8 Ways ‘The Conners’ Spinoff Can Write out Roseanne

ABC has announced plans to retool Roseanne as The Conners, with one character not returning: Roseanne Conner (Roseanne Barr).

Roseanne‘s titular character is going to be written off due to Barr’s off-screen behavior and remarks, but the question still remains as to how that will happen.

There are a plethora of options on the table for how this could work, some of which require a fatal ending for Barr’s character.

Scroll through to see eight options for writing off Roseanne Conner.

Kill Her off During Surgery

One of the most prevalent predictions for how Barr will be killed off (if that is the route producers want to go) lies in her storyline during season 10 of Roseanne.

Throughout the season, Roseanne is dealing with a debilitating knee injury. At the end of the season it is revealed that she will undergo knee surgery to fix the ailment.

It could easily be written in that Roseanne dies on the operating table due to unforeseen complications during the surgery.

Kill Her Off and Not Detail How

The Conners might want to take the easy way out of the situation and kill her off without acknowledging how. 

While it would be involve a bit of gymnastics in the writers room and many viewers would be left unsatisfied, it is not an unprecedented move.

The most notable recent example of this strategy was when Glee wrote off Corey Monteith’s character, Finn Hudson. Monteith died of an overdose in 2013, and the show was forced to acknowledge the loss of their male lead. They have an episode filled with mourning, but the cause of his death is never acknowledged.

Not Acknowledging the Absence

One of the worse routes the show could take would not acknowledge Roseanne’ absence at all.

It would be confusing, but it could be done. However, this would most likely leave both long time Roseanne fans and onlooking critics of Barr unsatisfied.

Send Her to Jail

Another easy way to move a character out of the picture would be to send Roseanne to jail.

This could be done in a couple of ways, most likely with something pertaining to the character’s reliance on illegally obtained medications. Barr also has a less than stellar reputation as an Uber driver, which could lead to a jail offense related to a traffic incident.

This might be seen as odd, but it would give onlookers and fans who do not approve of Barr’s recent comments a sense of justice seeing Barr punished. 

She Runs Off

Barr could simply run off on the family, which would be an easy way to get her out of the picture.

Maybe Roseanne is having a midlife crisis and wants to run off an explore the world. Maybe her career as an author took off and whisked her away on a book tour.

It is an odd choice, but one that would help the Conner family avoid grieving their matriarch’s current situation.

Taking Care of Bev

Another similar exit would also unfortunately mean the exit of Bev, Roseanne and Jackie’s mother.

Bev needs someone to take are of her as is, and if Jackie could not handle it anymore, the duties could fall to Roseanne. Especially if there was a medical crisis, we could see Roseanne heading out of town to stay with her mother as she received treatment.

Rehab

Circling back to the character’s painkiller addiction, The Conners could put Roseanne into rehab for her issues.

It would get her out the picture for an extended period of time and make sure that Barr is not sent off with a clean slate.

However, it could send a message that Roseanne could someday return to the show redeemed, which many do not want to ever happen.

It Was All a Dream

A tongue-in-cheek way the show could kill off Roseanne would be to reveal that she had actually died years before season 10 takes place. It would be revealed that the season 10 episodes were just all part of a dream or a book written by one of her loved ones.

If that sounds familiar, that is exactly how the original Roseanne run ended. It was revealed that Dan died at the end of season 8 and season 9 was all a product of Roseanne’s imagination.

Doing this would be a clever callback to that infamous moment, but it would probably irritate fans, being as that original twist is not well-liked by most viewers.