One of the best relationships on The Conners has been the one between Dan (John Goodman) and Jackie (Laurie Metclaf), who has been there from the beginning of the 90s sitcom, Roseanne. Their relationship became a bigger focus after Roseanne’s death in the OG series, leaving Dan and her sister Jackie trying their best to raise the kids and their grandchildren.
Increasing Laurie Metclaf’s role in the spin-off series, The Conners, proved to be the best decision for the writers, since it maintained some sort of familiarity from the original. The spin-off has been going on for 6 seasons, but the last two seasons have made things difficult between Dan and Jackie. By the latest season of The Conners, Dan and Jackie’s relationship has gone through a lot of unnecessary fights that have done nothing but strain their friendship.
In the following, we take a look at how The Conners threatens Dan and Jackie’s decades-long friendship during season 6. We also discuss other instances where the Roseanne spin-off pinned Dan and Jackie against each other, even though theirs is one of the only remaining OG relationships.
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Dan And Jackie’s Friendship Is The Longest Running Relationship In The Conners
When The Conners began in 2018, it was a spin-off of the hit ’90s sitcom, Roseanne, which ran for 9 seasons from 1988 to 1997. The show starred Roseanne Barr and John Goodman as working-class parents doing their best to survive and support their children. The show was popular because of how it tackled serious issues that faced everyday American families and resonated well with viewers, even garnering several Golden Globe nominations and awards.
Laurie Metclaf also starred in the hit series as Roseanne’s younger sister, Jackie, who they often got into arguments with that Dan would mediate. Throughout the seasons, Dan and Jackie’s friendship would grow, with the duo annoying and supporting each other in equal measure. After Barr’s character was killed off from the show by an accidental overdose after her racist comments on Twitter, Dan and Jackie were left as some of the few original characters of the OG Roseanne series.
Dan and Jackie continued to star in The Conners, and viewers enjoyed the return of one of the oldest friendships from the ’90s sitcom. However, despite the strong friendship, it seems the writers of The Conners are trying to destroy Jackie and Dan’s dynamic from the OG series through bringing about several issues.
In season 6, of The Conners, Jackie and Dan are put against each other after the family’s patriarch gets into a fight with Jackie’s husband, Neville. In the season’s 5th episode, “When Sister’s Collide And The Return Of Grifters,” Dan gets a fine for a DUI after he took the fall for Neville who was driving after drinking. Neville paid Dan $500 to get a lawyer because it was his fault. However, Dan did not pay the fine nor reveal what happened to the money, which angered Neville, who is known for holding back his hard-earned money from Jackie’s family, especially from Dan.
A nasty fight ensues between Dan and Neville, with the latter resorting to name-calling to prove his point. It gets so bad that the two can’t sit in the same room together. This puts Jackie in an awkward position where she is forced to choose between her husband and her sister’s family, the Conners. Dan eventually admits he did not use the $500 for a lawyer, but sent it to his step-mother, Crystal, to buy heart medication.
Even though Dan and Neville resolve the issue by the end of the episode, the damage is done to Jackie and Dan’s friendship. The issue was already highlighted in season 5, so bringing it back in the following season proves the duo’s over 30-year-old friendship is going to be threatened constantly.
Dan and Neville argue, and he calls them grifters for expecting financial help from him. This causes Jackie to have a meltdown and lashes out at Dan to smooth things over with Neville. The way the writers made Dan throw Jackie under the bus for helping him with the money and his argument with Neville after proves they are trying to pull the two apart. Another moment that almost ended Jackie and Dan’s friendship happened in season 5 when the two fought about losing home videos.
In the end, Jackie found the videos in Dan’s home but swallowed her pride and pretended she lost the videos just so she could maintain her friendship with Dan. The Conners writers have proved they are not shying away from testing how strong Dan and Jackie’s relationship is, so there will possibly be more times when they face obstacles in their friendship. Though they might never go as far as ending their years-long friendship.
