It is hard to see how The Conners will avoid killing off one Roseanne star after her surprise appearance in season 6 of the spinoff. The Conners has a strange relationship with Roseanne. The spinoff began after Roseanne star Roseanne Barr was fired from the sitcom’s 2017 revival due to a racist Twitter rant. The Conners’ cast of characters consisted of Roseanne’s family who learned of her death via an offscreen opioid overdose in the pilot episode. Thus, The Conners became Roseanne sans Roseanne. While trying to drop the title character of a family sitcom seems foolhardy, the series succeeded.
Although The Conners season 7 will be the show’s final outing, this is not due to a lack of ratings success or critical acclaim. According to most reviewers and fans, The Conners is a fitting follow-up to Roseanne’s original run and its revival. One of the only areas where the series struggles to replicate its predecessor’s success is in its Roseanne cast cameos. The Conners has brought back many supporting stars from Roseanne, but this can sometimes seem like desperate nostalgia bait. On the other hand, when The Conners ignores Roseanne’s characters, it feels like an erasure of its history.
Laurie Metcalf’s Jackie looks concerned at a school in The Conners season 6 episode 10
Roseanne’s Crystal Needs To Return In The Conners Season 7
The Conners Season 6 Already Brought Back Dan’s Father’s Widow
As outlined above, The Conners is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to Roseanne’s supporting characters. The show occasionally brings back long-forgotten background characters like Bobo the Barfly for little reason, but will ignore pivotal supporting characters like Chuckie for seasons at a time. The latter fate befell Roseanne’s old friend Crystal after she married Dan’s father, Ed. Although Crystal put in a handful of appearances early in The Conners season 1, she was soon forgotten. That is, until her reappearance in season 6, episode 5, “When Sisters Collide and The Return of the Grifters.”
The Conners season 7 must address Crystal’s health woes and her relationship with Dan before it ends
In the closing scenes of this outing, Crystal is revealed to be staying in Dan’s house while he paid for her heart medication. This one-off scene justified Dan’s secrecy about how he spent the money he borrowed from Neville, but it was otherwise pretty inexplicable. Some of The Conners’ Roseanne character comebacks felt forced in the past, but this was the strangest case of a supporting star walking into a scene only for the show to never reference them again. As such, The Conners season 7 must address Crystal’s relationship with Dan and her health woes before it ends.
The Conners Has A Complicated History With Roseanne’s Crystal
The Spinoff Never Knew What To Do With Roseanne’s Old Friend
Crystal had a long history with Roseanne since Natalie West’s quirky character was a dear friend to both Roseanne and Jackie for decades. A self-proclaimed “Doormat,” Crystal could always be relied on to get herself into situations that made even Jackie seem reasonable and level-headed. When she resurfaced in the spinoff’s early seasons, Crystal was Darlene’s co-worker and retained her goofy persona in her few appearances. She never played a major role on the show, and it was not clear whether The Conners would ever even acknowledge her marriage to Dan’s late father, Ed, until she returned unprompted in season 6.
Revealing that Dan was taking care of his father’s widow, who is also his late wife’s friend, was a weird twist
While The Conners season 6’s Harris story seemed set to be its main focus, judging by the premiere, the season gradually began to focus on Dan and Jackie more and more as it continued. Neville and Dan’s fight wasn’t one that necessarily needed to be relitigated, but “When Sisters Collide and The Return of the Grifters” did provide the pair with a nice chance to bond. That said, revealing that Dan was taking care of his father’s widow, who is also his late wife’s friend, was a weird twist. This unexpected development made a tragic outcome seem overwhelmingly likely.
The Conners Season 7 Is Likely To Kill Off Crystal
The Roseanne Supporting Star Had Health Issues During Her Season 6 Appearance
John Goodman’s Dan and Laurie Metcalfe’s Jackie face off in the kitchen in The Conners
Crystal was struggling to afford her health treatment when she stayed at Dan’s house, with Dan loaning her the $500 she needed to afford heart medication. This makes her death seem fairly likely in The Conners season 7 since the sitcom is almost certain to kill off a longstanding supporting character in its final outing. The Conners has never been shy about addressing the harsh realities of working-class
life in America, with its storylines touching on unemployment, poverty, unplanned pregnancies, public shootings, college debt, addiction, and substandard healthcare access over the years. Crystal’s death would fit this pattern.
Bev’s Exit Makes Crystal’s The Conners Season 7 Death More Likely
Roseanne’s Mother Left The Spinoff In Season 6
What makes Crystal’s death even more likely is the surprising survival of another Roseanne alumnus. The Conners season 6 didn’t kill Roseanne’s Bev off, instead reversing her Alzheimer’s diagnosis and sending her to explore America for her remaining years. This upbeat twist was a welcome shock in a series that is often surprisingly unflinching for a family sitcom. However, Bev surviving The Conners season 6 makes Crystal’s death more likely since the show’s final season is overdue a tragedy. It is hard to imagine Jackie or Dan dying, but it is equally hard to see the series ending happily.
Both Roseanne and The Conners were unafraid of touching on serious themes in their comedy, which is why storylines like Roseanne’s overdose succeeded
The Conners Season 7 Shouldn’t Kill Off Crystal
Roseanne’s Guest Star Hasn’t Played A Major Role In The Spinoff
Roseanne Barr’s Roseanne and John Goodman’s Dan from Roseanne season 10 and The ConnersCustom image by Yeider Chacon
The Conners could simply give the title family a break and offer them an uncomplicated happy ending. This would be a welcome change of pace after all the trauma they have endured over the years, but it would also betray the show’s original appeal. Both Roseanne and The Conners were unafraid of touching on serious themes in their comedy, which is why storylines like Roseanne’s overdose succeeded. That said, Crystal’s death wouldn’t be able to replicate the emotional impact of that bombshell. If anything, Crystal’s The Conners season 7 death would feel weirdly unearned and dark after her lengthy absence.
Crystal hasn’t been a major player in The Conners for some time, and her return in season 6 felt jarring as a result. If Crystal does die in season 7, this won’t be a tragedy to match Roseanne’s brutal, but not entirely unexpected, fate. Instead, it would feel like more of a cheap attempt to inject high-stakes drama into the series. Rather than reminding viewers of how hard it can be for people to access healthcare, the death would likely leave viewers wondering why Crystal returned. The Conners waited too long to make this Roseanne character’s death matter.
