'Conners' Find Humor in Hardship in Season Three Premiere

Photo: ABC

by Julian Spivey
The 2020 Fall TV season essentially finally kicked off with the return of ABC Wednesday night comedies on October 21 with new seasons of “The Goldbergs,” “The Conners” and “black-ish.”
​
It’s so nice to see the return of some old favorites after a longer than usual wait due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that ended many TV seasons prematurely in March and led to the delay of almost anything that wasn’t in the can by that point.
Many TV shows are back in production with numerous safety protocols to keep cast and crews as safe as possible.

I was thrilled to see the return of “The Conners” on Wednesday night with its season three premiered titled “Keep On Truckin’ Six Feet Apart” and the COVID pandemic was unsurprisingly the main theme at hand.

COVID is going to be everywhere among returning shows and I know that many of us are pandemic-d out and I’m certainly not looking forward to all of the COVID storylines that are going inundate many of my favorite returning shows - but it just felt necessary for “The Conners” to touch upon how hard the pandemic has been on the middle to lower class families across this nation.

Many in this country have lost jobs and homes and this is something the Conner family is facing in the season three premiere. Toward the end of season two Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and her fiancé Ben (Jay R. Ferguson) were starting up their own publication, but an inability to sell ads due to companies not many any money spells the end of that start-up in the season three premiere. The end of season two also saw Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) and Becky (Lecy Goranson) re-opening The Lunchbox restaurant that played a big role in the original run of “Roseanne” in the ‘90s and the beginning of season three sees it struggling to adapt to a new life of take out dining. Dan’s (John Goodman) dry wall business is also struggling with the fact that he’s recently gotten an eviction notice for his home and is trying to do dry wall without his crew that he was forced to lay off because he needs all the income himself.

It’s a hard to watch premiere – but “The Conners,” like “Roseanne” before it doesn’t shy away from the realities of life for blue collar families. This is what truly has always made this show and its predecessor brilliant. The episode had many laughs – something that I really needed – and continues to be one of the most well-written comedies on television, but was also the kind of showing that could lead to teary-eyes with our beloved characters all struggling simply to get by.

The biggest storyline of the season three premiere of “The Conners” is the return to Lanford, Ill. of Wellman Plastics, the plastic factory that Roseanne and Jackie spent the early days of “Roseanne” working at and the end of the premiere sees Darlene and Becky essentially stepping into the shoes of their mom and aunt more than 30 years later in a depressive tribute to both the show’s early days, as well as “Laverne and Shirley.”

Finding humor in a hard life is the strength of “The Conners” and this season certainly seems like it’s going to be a perfect mixture of that.