The Conners Season 6 Threatens To Bring Back The Roseanne Spinoff’s Worst Story

Even though there are countless plots that The Conners season 6 could focus on, the Roseanne spinoff is inexplicably threatening to bring back a season 5 storyline that didn’t work in the first place. Since The Conners has an ensemble cast, the show often struggles to find screen time for all of its supporting stars. Often, Roseanne’s spinoff will go multiple episodes at a time without updating viewers on how Darlene’s children, Harris and Mark, are doing. Becky and Darlene’s brother DJ got so little screen time in season 4 that he was eventually written out of the show in season 5.

However, while The Conners season 7 might fix this, the show has another related issue that makes this worse. Even though The Conners scarcely has enough time to give all of its lead characters solid storylines, the sitcom still insists on revisiting plots that weren’t all that interesting when they first aired. In season 5, Dan was briefly reunited with a barfly he knocked out in an episode from Roseanne season 1. The 24-year-old feud between these men had been almost completely forgotten, meaning the return of a one-episode supporting character for a brief cameo had little impact.
While The Conners season 6’s returning storyline isn’t as egregiously outdated, it is just as irrelevant. Season 6, episode 5’s title promises to bring back Dan and Neville’s feud from The Conners season 5, even though this plot was never all that compelling. The outing’s title, “When Sisters Collide and The Return of the Grifters,” is a pretty obvious nod to season 5, episode 21, “Dating, Drinking and Grifter Logic.” In that episode, Dan confronted Neville over calling him and the Conners “Grifters” in a conversation he overheard in episode 18, “Road Trip and Guilt Trip.”
While the entire cast of characters in The Conners are working-class, Neville’s veterinary business means he has more disposable income than most of the eponymous family. In “Road Trip and Guilt Trip,” Jackie loaned Dan money but lied about this to Neville. Neville referred to the Conners as “Grifters” in a phone call with Jackie, unaware Dan could hear him. Dan confronted Neville in the later episode, resulting in a fight that left Neville drinking alone at the bar. When he attempted to drive drunk, Dan took the fall for Neville’s DUI to ensure Neville kept his license and practice.