‘The Conners’ Drops Reference to Roseanne Conner in Season 2 Premiere

The Conners remembered family matriarch Roseanne Conner in a tense moment of the Season 2 premiere. The series returned after a long break with a new episode, which followed as Becky (Lecy Goranson) gave birth two months early as Darlene dealt with the consequences of focusing more on her relationships than her children.

Spoilers ahead for The Conners Season 2 Premiere: “Preemies, Weed and Infidelity”

The tense moment came after Darlene (Sara Gilbert) lashed out at Dan (John Goodman) for not paying close attention to Harris (Emma Kenney) while she has been away. Dan and Darlene found out earlier in the episode that Harris had been selling weed edibles at school, and one of her classmates accidentally ate too much and ended up in the emergency room.

Darlene confronts Harris about her behavior while at the hospital, but Harris tells her it’s not a big deal since the substance will be legal in Illinois soon anyway. Darlene tells her that is not excuse for her behavior, but Harris says her mother hasn’t been around to teach her otherwise anyways.

Rather than analyzing her own choices, Darlene then confronts her father and tells him it was on him to make sure Harris was not doing anything wrong. Dan then calls out his daughter for not being at home enough — not knowing she is juggling her relationships with Ben (Jay R. Ferguson) and David (Johnny Galecki).

He says he already raised his children so it’s not on him to check on his grandkids. Darlene claps back saying it was actually “mom who raised us.”

Rather than getting offended, Dan retaliates saying it was actually the television that did all the raising before walking away from the conversation.

The episode dropped another reference to the iconic Roseanne Conner when Becky revealed the name of her new daughter. Beverly Rose, named after Roseanne’s mother and with the Rose likely a reference to Becky’s mother, was introduced in her incubator. Becky apologizes to the small baby for it being born early, as she blamed her age and her history of drinking for the premature birth.

While Roseanne Conner was killed off in The Conners series premiere. Roseanne Barr is alive and recently spoke about the end of the successful Roseanne reboot. in a new interview she blamed former co-star and series executive producer Gilbert for her being fired. Barr caused the reboot’s cancellation after tweeting racist remarks about former Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett in May 2018.

The Conners airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.