Gone, but not forgotten: ‘The Conners’ producers on why show’s final season seeks justice for Roseanne

Disney/Justin Stephens

When ABC canceled a reboot of its 1988-97 Emmy-winning comedy Roseanne in May 2017, after its titular star posted a “repugnant” and racist tweet, it seemed like the Conners of (fictional) Lanford, Ill., might be relegated to the TV land graveyard.

Then, just a month later, the network ordered a spin-off series that would bring the family at the center of one of the all-time great working-class sitcoms back to primetime, but without one key player: Roseanne, the character and the actress whose stand-up comedy about her own domestic life had been the basis of the series that was a top 10 ratings hit for its first seven seasons.

 

 

The Conners, including paterfamilias Dan (John Goodman), Roseanne’s sister Jackie (Emmy winner Laurie Metcalf), and Conner daughters Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and Becky (Lecy Goranson), were still living in Lanford, still squabbling and supporting each other, still struggling with a lot of the same things real Americans were struggling with … including the loss of an opioid-addicted family member as the Conners’ new reality, and the series’ October 2018 debut episode began with news of Roseanne’s accidental death.

In the six seasons that have followed, the Conners have managed to move forward without Roseanne, with new homes, jobs, money problems, and marriages (even Dan, who married a musician played by Sons of Anarchy and Married … With Children star Katey Sagal. Roseanne Conner, however, while never forgotten, hasn’t exactly been front and center in the storylines.

 

 

Until now, as The Conners kicks off its seventh, and final season. Is this for reals this time the end of the line for this great American TV family? Gold Derby talked to Bruce Helford, The Conners showrunner, and executive producer Dave Caplan, two Roseanne alums who, along with EP Bruce Rasmussen, developed The Connors about how they began the task of ending a TV universe that has been in our living rooms for 37 years off and on in just six episodes, and why it was time to address the subject of Roseanne’s death more directly.

Gold Derby: How did you even begin thinking about what you wanted to do to wrap up these six episodes, this world?

Dave Caplan: Well, I think we wanted to answer big questions, and small questions about our characters, and where they’ve been headed since the original show, and where they’ve been headed on The Conners. And they’ve all had interesting questions about where they were going to end up in their lives. We’ve been with them during a bunch of ups and downs and struggles.

And being faced with the question of where we’re going to finish them? We started at the end, and said, “What is an honest, earned finish line for each of these characters?” And then we worked back over the six to make sure that we got there with them. So, I think the audience is going to be really satisfied with where we end up. It’s real, and it’s interesting, and it’s satisfying.

 

 

Bruce Helford: Yeah. That was the main thing was to be sure that it was a satisfying ending, and one that left a legacy that we had started to try and find with the Roseanne reboot, and then had to start to try to find with The Conners. It will be true to the show, which I think the audience will find very satisfying.

Did you feel rushed? Did it seem almost impossible to do all you wanted to do in six episodes?

Helford: I think it would have felt rushed had it been at the end of 22 [episodes]. The one thing we didn’t want do is we didn’t want this to be just one of those things where you just tune in for the last episode, and say goodbye. So, we made this a six-episode event. These stories are linked like a miniseries. And I believe the last two are going to air together, as an hour, We’ve always had these long arcs for the characters each season, and we know where they’re striving to get to, and what they, ultimately, need, ultimately, want.

And so, that wasn’t so difficult. And it never felt rushed. It just felt like it didn’t have to end. It could have gone on forever. We felt like the show is still full of life, and everything else, but everything has to end sometime.

So, we made the decisions on where we were going to go to make sure that would be big enough to hold that legacy.

I think some viewers will be surprised to hear Roseanne’s character’s name pop up in such a big way when Jackie brings to the family the news that they can sue the pharmaceutical company that made the drugs that Roseanne overdosed on.

 

 

Everyone’s onboard except Dan, which is not a surprise, given how great his loss was, the circumstance under which he lost his wife, how much frief and guilt he has about her health and how much he struggled. He’s also found some peace and happiness with Louise (Sagal). he’s the one who’s tried to put his life back together most of all since her death. But, of course he still feels responsibility to his family and their financial futures. They have all stuck together as a family, especially since Roseanne’s death. Can he figure out a way to make everyone happy?

Bruce Helford: Like we say, it will be satisfying. That’s the only thing we can really tell you is that it will be a satisfying ending. There are so many things that it brings up. It brings up guilt, it brings up, “Does the little guy ever win fighting City Hall?” You know what I mean? That’s the other thing that’s in the mix for Dan, and how much torture do you want to go through to maybe come up with nothing?

Again, six episodes to discuss all this is, for a sitcom, for sure, a long arc to deal with one storyline. So, I think we pretty richly go through it, and examine it from all angles, from all angles with Jackie espousing one, Dan espousing another, and the family all jumps in, ultimately, too about how they feel about this. But we felt very, very good about the last episode, and about where everything came to.

Gold Derby: Do you of think Jackie is being fair to Dan? She’s pretty rough on him in suggesting that he was backing down from a fight, something that he had never done before, and suggesting that her sister is just being forgotten. Those were pretty tough accusations to throw at Dan, who obviously was crushed by losing Roseanne, and who, as he often jokes about, but is true, isn’t in the best of health himself.

 

 

Dave Caplan: I think Jackie, like a lot of the family, still struggles with the death of Roseanne Conner, and I think in everybody’s mind they’re trying to figure out what a fitting legacy would be. So for her, it’s not simply about getting some money.

Bruce Helford: It’s about justice.

Dave Caplan: Yeah. It’s about justice and it’s about legacy for Roseanne. So, I think she’s got her own emotional agenda to see to, as does Dan, and they’re in conflict, which is what makes it interesting. They’re both honest, and they’re both legitimate emotions.

Bruce Helford: And I think she was surprised. I think Jackie was surprised to hear him not be onboard. The Supreme Court literally handed us a storyline when they pulled the immunity from the opioid companies. And wouldn’t a working class family want to take advantage of the fact that these people … no one knew the dangers. No one knew how addictive the drugs were. No one knew any of that. And [Roseanne] fell right into that trap. So, for her, it’s just this is no question at all. So, it raises really a lot of interesting material.

Dave Caplan: I also think the character’s death could feel senseless, and I think Jackie’s trying to make sure that something important comes from it, that something comes from it.

Dan has a lot of other things pulling at him too. He knows how badly his grandson Mark wants to be able to pay for a top-notch education, and he still feels guilty about, back in the Roseanne days when he couldn’t help Becky pay for college so she ran away and got married. He also has Louise telling him it’s OK for him to make a decision that will leave him most at peace, that he’s given plenty to his family.

 

 

We also know about that risky hacking job Mark is doing. Jackie knows about it too. If she tells Dan about it, it might push him even further to go for a settlement to help Mark pay for college, or at least to have a stash of money socked away should Mark need a really good attorney at some point …

Helford: All those things will come up. It really does deal with all of these things. And we come to some really interesting things with him and Louise, there’s things that come up with Mark. Will Becky ever find true happiness? There were so many things to look at and to find and to find ways to weave them, many of them altogether.

Caplan: We’ve tried to be honest with things that our characters live with long-term, because it’s one of the false notes sometimes of TV comedy that the end of the episode is the end of an emotional turmoil. And I think we all know it doesn’t really work like that, that things stick with you for a very long time, and you’re not dealing with them the next week, and the next day, but it’s the next year and the next decade.

And we’ve tried to be honest about that with all the characters. So, everything that they’ve been through in their long journey is still with them, and still plays a part in the stories that we tell.

Because you both have worked with these actors and these characters since the original Roseanne series, you have such a deep well of knowledge of them, in even greater and specific detail than we maybe even saw on screen.

 

 

Caplan: It’s a gift.

Helford: And we realize what an incredible gift was given to us to be able to continue with the depth of these stories and the characters. … There are things that in these six episodes go back to the very beginnings of the Roseanne show.

What inspired the storyline with the potential lawsuit with the pharmaceutical company now? If you had gone on for a full season this year,  and maybe another season, would you have done it eventually, or did you just feel now was the tim?

Helford: Well, as soon as I read that story about the Supreme Court decision, it was, we would have done that whether it was a full season, or not. It was just too natural a story. This is a working-class family with no bucks. They’re not going to pass up this opportunity. So, yeah. The timing was just very fortunate for us. Crazy that that happens sometimes, but it did. 

We know there are some characters that we won’t necessarily see in these six episodes … no D.J., no David. Are we going to get updates on them? Any of the other recurring characters who might not be onscreen these final episodes?

 

 

Helford: There’s an update on D.J. There’s an update on … you know, Estelle [Parsons, who plays Jackie and Roseanne’s mom, Beverly] … Estelle, we love, but she’s 97 years old. She lives in New York, so it was too much to ask for her to fly out (to Los Angeles). And also, the season before, we just had such great stuff with her. She did a fantastic job. She’s an amazing person besides. But, yes. There are pretty much updates on everybody. I’m trying to think if there’s an update on David. I think there is. There’s a comment about David.

In the season premiere we have four happy couples. But work and timing looks like they could become issues for Darlene and Ben (Jay R. Ferguson). Then there’s talk of Darlene making a new friend at the Lobo, played by a similarly lonely guy played by guest star Seth Green. What can you say about that and what can you say about happy endings for everyone?

Helford: It definitely won’t be happy endings for everyone. Oh, boy. Have we mentioned who the guest star is? Have we already revealed that?

Caplan: Yeah. It’s been out already. led. There are going to be some more guest stars coming up on the show.

Helford: What’s fun about Seth is that he and Sara have been friends forever. And they are both the same sides of a coin. They’re very similar people. They’re both sarcastic. They’re snarky. He’s so quick and has such an out of the box, improv vibe to him that it was just really fun, and seeing them together is really fun, and how they affect the relationship. … There is an effect, but we won’t go into what it is.

 

 

The guest star we do meet in the premiere is Zoe Perry, who we all know is the real-life daughter of Laurie Metcalf. Amazing chemistry. I know she had played young Jackie early on in Roseanne, but having seen her play the younger adult version of Laurie’s character from The Big Bang Theory in Young Sheldon, and now seeing her in this, it was just such a great scene, and so funny that they were so adversarial. At the end of that scene when Jackie threatens her that she’s going to go become a cop again, and become her partner, I was just sitting there thinking, ‘I want to see that spinoff.’

Helford: We do, too. They got such a kick out of each other. We were so happy Zoe was available.

Does she return in the season?

Helford: We’ll see her again.

Does that mean Jackie is going to maybe actually pursue joining the Lanford PD again?

Helford and Caplan: [Laughing] You’ll just have to see.

This universe has been one of the greatest working-class sitcoms ever. And through nearly 40 years, it has touched on so many cultural issues, shifts, a lot of controversies, some serious, some silly. What do you want viewers to say about the show at the end of this season? And if we never see the Conner family in new adventures again, what do you think, ultimately, the legacy of the show is?

Caplan: For me, I think I would love that people thought about it as the most honest view of working-class America,, and how the economic struggles impact all parts of their lives, and how only the strongest of families can get through it.

 

 

Helford: “We all grew up pretty humble. And I’ve always seen the working class as the actual nobility of this country, the ones who make the greatest sacrifice. And so, if we’ve captured that correctly, and also provided honesty and not gone the silly route. … We’ve been very careful on all that, pretty much. … The whole reason for redoing Roseanne, the reboot, was because we felt the lottery [Season 9 storyline of the original series] wasn’t a good legacy. And so, we wanted to go back and fix that. And then that blew up, and we had to fix that again with The Conners.

The show, it transcends just the traditional sitcom genre in a way, and in a way that All in the Family did, and all those shows. We want to leave a legacy that has some gravitas to it. The work the actors did is phenomenal. They’re all amazing people. And they’ve touched people’s lives and were a part of people’s family, coming into their homes.