‘The Conners’: Two More Couples Just Got Engaged

The most recent episode of The Conners featured some big developments, as two more couples just got engaged. During the Wednesday night episode, Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and Ben (Jay R. Ferguson) were preparing to tell the family that they were back together and had gotten engaged. However, the moment they stepped into the kitchen to share the news, Neville (Nat Faxon) got up and asked Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) to marry him. 

The round of engagements didn’t stop there, as Aldo (Tony Cavalero) then stood up and proposed to Harris (Emma Kenney). Becky (Lecy Goranson) then made a suggestion: Darlene and Ben should go ahead and get married as well since it seemed to suddenly be all the rage for the Conner family. Finding herself unwilling to participate in a triple wedding extravaganza, Darlene said that she and Ben were still broken up, which he went along with. Eventually, after attempting to make a plan to elope, Darlene confessed that she and Ben were engaged and agreed to a joint wedding.

Back in December, PopCulture.com spoke exclusively with The Conners executive producers Bruce Helford and Dave Caplan about the current fourth season of the show. At the time they teased what might be ahead for Darlene’s love life, as she was then dating Nick (Andrew Leeds), an ex-drug addict and stockbroker who got sober and began embracing spirituality. Caplan said that Nick was “a sweet guy and has a lot to offer” Darlene, but it was uncertain if she would want to continue a relationship with him.

“Darlene’s on a spiritual journey to find herself and make herself into the person she wants to be,” Caplan said. “And that’s all in the wake of her breakup with Ben, that she knows a good amount of that was her own self-sabotage. And she’s trying to figure out how not to make the same mistakes again in her life and how to move forward. And she’s looking for a way to kind of connect to something bigger in her life.”

“She’s got some more steps to [her journey],” Helford added. “It’s kind of like the three bears. Each chair is not just quite right yet. So she’s got more journey to come. And then this episode … is where she finds out that to shed some of his stress, Nick no longer has a cell phone. And what it’s like to date someone who has no cell phone. And of course, the family makes her completely paranoid that this guy is just hiding everything from her. So it’s interesting.” The Conners airs Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. on ABC.