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The Conners Needed A Roseanne Reference In Mark's Season 4 Story

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Conners season 4

When Roseanne retooling The Conners revealed that Mark was addicted to Logan’s ADHD medication, the show missed a perfect opportunity to reference its former leading lady. The Conners has, it is fair to say, troubled history with its former star Roseanne Barr. When the series began life in the late ‘80s the family sitcom was titled Roseanne and, despite the entire family being beloved characters, the show was very much a star vehicle for Barr.

However, when Barr was fired from the revival after racist remarks, Roseanne became The Conners after her exit and has struggled with her legacy ever since. Although Roseanne was quickly killed off offscreen via an overdose, The Conners never became comfortable with referencing her after the character’s demise. Sometimes, the show’s avoidance of mentioning Roseanne can be outright odd, as seen in one Conners season 4 episode.

Related: How Losing Roseanne Made The Conners’ Dan A Better Father

When “Spills, Pills and The Midnight Lasagna” (season 4, episode 10) revealed that Darlene’s son Mark was secretly addicted to prescription drugs, the story could not have been a closer parallel to Roseanne’s offscreen death. However, the comparison that Dan instead made in a later conversation was Darlene’s weed-smoking in high school. Since Roseanne was Dan’s wife and Darlene’s parent, it seemed bizarre for him not to mention the circumstances of her death when Darlene’s son was struggling with substance abuse issues. While The Conners didn’t necessarily need to labor the comparison, not mentioning the recent death of a family member due to an undisclosed drug problem felt even odder than Roseanne remaining unmentioned during Louise and Dan’s wedding.

The Conners has always had trouble with joking about Roseanne’s death or sincerely eulogizing her character since the former can seem callous and the latter could be seen as an implicit approval of Barr’s real-life behavior. However, The Conners season 4 improved on this issue, with one controversial joke about Roseanne going to Hell nailing the acerbic, but ultimately good-natured, humor of the original show. Particularly after these recent improvements, it was unfortunate to see The Conners fail to mention Roseanne despite the character's obvious relevance in an episode whose story centered around a family member struggling with a problem strikingly similar to the one that claimed her life on the series.

Broadly speaking, The Conners handled the story of Mark’s addiction with grace and humor, as this was not the first time the show has addressed the real-life issue of addiction. Before Mark’s ADHD medication problem, the show had touched on the issue with both Roseanne’s tragic deaths and the multi-season subplot following The Conners' Becky and her alcoholism. That said, while the majority of the episode managed to stay on the right side of good taste despite revolving around a sensitive subject, the lack of a Roseanne reference in an episode about Mark’s clandestine addiction proved that The Conners has a long way to go.

More: The Conners Is Paying Off Its Ben & Darlene Mistake From Dan's Wedding

Episodes of The Conners air Thursdays on ABC



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