Find out what Roseanne and Dan Conner and their entire brood are up to since we last saw them on TV in 1997.
We’re so excited to have the Conners back!
Roseanne returned Tuesday night to some of the biggest numbers in recent TV sitcom history, scoring a whopping 18.2 million sets of eyeballs for its revival debut on ABC. That makes it the highest-viewed sitcom since 2014, and we totally get why that happened: Not only were fans gearing up for the return like many had been for Gilmore Girls, Twitter blew up with reactions to the political-heavy premiere, plus the show was beloved by people on both the left and right during its original run from 1988 through 1997.
Since it’s been 30 years since we first met the Conner family, we thought it was only right to recap what we learned about the now very grown-up Lanford gang in the premiere. Here’s what everyone’s up to 21 years since we last saw them:
Roseanne and Dan Conner (Roseanne Barr and John Goodman)
Adam Rose/ABC
It’s like we never left the heads of the Conner household! Roseanne is just as hard-headed and stubborn as ever, but as she said in the premiere, “It is not my fault that I just happen to be a charismatic person who’s always right about everything.”
Dan still skulks off to the garage to drink beer when he’s frustrated, and Roseanne is an avid Donald Trump supporter, a main plot point of the premiere. Though we’re never told specifically that the pair has retired, it’s implied that they’re done with their years of hard labor — in the first scene after the updated credits, we even see the two divvy up their share of pain pills, which they call “candy.” Most importantly, they both clearly still love one another.
All four of their kids — Becky, Darlene, D.J. and Jerry — are now all grown up, but only Darlene is back in the house (more on that later). Most importantly, Dan isn’t dead! The premiere undid the series finale by revealing that Dan had simply been killed off in the memoir Roseanne never managed to sell — which is basically how they reversed the heart attack in season eight, but you can read all about that here.
Becky Conner (Alicia Goranson — aka Becky No. 1)
Adam Rose/ABC
Roseanne and Dan’s oldest is now 43, but she’s pretending to be 33 to become a surrogate for a woman named Andrea (played by Becky No. 2, Sarah Chalke) — and, since the woman at the MAC counter told Becky that was her skin age, she’s going with it.
No longer living in the Conner house, Becky is working as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant and coping with the death of her husband, Mark Healy, whom she eloped with at the behest of her parents’ wishes when she was just 17. She’s also very happy to hold the fact that she has her own apartment over her sister, Darlene’s, head.
Darlene Conner (Sara Gilbert)
Adam Rose/ABC
Though she initially claims to have moved home to help take care of her aging parents, Darlene is actually back in Roseanne and Dan’s house because she’s lost her job. “I thought I’d be a huge success by now. I thought I could buy a huge house that I could hold over your head,” she reveals to Roseanne.
While tearing up on the couch with her mom, Darlene reveals she also has no partner. That means she’s not with David Healy (Johnny Galecki), her high school sweetheart whom she moved to Chicago with and the father of her two kids, a teenage girl named Harris (Emma Kenney) and a 9-year-old son, Mark (Ames McNamara), who’s named after David’s brother and Becky’s husband. Harris is pretty much the spitting image of Darlene and appears to be much like her mom was during her teenage years, while Mark appears to be gender-fluid and stands his ground when it comes to wearing fun, flashy clothes that many deem to be for girls.
D.J. Conner (Michael Fishman)
Adam Rose/ABC
D.J. is now a dad to an adorable biracial daughter, Mary (Jayden Ray). He’s been back from serving in the Army in Syria for three months, but his wife, Gina, is still overseas.
Jerry Garcia Conner
Born in 1995, two years before the show ended its first run, Jerry would now be 23, but it’s doubtful we’ll see him in the revival. While saying grace before dinner, Roseanne reveals that her and Dan’s youngest is on a fishing boat.
Jackie Harris (Laurie Metcalf)
Adam Rose/ABC
Roseanne’s sister has transformed from a retired police officer into a life coach, which is honestly the most Jackie job we could think of. Jackie and Roseanne stopped speaking after getting into a massive fight after the 2016 election, but after throwing political jabs at one another throughout the premiere, they’ve finally made up — but we can only hope that the pink pussy hat and “Nasty Woman” T-shirt aren’t getting retired. No word yet on if we’ll see her son, Andy, as the season goes on.
It’s good to have you back, Roseanne family!
