AlthoughThe Connersseason 7 has a lot of storylines to wrap up, there are a few vital things thatRoseannespinoff’s final outing can’t do.The Connersseason 7will bring the longRoseannesaga to an end. Originally beginning in 1988,Roseannewas a sitcom about the working-class Conner family and their titular matriarch, played by star Roseanne Barr. The show proved a huge hit and remained a critical success until its widely reviled final season, which aired in 1997. A 2017 revival retconned this infamous season and proved popular with critics and viewers alike.
The Conners' Highest-Rated Episode Is A Harsh Reality Check For Something Season 7 Probably Won’t Do
While The Conners' highest rated episode might be a classic, this outing underlines an unfortunate reality about the Roseanne spinoff’s final season.
However, Barr was fired afterRoseanneseason 10 ended due to racist tweets.The Conners’ large cast of charactersmeant the series could make the unprecedented move of killing off its former title character and focusing its subsequent spinoff,The Conners, on her remaining family members.The best episodes ofThe Connersproved the series didn’t need Roseanne to work, and the spinoff lasted seven seasons. March 2025’s upcoming season 7 will be its final outing, and there are a few plot lines the six-episode outing must wrap up. However, there are also many pitfalls to avoid.
10The Conners Cannot Get Unexpectedly Rich
Roseanne Season 9 Proved This Twist Cannot Work
Above all else,The Connersseason 7 can’t suddenly make the titular family rich overnight. Thishated sitcom ending trope ruinedRoseanneseason 9, as a series that was once praised for its relatable blue-collar characters suddenly became a cartoonish fantasy when they won over $100 million in the lottery. This bizarre decision was technically retconned in the season 9 finale, which revealed that season 9’s events were all a novel written by Roseanne to help her cope with the off-screen death of her husband, Dan. However, the damage was already done long before this last-second change.
Abandoning the realities that shaped the series in favor of an over-the-top happy ending that solves everything would ruin the show’s tone.
The Conners, likeRoseanneseasons 1-8, has earned praise primarily for its willingness to focus on the gritty, sometimes tragic realities of working-class life in America. The spinoff featured storylines centered on poverty, unemployment, student loan debt, addiction, alcoholism, family separation in deportation, prescription pill abuse, healthcare inaccessibility, homelessness, and a host of other realistic issues that shapedThe Conners’ highest-rated episodes. Abandoning the realities that shaped the series in favor of an over-the-top happy ending that solves everything with money from nowhere would ruin the show’s tone and do a disservice to its hardworking cast of characters.
9Dan & Louise Cannot Continue Living Like A Part-Time Couple
Katey Sagal’s Love Interest Must Finally Be Integrated Into The Conners
AlthoughThe Connerswas slow to replace Roseanne, the spinoff did provide Dan with a new love interest pretty quickly. Katey Sagal’s Louise made it clear as early asThe Connersseason 2 that she didn’t want to be a surrogate mother to Dan’s adult children, but the show has never known what to do with her character since.Dan and Louise’s relationship needs an upgrade inThe Connersseason 7and the pair need to feel more like a full-time married couple, which means increasing Sagal’s screen time. This would improve their chemistry and make their farewell feel sweeter.
8Ben and Darlene’s Magazine Can’t Fail In The Conners Season 7
Ben Buying Hardware Magazine Shouldn’t End Badly
The news thatThe Connersseason 7 will bea “Six episode farewell event” according toTVLineimplies that it will be the end of the entire sitcom franchise and viewers shouldn’t expect a spinoff starring Sara Gilbert’s sardonic heroine Darlene or her children, Mark and Harris. As such,Darlene and Ben’s purchase ofHardwareMagazine should not end in tears. The pair already ran a magazine together when they first met and both lost out on their dream of working in publishing when it was forced to shut its doors. As such, theirHardwarestory should end with the pair gainfully employed.
7Mark Cannot End Up In Legal Trouble
Mark’s Sketchy Job Shouldn’t Ruin His Future
Like his mother Darlene, the sensitive, sweet Mark has been through a lot over the years. He abused ADHD meds to improve his grades, was paid by other students to write their admission essays so he could save for college, and even worked as a janitor to pay for his dorm room. As such, even though he took a job as an email scammer in the season 6 finale,Mark’sThe Connersplot should not end with him facing serious legal trouble. The job was the only way he could afford to go to college, so taking that away would be brutally hopeless.
6Becky and Tyler Can’t Break Up
Roseanne’s Daughter Has Been Through Enough Hardship
While manyRoseannecharacters might return inThe Connersseason 7, the spinoff should be more focused on providing its protagonists with fitting endings than flashy guest stars and nostalgic callbacks. Of the entire central family,Becky has the hardest time throughout the show’s historyand she deserves to maintain her happy, stable romantic relationship with Sean Astin’s Tyler as a result. Becky faced herRoseannelove interest’s death, addiction, alcoholism, a breakup with her baby’s father, and the prospect of his deportation, so a simple happy ending with Astin’s well-meaning pilot is not too much to ask for the beleaguered sitcom heroine.
5Bev Can’t Die In The Conners Season 7
Estelle Parsons’ Roseanne Character Shouldn’t Be Killed Off
It might seem surprising to say thatEstelle Parsons’ Bev shouldn’t be killed off inThe Connersseason 7, considering the character has been around sinceRoseanneseason 1. Roseanne herself died some seven years ago, so the prospect of her mother’s death seems fairly reasonable. However, it is vital to note that the spinoff already set up Bev’s potential death by revealing her dementia diagnosis in season 5, episode 8, “Of Missing Mind and Fries.” Season 6 then walked back this plot with Bev’s miraculous recovery, so season 7 killing her off would now just be strange and repetitive.
4The Conners Season 7 Can’t Include Another Live Episode
The Conners’ Two Live Episodes Were Strange Experiments
Thetwo live episodes ofThe Connersproved that the show could pull off meta, experimental outings, but neither of them was particularly memorable and both felt oddly gimmicky.The Connersis notCommunityor30 Rockand the show doesn’t need to lean on the fourth wall to impress viewers. If anything, these outings detracted from the usual appeal ofRoseanne’s spinoff, since the comedy of the series is grounded in realism and these episodes highlighted the artifice of the show’s world. As such,the last thingThe Connersseason 7 needs is another live episodefor the sake of it.
3The Conners Can’t End Without DJ’s Return
Michael Fishman’s Original Roseanne Star Must Return
There are manyRoseannecharacters who should be acknowledged inThe Connersseason 7, from pivotal figures like Bev to supporting stars like the late, great Martin Mull’s groundbreaking gayRoseannecharacter, Leon Carp. However, one figure towers above them in terms of the show’s legacy.Michael Fishman’s DJ was written out ofThe Connersbefore season 5 began,but he was a pivotal part of the show’s lineup throughout its original run, its revival, andThe Connersseasons 1-3. As such, DJ must return forThe Connersseason 7 to confirm that he is still part of the family despite his lengthy absence.
2Harris Can’t Leave Lanford
Emma Kenney’s Character Deserves A Better Ending
Darlene’s daughter Harris is a complicated character and, while it is hard to predict where any main characterwill end up inThe Connersseason 7, her arc makes her future uniquely tough to grasp. Her actor, Emma Kenney, announced that she had finished filming season 7 in mid-October 2024, which makes an early exit for Harris seem possible. However, this shouldn’t involve her leaving her hometown of Lanford. In earlier seasons, Harris desperately wanted to move. Then, she took over the Lunchbox from Jackie, so her departure would now render this major moment of character growth pointless.
ThroughoutRoseanneseason 10 andThe Connersseasons 1-4, it seemed as if leaving Lanford was the best-case scenario for Harris.When she was first introduced, Darlene’s daughter was desperate to get out of the small townto ensure she never ended up like her mother. However, the intervening years have seen Harris grow and mature, coming to see her mother as an ally rather than an enemy. When Harris moved out of Darlene’s house in the season 6 finale, it was because she had finally embraced the responsibilities inherent in adult life. This was embodied in her decision to take over The Lunchbox.
1Roseanne Can’t Come Back In The Conners Season 7
Roseanne Barr’s Character Shouldn’t Return
The Connersseason 7 shouldn’t deprive Harris of the chance to prove her maturity by moving her out of town. However, this isn’t the single biggest mistake the show could make. The harsh reality ofThe ConnersendingRoseanne’s sitcom storyis that the show’s finale will struggle to feel complete without its original star. Barr was rightfully fired, butThe Connershas consistently struggled to acknowledge how centralRoseannewas to the series without seemingly supporting the character’s real-life actor. As such,the worst thing thatThe Connersseason 7 could do is attempt to somehow bring back Roseannein its final outings.
Obviously, Roseanne can’t return from the dead in such a grounded series. However, Barr’s character should not appear as a ghost, a memory, or something similarly hackneyed, and she certainly shouldn’t show up via archival footage from earlier episodes. Not only would this be cloyingly sentimental, but it would also undo all the show’s good work from the last few seasons.The Connersfinally managed to emerge fromRoseanne’s shadow thanks to its consistent focus on her remaining family and their unique stories.The Connersseason 7 shouldn’t sully theRoseannespinoff’s story for the sake of cheap nostalgia bait.
