The Conners is Roseanne sans Roseanne.
If Roseanne Barr’s politics turned you off of Roseanne last season, you’ll be happy to know that politics never comes up in the debut episode of The Conners. Instead, the first episode focuses on how the Conner family deals with Roseanne’s death.
Last season, viewers saw Roseanne struggle with opioid addiction. Some time between seasons, she overdosed and passed away in her sleep. The rest of the Conners struggle to come to terms with the fact her death wasn’t a heart attack as original thought. Each copes in their own way, Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) reorganizes the kitchen, Becky (Lecy Goranson) tries to return to normal, Dan (John Goodman) blames a woman who gave Roseanne the opioids, and Darlene (Sara Gilbert) goes through Roseanne’s finances. All perfectly normal and understandable reactions to the loss of a loved one.
While “Keep On Truckin” didn’t pile on the laughs, it poignantly tackled a subject that affects millions of Americans: opioid abuse. This is one episode that regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum you can get behind the message. It would have been a nice touch had the network ended the show with information on where to seek help for those in The Conners situation. However, ABC chose not to for some reason, which is fine. Simply acknowledging a serious issue so well in what is ostensibly a sitcom is difficult and praiseworthy.
Roseanne Barr became a distraction. Now that she’s no longer in the picture, The Conners can thrive. Dan has even accepted Mark Connor-Healy’s (Ames McNamara) preference for other boys and decides to help Mark choose between two classmates.
Without Roseanne’s (the character) death, the show would be completely different and may still be building up political straw men on both sides simply to tear them down. With her death, the show reaches new heights and handles subjects much better.
Rating: 9 out of 10
