The Conners series finale used archive footage of every main Roseanne cast member except Roseanne Barr — but what was the reason for the exclusion?
Executive producers Bruce Helford, Dave Caplan and Bruce Rasmussen weighed in on the ABC sitcom coming to an end without showing Barr on screen.
“It was contractual,” Caplan told Deadline on Wednesday, April 23, as Helford added, “She was very gracious in allowing us to continue the show because she had a say in that.”
Helford recalled the initial fallout from Barr’s exit, saying, “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.”
Every Time The Conners’ Final Season Mentioned Roseanne Barr’s Character
Elsewhere in the interview, Helford weighed in on how The Conners found a way to address Barr’s character, who was killed off before the sitcom premiered in 2018.
“There were mentions all along. We never shied away from that,” he added. “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.”
Roseanne originally aired on ABC from 1988 to 1997. After being briefly revived in 2018 — and after Barr’s eventual exit from the series amid controversial social media posts — the story transformed into The Conners. The spinoff was created without Barr’s involvement, and she has never made an appearance.
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“I just can’t bear it, so I don’t [watch],” Barr, 72, told the Los Angeles Times in February 2023. “When they killed my character off, that was a message to me, knowing that I’m mentally ill or have mental health issues, that they did want me to commit suicide.”
She continued: “They killed my character. … And all of that was to say thank you for bringing 28 million viewers, which they never had before and will never see again. Because they can kiss my ass.”
The final season, which concluded on Wednesday, still found a way to center the show around Roseanne by having John Goodman‘s Dan try to find justice by suing the pharmaceutical company that caused his late wife’s death from an opioid addiction. The series finale awarded the family a check — of $700.
“The Conners were never going to get more than just a nod, and that’s really what that was about,” Helford quipped, while Caplan added, “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.”
He continued: “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.”
Barr has not weighed in about the onscreen mentions in the final season. Instead, she has remained focused on her career after settling down in Texas.
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“We have 30 acres and live up in what they call ‘Hill Country,’” Barr’s son Jake Pentland exclusively shared with Us Weekly earlier this month. “Roseanne also drives the tractor often, which allows her to mow the lawn. She drives around. She occasionally runs into trees, but just keeps the yard up.”
Pentland hinted that Barr could be relocating again to Florida, adding, “She has a lot of close friends who live in Palm Beach as well and they’re always hanging out, shopping and going to dinners. She is very low-key in Palm Beach and likes to be out on a boat with friends or at the beach.”
The Conners is currently streaming on Hulu.
