Did ‘The Conners’ Just Introduce Two New Characters to Ruin Darlene’s and Dan’s Lives?
When an actor gets cast for a guest shot on a long-running show, it must be hard not to dream of getting written in as a full-time member of the ensemble. It’s hard to imagine The Golden Girls without Sophia (Estelle Getty), or Parks & Recreation without Andy (Chris Pratt), but they weren’t originally envisioned as series regulars. Neither was Frasier (Kelsey Grammer), and he ended up headlining a Cheers spin-off — twice! Seth Green and Jane Lynch are probably under no illusions about their function in The Conners, however. There are only four more episodes to air after this week’s, so they’re probably here to stir up trouble.
We already knew both actors would be débuting in Season Seven. The news of Green’s and Lynch’s casting was announced in March. Tonight’s episode, the season’s second, gave us our first glimpse at both of them, and it’s hard not to be concerned.
First up is Lynch as Jean. Dan (John Goodman) invites her over to talk to Jackie (Laurie Metcalf). In the Season Seven premiere, we found out Jackie wanted Dan to sue the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the opioids Roseanne (herself) was prescribed after knee surgery in the one and only season of 2018’s Roseanne revival, leading to her offscreen OD death between the Roseanne series finale and the series premiere of The Conners. Dan had refused to take “blood money” as compensation for the loss of his wife, but gave Jackie his blessing for her to pursue a lawsuit herself. Proof that Dan really means it is connecting Jackie with Jean, who once represented him when he sued a contractor; Jackie and Jean are already acquainted, however, since Jean went on to represent a customer of the Lanford Lunch Box who allegedly got hepatitis in the bathroom. “Really?” asks Becky. “Not the kitchen?”
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You might read that summary and decide Jean was on the right side of both those disputes, making her a trustworthy attorney for this matter. And she might be, but her first episode also establishes that she has (a) an ignition interlock device in her car, and (b) a lot of experience in gaming it with the right ratio of beer, water and time. What Jean doesn’t have is the emotional intelligence to meet Dan where he is as she tries to convince him he, and not Jackie, should be the one to file the suit, with an extended casino analogy about the payout he would get. “We’re talking about the death of my wife here,” Dan reminds her.
“That was insensitive,” Jean agrees. “You like boats?”
Off-putting though Jean may be, Dan does change his mind not because of anything she says — about boats or otherwise — but when Jackie reads him a text from Roseanne the night before her knee surgery, worried about the effect it would have on Dan if she were to be too disabled to work, forcing him to take on too much himself. But maybe a little bit of Jean has rubbed off on him, as he proposes a jolly toast: “To taking money from big corporations that killed your spouse!”
The episode closes on Jean settling in for a beer, six waters and three hours of conversation, the briefcase containing Dan’s legal filing on the bar in front of her. Should be fine?
We meet Green’s character, Chad, later on. Darlene comes home to a table beautifully set for a romantic dinner; finding a sweet note signed “B,” she assumes this is all for her from her husband, Ben (Jay R. Ferguson), to make up for all the time he’s been spending at work lately. In fact, the dinner is from Becky for her boyfriend, Tyler (Sean Astin); not only hasn’t Ben made any effort to let Darlene know he still cares about her, but he’s not even going to make it home that night to sleep.
Darlene ends up back at The Lobo Lounge, drinking her way along the Oregon Trail with various microbrews from along the route, when an affectionate couple (Diane Dehn and Mark Jacobson) imposes on her to take an excessive number of photos of their PDA. Definitely annoyed and lonely, and possibly also horny, Darlene throws the woman’s phone on the floor. When the woman snits that Darlene’s jealous no one wants to make out with her, Darlene throws her beer in the woman’s face, and things are about to escalate when Chad intervenes and gets punched in the face.
After the couple has left, Darlene buys Chad a beer, and they discuss why he also doesn’t like seeing people being happy in public: he’s recently separated from his wife. He assumes Darlene’s also miserably single, but learns she’s actually miserably married to a man who’s starting a hardware magazine. Chad, after a long beat: “Why?” “We’re not supposed to ask that,” Darlene mumbles.
Chad and Darlene are both bitter, sarcastic and given to drown their sorrows. Darlene already risked her relationship with Ben, back in Season Three, for an interesting stranger (relatively speaking — he was played by Brian Austin Green). With no one checking for Chad, and Ben taking his marriage for granted, Darlene could make another mistake very easily if she continues drinking through the beers of the Pacific Coast.
With so few episodes left to go, we have to trust that even if Chad and Jean are both here to stir things up, those things will have settled back out before we bid the Conners farewell forever. Here’s hoping Darlene keeps meeting Chad only in public places, and that Jean only practices law in places that aren’t licensed to sell alcohol.
