‘Roseanne’ Actor Speaks out After Tragic, Final Return to ‘The Conners’

The Conners left fans shocked and heartbroken this week after a classic Roseanne character returned. Actress Danielle Harris returned for the two-episode event Wednesday and while speaking with our sister site, ComicBook.com, she opened up about reprising her character Molly Tilden one last time and the tragic storyline that unfolded, (Spoiler alert!) resulting in her death.

Speaking with the outlet, Harris, who first starred on Roseanne in the early ’90s, admitted she had been hoping to return for the spinoff for sometime now and that “as soon as I found out that Roseanne was coming back, period, whether it was called Roseanne or The Conners, I was like, ‘I hope one day they bring Molly back.’” The actress said Molly was “such a fun character to play” and she’s “kept my eyes on it and I watched the show anyway.” When she finally got the call that they wanted her to make a guest appearance, Harris said it “was definitely the most exciting news I got in a very long time.”

Returning to the set and stepping back into the shoes of the character she hasn’t played in three decades “was definitely a trip,” Harris said, joking that “my brain at 43 and as a mom of two is not as sharp as it was when I was 16.” To prepare for filming, the actress would “get to work an hour or so early in the morning, just to have some quiet time to try to memorize my lines.” This time around, Harris said she had “a lot of stuff this time that I thought was really funny and there was a nice ease to it, but not much had changed in 30 years… The relationships are almost the same… I don’t know many people that get to go back to something after three decades and this is one of those experiences, it’s kind of euphoric.”

Throughout the two episodes, Darlene and Molly, her old rival and next-door neighbor, reconnected, with Molly encouraging Darlene to grab life by the horns. It was later revealed that Molly died of brain cancer following her reunion with Darlene. Harris admitted she didn’t initially know that’s how her character’s storyline was going to end, explaining that she only found out when Sara Gilbert “randomly said to me, ‘You know your backstory, right?’ And I was like, ‘My backstory? No?’ She was like, ‘Oh, you have cancer. That’s why you’re back.’ I was like, ‘Oh, it all makes sense. Now, it all makes sense.’” Harris said her character’s story was “bittersweet.”

“There’s more heaviness and more realness to it. So it’s bittersweet. It’s sad, but I’m glad that I was able to come back and stir things up for a little bit,” she said. “But Roseanne and The Conners have always tackled real life, that’s why the show’s been so great. It deals with real stuff and heavy stuff, even though there’s a comedic undertone to it, it’s a very realistic show. So I think it’s fantastic.”

New episodes of The Conners air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC. Episodes are available for streaming the next day on Hulu, which you can subscribe to by clicking here. Stay tuned to PopCulture for the latest updates!

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