The Conners Just Proved Louise Can’t Replace Roseanne
Katey Sagal is no stranger to playing sitcom matriarchs, but The Conners has proven that her character, Louise, isn’t a Roseanne replacement, and that's a good thing. When a television show loses a pivotal member of its original lineup, producers are often tempted to find an exact stand-in for the missing character and hope that viewers won’t mind the blatant substitution. This maneuver has rarely been more expected — and ultimately more of a relief that it's been avoided — than with Sagal's addition to The Conners.
The current show began life as Roseanne, a successful '80s and '90s sitcom focused on the titular antiheroine and her dysfunctional but loving blue-collar family. However, the 2018 revival of Roseanne became The Conners after Roseanne Barr's racist tweets led to the star being fired and to the series being retooled as a result. Since then, there has been a Roseanne-shaped hole in the Conner family’s dynamic and, given how central Barr’s character was to the original Roseanne formula, the spinoff had plenty of reason to replace her with a very similar figure.
Given the circumstances of Roseanne’s off-screen death — an unexpected opioid overdose — hastily replacing her would have made the Conners seem callous. As a result, Roseanne’s widow, Dan, was given until season 2 before he warmed to the idea of dating Louise. Then it took until the season 3 finale for Dan and Louise to get engaged. Sagal also came to prominence in an '80s and '90s sitcom about a raucous working-class family, so she might have seemed an easy fit for the vacant matriarch role, but The Conners has surprisingly accepted that her character is not a Roseanne replacement, as evidenced by her season 4 storyline.
While the outspoken Roseanne was always the main character of the original Roseanne sitcom, Dan gave as good as he got. The legendary first audition between Barr and John Goodman, who plays Dan, showed that the pair had strong chemistry, allowing for his belligerent character to believably confront her fiery side rather than ignore her, as many conventional sitcom husbands would. As a result, the couple was regularly at odds with one another, fighting almost as much as Roseanne and her sister, Jackie. The show also depicted the two characters as a united front, supporting each other through many struggles but particularly in the trials of parenthood. This reliable dynamic lasted until Barr’s acrimonious exit and Roseanne being retooled as The Conners.
Katey Sagal, who plays Louise on The Conners, made a name for herself by starring in Married With Children as Peggy Bundy, the loud and often demanding wife of the show’s luckless antihero protagonist, Al Bundy. In contrast to Roseanne and Dan, Peggy and Al were less affectionate to each other, and their dynamic was a lot less functional — the couple's constant bickering resembled the Harris and Aldo partnership on The Conners more than Roseanne and Dan’s volatile but devoted pairing. After Sagal's star-making turn as an atypically wild sitcom mom, she played a more traditionally stern but caring sitcom mother on 8 Simple Rules, which again made her a natural casting choice for another maternal role on The Conners. With Sagal's experience as an explosive, bratty sitcom wife and a more mature, level-headed sitcom mom, her part as Louise could easily have been slotted into Roseanne’s former position.
As Dan and Louise started dating, The Conners took pains to avoid comparing the character to Roseanne. At first, this was a creative approach, with Louise's earliest appearances indicating that she was not merely being drafted in as a Roseanne surrogate. This allowed the first season of The Conners to deal with Dan's grief but not dwell on the show's loss of the Roseanne character. However, as Dan opened up to the idea of dating again, this approach did eventually result in bizarre instances of The Conners ignoring Roseanne’s existence entirely. This became a bit hard to swallow when, for example, Roseanne still went unmentioned during Louise and Dan’s wedding, despite his having been married before. With Roseanne and Dan's now-adult children playing major roles in the wedding party, The Conners at least referencing their late mother would have been pretty normal. Still, the decision at least reaffirmed that Louise and Roseanne couldn’t have been more different.
Although The Conners refusing to acknowledge Roseanne’s memory seemed odd at times, the fourth season of the show is proving that this approach was wise in the long run. The B-story of The Conners season 4, episode 17, ”Big Negotiations and Broken Expectations,” had Louise complain to Dan that he always prioritizes his kids over her, and the storyline was a perfect way of confirming that Louise has no desire to be seen as a mother to Roseanne’s children. Instead, she wants her own relationship with Dan, rather than to be a fill-in for his ex-wife. This plot — and other season 4 storylines, including one in which Louise suggests Dan build a house for Darlene, to give the newlywed couple some space — let The Conners demonstrate that Louise is her own character and not an easy attempt to fill the Roseanne vacancy.
While there is reason for The Conners to keep Jackie around, despite the implausible decision to have Dan’s former sister-in-law officiating his second wedding, the spinoff needed to let Roseanne go after killing off the character. Another sitcom star famous for playing moms appearing on The Conners so soon after Barr’s exit could have rung alarm bells, but since Louise was first established on the show, the series has indicated it's okay that the former matriarch is gone for good. Accepting that Roseanne is not only dead but that she did play a pivotal role in the show during her life allows The Conners to do justice to her character while also making Louise a stronger part of the show on her terms. While The Conners season 4 shortchanged some characters, the spinoff’s treatment of Katey Sagal’s Louise proves that the series can eulogize its former heroine and introduce a new romantic lead without needing her to replace Roseanne in the hearts of viewers.
Source: Screenrant
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