the corner.
In season 5, episode 8, “Of Missing Minds and Missing Fries,” Jackie discovered that Bev had dementia, and it was fairly advanced. In one of the spinoff’s most devastating scenes, Bev struggled to remember her own daughter’s death and Jackie had to explain Roseanne’s fate to her mother. The Conners had many Roseanne character returns, but the heartbreaking sight of Jackie comforting her bitter, mean-spirited mother seemed like it was setting up Bev’s impending demise. It was hard to see how the pair would ever find a more peaceful accord than this, with Jackie accepting her mother’s limited faculties and memories.
Episodes later in season 5 reinforced this idea, with Bev’s worsening dementia resulting in her inadvertently revealing the extent of the abuse she sheltered Roseanne and Jackie from during their childhood. I was floored by how poignant and sad this storyline was and, as Bev’s independence faded and Jackie learned about her mother’s good side, it seemed obvious that her death was just around the corner. Instead, season 6, episode 3, “Moms and Rats,” subverted this completely. I couldn’t believe it when Bev revealed that she had regained much of her memory and her independence, but things got even better.
In “Moms and Rats,” Bev gave Dan an impassioned speech about how much she cherished his support and how much Roseanne loved him. This recognition was something Dan lost any hope of receiving decades earlier, and his stunned reaction was one of the most moving moments in the spinoff. The Conners made Roseanne’s death more tragic when her surviving sister then had a day out in Chicago with Bev, where their mother admitted that she always loved, respected, and admired Jackie and wished she hadn’t been so hard on her. It was arguably the show’s most upbeat reunion ever.
Bev then hopped on a train out of Chicago to go live out her last years adventuring across America, a twist that felt wildly sanguine but still didn’t seem out of line with the show’s reality. Although Roseanne and The Conners have never been overly optimistic, I can think of earlier occasions when the family got lucky breaks like this. Given her lifetime of struggles, It’s fair to say that Bev was overdue one, so this twist didn’t feel unearned. It did, however, prove that the heroes of The Conners shouldn’t give up hope before the Roseanne spinoff ends.
