Wednesday, October 17, 2018

The Conners-Dealing with Addiction and Death.


So, The Conners debuted last night, and wasted no time addressing Roseanne’s character death melding the two ending running storylines Roseanne left off at the end of its single season before its infamous cancellation, taking up three weeks after her death.

I’ll admit I got misty-eyed watching the episode seeing everybody’s reactions.  One thing I noticed immediately was Dan (John Goodman).  He looked gaunt, frail, old.  I wonder if he lost even more weight than he already had for the post-Roseanne Dan.


Considering the precariousness of how the show left off, there was no pretty way to write Barr out of The Conners.  Given that, the show handled the topics of grief and death by addiction with emotion and care with light-hearted humor.  Hopefully, the maturity shown in this pilot episode carries through the rest of the season elevating the show from the juvenile comedy that Roseanne suffered.

Also, given the topic, The Conners has a chance to speak truly of addiction as a serious issue and not as an “Oh, that can’t and won’t happen to me” thing.

Yeah, The Conners have an uphill battle to live up to what’s come before to stand on its own, but I think everybody involved’s up to the challenge.  It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out.

Be good to each other.

-J-

No comments:

Post a Comment