As Barr revealed herself, Roseanne is killed off in the spinoff with an overdose. The episode is good. But the optics behind that decision are ugly and problematic.
There are casserole dishes, so many of them, scattered all through the Conner family kitchen. They are hoarding them, the best dishes from every family in Langford, and wondering aloud to themselves: Why do people always send over casseroles when someone dies?
Yep. Ding-dong, good riddance, good grief, what have you. Roseanne is dead.
It’s revealed within seconds of the new Roseanne spinoff, The Conners that Roseanne Conner, the character played by Roseanne Barr off and on for 30 years, has passed away. The series premiered Tuesday night with skeptical eyes trained on that specific question: How it was going to write Barr’s character off. Now we have the answer. She overdoses on opioids, succumbing to an addiction that was first introduced in last year’s blockbuster Roseanne revival.
That volatile revival—ratings bonanza, cultural lightning rod—finally imploded over the summer, detonated by Barr herself. When the actress tweeted racist comments about Valerie Jarrett, ABC quickly canceled the revival just as production was beginning on season two, leaving the show’s cast and crew suddenly without jobs.
Still very much in the business of working with co-stars John Goodman, Sara Gilbert, and Laurie Metcalf—and in the business of keeping a hold on that viewership—ABC scrambled to put together a spinoff without Barr’s involvement. She agreed to forfeit her intellectual property rights, so as to not profit off The Conners in any way.
Right off the bat, you’ll notice an earnestness in The Conners (this is death we’re talking about) and maybe miss the bit of caustic bite that Barr brought to Roseanne. But aside from that palpable sweetness, something especially evidenced in next week’s episode, The Conners essentially shares the same identity as Roseanne. Just, you know, without Roseanne.
Still, it takes about seven minutes or so for the show to finally feel that way.
The opening moments make for a tense viewing experience, the audience confronts at once with Roseanne’s death and how the family is handling it. At first, they were under the impression that Roseanne died of a heart attack. But then Becky (Lecy Goranson) finds a bottle of pills while cleaning out her mother’s closet. Everyone is upset, because Roseanne was supposed to have kicked her addiction. Dan (John Goodman) takes the bottle. “Damn,” Becky says. “That was the one thing from mom’s closet I actually wanted.”
Guffaws abound. Permission to laugh.
The fact that Roseanne overdosed was made clear minutes later when the family received a phone call informing them that the original autopsy report is incorrect. It wasn’t a heart attack, but opioids that killed her.
Here’s a concise version of your passage:
The premiere of The Conners is emotionally powerful but deeply conflicted. The decision to kill off Roseanne Conner via opioid overdose feels shaped as much by public backlash against Roseanne Barr as by storytelling needs, creating a jarring tonal disconnect. While the show asks viewers to mourn the character, real-world resentment toward Barr makes that grief complicated and, at times, uncomfortable.
The performances—especially from Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman—are compelling and authentic, but the storyline risks trivializing the opioid crisis by tying it to a character whose fate may feel like “punishment.” Though intended as meaningful social commentary, the execution comes off as messy and, at moments, tone-deaf.
Ultimately, while the show succeeds emotionally in parts, its handling of Roseanne’s death raises questions about taste, intent, and whether the story it’s trying to tell fully works.
This is a family that we have spent 30 years getting to know. How could we not be interested by the ways in which they grieve and attempt to move on after the death of their matriarch? That story, we think, is definitely worth telling. It’s the fact, as with every single thing there is to do with this show, that it’s Roseanne Barr, her behavior, and the attitude towards her that casts a shadow on that story that continues to complicate things.
Could this story be told as compellingly without these characters, who we know so well, and these performers, who are so gifted? Maybe. Maybe not. But The Conners is what we have.
It’s not perfect. But it’s good.