SPOILER ALERT: This review contains details of The Conners debut tonight.
The lingering question of “What will happen to Roseanne?” on the premiere of The Conners may not be as pressing and riveting as “Who shot JR?” but it certainly is one of the TV history books.
After learning of her fate, Roseanne Barr took to Twitter to simply say “I AIN’T DEAD BITCHES.” Her tweet was clearly a reaction to the episode which premiered tonight where her character dies of an opioid overdose. Barr’s reaction comes after she said she would keep her distance from The Conners after she was fired from Roseanne for her racist tweets aimed at Valerie Jarrett.
On Tuesday night’s episode entitled “Keep on Truckin’” of the new Roseanne Barr-less revival spinoff (I guess that’s what we’re calling it) The Conners, it was learned that the character of Roseanne has died from the aforementioned opioid overdose. This isn’t that much of surprise considering the disgraced former star of the original show mentioned this exact cause of death on her YouTube channel in September. John Goodman, who plays Dan Conner, even mentioned her death in an interview in August. As Dominic Patten mentioned in his review The Conners, “she wasn’t abducted from her Illinois town by aliens, didn’t move away nor is in a coma.” So it didn’t take much to figure out what happened to the matriarch.
At the beginning of the episode, we learn that Roseanne has been dead for a couple of weeks and the family is in mourning. Dan thinks that she died of a heart attack while in their bed — which is why he refuses to sleep in it and opts to sleep on the couch.
But when Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) learns from a coroner’s report that she actually died of an opioid overdose, she tells Dan and he refuses to believe her. If you remember, Roseanne was popping pills in the original revival, but he thought she had it all under control and that she stopped.
When Becky (Lecy Goranson) and Darlene (Sara Gilbert) are doing some spring cleaning, they find a bottle of prescription pills with the name Marcy Bellinger. Dan is immediately furious and blames her for Roseanne’s death. He is so angry that he puts a sign on his truck saying that Marcy killed Roseanne and drives around town so that everybody knows.
Eventually, Mary (played by guest star Mary Steenburgen) confronts Dan saying that she didn’t kill Roseanne and that they were exchanging pills. Dan still doesn’t believe her until Becky and Darlene find stashes of pills all around the house. He finally comes to the realization that the overdose was true. He comes to terms with it and the show ends with Dan finally sleeping in their bed.
The surprisingly dark episode opens a new chapter for The Conners. Hopefully things won’t be so opioid-y and depressing in the new season.
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