SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details from the series finale of The Conners on ABC.
After more than three decades, the Conners have held their final family meeting in that kitschy midwestern living room. The Roseanne spinoff celebrated its series finale April 23 with one final nod to the matriarch while acknowledging that life is still good for this working class clan.
Here, executive producers Bruce Helford, Dave Caplan and Bruce Rasmussen talk about their decision to reference Roseanne in the final episodes, and how Laurie Metcalf’s unexpected display of emotion changed the final scene for the better.
DEADLINE Before we dive into the episode, Dave Caplan, it’s time to acknowledge your Ph.D that is listed in the credits.
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DAVE CAPLAN Yeah. I finished my degree. It’s in media related psychology. It’s how storytelling affects its audience.
BRUCE HELFORD We’re smart people.
BRUCE RASMUSSEN Or dancing monkeys.
DEADLINE Talk about your decision to name the last episode The Truck Stops Here.
CAPLAN It was the bookend, because the first episode of The Conners had trucking in it, right?
HELFORD Yeah. The first episode of the reboot was called Keep on Truckin’. We kept on trucking.
DEADLINE So did you know for a couple years that you wanted to pay homage to the Roseanne character in the final season?
HELFORD There were mentions all along. We never shied away from that. The family loved their matriarch. For the finale, we felt it was right to honor the character and honor Roseanne herself, who birthed the show. It was important to make that part of the end.
DEADLINE That was kind of an unremarkable payout from the drug company, who Dan Conner sued over Roseanne’s accidental opioid overdose.
RASMUSSEN The money was funny. We knew they weren’t going to win the lottery. The whole point of the last six episodes was that …
HELFORD … the Conners were never going to get more than just a nod, and that’s really what that was about.
CAPLAN The Conners aren’t going to win at the end, and also they’re symbolic of the struggling working class in our country who’s not going to win, either. We didn’t want to betray the audience’s trust in us to tell it like it is by having them have a windfall. They’re doing well in other ways.
HELFORD The reboot started because we wanted to undo the legacy of the lottery. We wanted to find a better ending for the show, so we weren’t going to go back.
DEADLINE Jackie’s line of dialogue at Roseanne’s grave about not knowing where mom was. Was that your way to acknowledge Estelle Parsons since you couldn’t get her to reprise Beverly for the finale?
HELFORD The last time we saw her was her getting on the train. It was too much to ask her to come out for the sixth episode. It’s a lot. She is 97. She’s a phenomenal presence. I like the idea that she’s never going to stop being out there, wandering the country on the rail. She’s a flying Dutchman, I think.
DEADLINE What would you have done with Johnny Galecki, had you persuaded him to reprise his role as David?
CAPLAN Because we didn’t have him so much, we had to make him a terrible father.
HELFORD He really did not want to keep doing it. He loved us and we loved him, and he was always invited and we’re all very close with him. We were kind of in a position where, how do you explain this guy without killing him? This guy isn’t around. So unfortunately his character got tarnished in that way. Had he been there, he would’ve definitely been part of the Mark story, for sure.
DEADLINE Lecy Goranson and Sara Gilbert were quite emotional in those final scenes.
HELFORD Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. People in the audience were crying, for God’s sake. When they say goodbye, Laurie Metcalf started it. We had no idea that was coming. The way Laurie said goodbye was not how you say goodbye after having pizza and knowing you are coming back the next day.
CAPLAN It made no sense at all in the story, and yet when we saw it, we couldn’t deny it was so moving.
HELFORD It was real. They were saying goodbye.
CAPLAN You’ve got to go with it.
RASMUSSEN We did other takes and that weren’t as emotional. They felt less real.
HELFORD This was the actors saying goodbye to each other for the last time.
CAPLAN John had pitched to us that he wanted to thank the audience to the camera. We knew there was going to be a break in the fourth wall at the end of that scene anyway, so we felt like all together, it wasn’t as jarring.
HELFORD I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before on any show where the actors actually break the fourth wall and show their emotion. I can’t remember one.
RASMUSSEN They earned that, man, for doing the show for as long as they did.
HELFORD And the audience gets to see something very honest about how they felt, which is really terrific.
CAPLAN All the actors felt this intense need to say goodbye to the audience, and that’s kind of where it all came from. How can you blame them?
DEADLINE Did it take much convincing by John to get you to allow him to talk to the camera?
CAPLAN Oh no. He’s really scary. We try not to say no to him if we can help it. He’s a big guy.
HELFORD He’s such a sweet guy. Not all shows have this. Some are very fortunate, but the audience is part of our family and we’re part of theirs, and we really feel that on this show. You feel the connection with the audience and 37 years is a long time for these characters to have lived in people’s minds.
CAPLAN Being on the other side of the monitor, when John did it, it was like, oh my God, it really hit you.
DEADLINE How were the final months? Was there any regret from the actors that it was ending?
HELFORD I think everybody would’ve been fine continuing forever.
CAPLAN It didn’t feel stale in any way. The stories were still easy to come by and the actors were still finding things in the characters after all this time.
HELFORD There were no contracts to go five years or seven years or anything like that. Every year we had a new contract and everybody had to agree that it was still worth continuing with that legacy. Every year we all agreed to continue, but all things do have to come to an end, and this was the right time. ABC granting us those six episodes gave it a real miniseries type of ending. So we had a cohesive line. It wasn’t just a bunch of episodes and then all of a sudden, an ending.
DEADLINE In those final flashback moments, you didn’t include old clips of Roseanne. Why not?
CAPLAN It was contractual.
HELFORD She was very gracious in allowing us to continue the show because she had a say in that. When she realized it would be putting 300 people out of work when the initial reboot was canceled, she gracefully allowed us to continue without her. It really was about these people. This show was really about the lives of these other people in the family, the Conners, and we wanted to focus on them.
DEADLINE Which one of you is going to take the afghan home?
HELFORD I don’t know where the afghan went. We had to reclaim a couple of props when we did the reboot. Michael Fishman had taken Godzilla home with him [after Roseanne]. We had to get that back. We had to make a new couch because somebody bought the one.
CAPLAN I bet Sara has it.
DEADLINE The last and most important question: what are you guys going to do now? Will you do another multi-cam?
RASMUSSEN I was doing drama. I was at sitcom writer for years, and then I did drama for 10 years, and Bruce called me up and said, do you want to come back and do comedy? This was one of the few shows that you can do real gut-wrenching stuff, real honest stuff, and then do really funny stuff. So if these guys have something like that, I’m absolutely in.
HELFORD Once you’ve seen the mountaintop on a show like Roseanne, then you really have to continue that honesty. It makes us feel great to honor the nobility of the working class. We all come from that, and that is something sorely lacking on TV. So yeah, we’re not done.
The post ‘The Conners’ Series Finale: How Laurie Metcalf’s Unexpected Burst Of Emotion Impacted The Final, Bittersweet Moment appeared first on Deadline.
