"The Conners" Final Season Premiere Brings Things Back to Where They Started
On March 26th, the seventh and final season of ABC’s The Conners will premiere. Well, calling it a “season" is generous seeing as there are only set to be six episodes — perhaps its more of an addendum to season six? Then again, the series itself is an addendum to a reboot that, for reasons that don’t need to be rehashed, was quickly canceled after one season. So, as the show comes in for a landing, it’s interesting to see that the premiere’s plot brings things back to where it all started: with the death of Roseanne Conner.
Within minutes of the season premiere episode’s starting, we’re introduced to what will surely be a major story focus for this short run of episodes as Jackie suggests that the family pursue a lawsuit against the drug company whose opioids caused Roseanne’s death. Immediately, Dan is resistant to the idea, with other members of the Conner clan falling somewhere in between. While Dan declares that this is the end of the discussion as he storms out of the room, you can be sure it’s not.
Meanwhile, we see Ben getting set up at his new job, Becky navigating cohabitation with her boyfriend Tyler, and Mark managing to rack up a mysterious amount of money. The premiere episode also features a previously announced guest star in the form of Zoe Perry — Laurie Metcalf’s real life daughter. Perry plays a cop that Jackie runs into at the Lobo. After being dismissed by the women in blue, Jackie resolves to rejoin the force. We’ll see how that works out.
Watching the first episode of season seven, everything I enjoyed about The Conners was there… along with some of the things that drive me a bit batty. Namely, the characters seem to make some truly baffling decisions again and again. This concerns me even more as we head into the final season as, even though we’ve come to know a family that never seems to get ahead, you’d really want to see them go out on top, wouldn’t you? With five episodes left, I do hope that comes to fruition — as long as they don’t win the lottery (again).
Despite my criticism and clenched teeth about whether they’ll stick the landing, I do still think that the success of The Conners is something to marvel at. After all, who would have thought that the hastily-assembled spin-off would manage to run this long in the first place? For that reason alone, I’ll definitely be tuning into these final six episodes to see how they show caps off an impressive run.
P.S.: While I already made a joke about the finale season of Roseanne, if this show is revealed to have all been a book Darlene was writing, ABC and I are going to have words.
The Conners season seven premieres at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.