Spoiler alert: This story contains details of the final of the series Wednesday of Connecs On ABC.
After more than three decades, the stones held their last family meeting in this Kitsch Midwest fair. THE Roseanne Spinoff celebrated his final of the series this evening with a last sign of the matriarch while recognizing that life is always good for this working class clan.
Below, executive producers Bruce Helford, Dave Caplan and Bruce Rasmussen talk about their decision to reference Roseanne in the last episodes, and how the unexpected emotion display of Laurie Metcalf changed the final scene for the best.
DEADLINE: Before diving into the episode, Dave Caplan, it is time to recognize your doctorate which is listed in the credits.
Dave Caplan: Yeah. I finished my diploma. It is in psychology linked to the media. This is how the narration affects its audience.
Bruce Helford: We are 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 book greenhouse, because the first episode of Connecs Has truck in it, right?
Helford: Yeah. The first episode of the restart was called “Keep on Truckin” “. We continued to truck.
DEADLINE: So, did you know for a few years that you wanted to pay tribute to the character of Roseanne in the last season?
Helford: There were always mentions. We have never moved away from that. The family loved their matriarch. For the final, we estimated that it was fair to honor the character and honor Roseanne herself, who gave birth to the show. It was important to make this part of the end.
DEADLINE: It was a kind of banal payment from the pharmaceutical company, which Dan Conner continued on the accidental overdose of the opioids of Roseanne.
Rasmussen: The money was funny. We knew that they were not going to win the lottery. The interest of the last six episodes was that …
Helford: … The storks were never going to get more than a simple sign of the head, and that’s really what it was.
Caplan: The storks will not win at the end, and they are also symbolic of the working class in difficulty in our country which will not win either. We did not want to betray the public’s confidence in us to say it as if it was by making them a windfall. They are doing well in other respects.
Helford: The restart began because we wanted to cancel the heritage of the lottery. We wanted to find a better end for the show, so we were not going to go back.
DEADLINE: Jackie’s dialogue line in Roseanne’s grave not know where a mom was. Was it your way to recognize Estelle Parsons since you couldn’t have her take Beverly for the final?
Helford: The last time we saw her is that she takes the train. It was too much to ask him to go out for the sixth episode. It’s a lot. She is 97 years old. It is a phenomenal presence. I like the idea that she will never stop being there, wandering in the country on rail. He’s a flying Dutchman, I think.
DEADLINE: What would you have done with Johnny Galecki, had you convinced him to resume his role as David?
Caplan: Because we didn’t have it so much, we had to make him a terrible father.
Helford: He really didn’t want to keep doing it. He loved us and we loved him, and he has always been invited and we are all very close to him. We were in a way in a position where, how do you explain this guy without killing him? This guy is not there. So, unfortunately, his character was tarnished this way. If he had been there, he would certainly have been part of Mark’s story, for sure.
DEADLINE: LECY GORANSON and Sara Gilbert were quite emotional in these final scenes.
Helford: Oh yeah. Yeah, that’s for sure. The people of the public were crying, for the love of God. When they say goodbye, Laurie Metcalf started. We had no idea that it was going to happen. The way Laurie said goodbye was not the way you say goodbye after having pizza and you’ll come back the next day.
Caplan: It made no sense in history, and yet when we saw it, we could not deny that it was so moving.
Helford: It was real. They said goodbye.
Caplan: You have to go with it.
Rasmussen: We made other taken and it was not as emotional. They felt less real.
Helford: It was the actors who said themselves goodbye for the last time.
Caplan: John had offered us that he wanted to thank the public for the camera. We knew that there would be a break in the fourth wall at the end of this scene anyway, so we felt like all together, it was not as shocking.
Helford: I do not think I have ever seen it before in a show where the actors break the fourth wall and show their emotion. I don’t remember one.
Rasmussen: They won this, guy, for having made the show as long as they did.
Helford: And the public can see something very honest about what he felt, which is really great.
Caplan: All the actors felt this intense need to say goodbye to the public, and it is in a way where it all came. How can you blame them?
DEADLINE: Did you need a lot of convincing by John to allow you to allow him to talk to the camera?
Caplan: Oh no. He is really scary. We try not to tell him no if we can help him. He’s a big guy.
Helford: He’s such a sweet guy. Not all programs have that. Some are very lucky, but the public is part of our family and we are one of their own, and we really feel it in this program. You feel that the link with the public and 37 years is long for these characters to live in the minds of people.
Caplan: Being on the other side of the instructor, when John did it, it was like, oh my God, it really struck you.
DEADLINE: How were the last months? Was there any regrets of the actors he ended?
Helford: I think everyone would have continued well forever.
Caplan: It didn’t feel in any way. The stories were still easy to find and the actors always found things in the characters after all this time.
Helford: There was no contract to go five or seven years or something like that. Each year, we had a new contract and everyone had to agree that it was always worth continuing with this inheritance. Each year, we have all agreed to continue, but everything must end, and it was the right time. ABC gave us these six episodes gave it a real end of miniseries. So we had a coherent line. It was not only a bunch of episodes and then suddenly, an end.
DEADLINE: In these latest moments of flashback, you have not included old Roseanne clips. Why not?
Caplan: It was contractual.
Helford: She was very kind to allow us to continue the show because she had her say in there. When she realized that he would put 300 people unemployed when the initial restart was canceled, she graciously allowed us to continue without her. It was really about these people. This show really focused on the lives of these other people in the family, the stones, and we wanted to focus on them.
(LR) Laurie Metcalf, Nat Faxon, Sean Astin, Lacy Goranson, John Goodman, Katey Segal, Sara Gilbert, Jay R. Ferguson, Stony Blyden and Emma Kenny on ‘The Conners’
Christopher Willard / Disney
DEADLINE: Which one will bring you back to the Afghan to the house?
Helford I don’t know where the Afghan went. We had to recover some accessories when we restarted. Michael Fishman had brought Godzilla home with him (after Roseanne). We had to recover this. We had to make a new sofa because someone bought this one.
Caplan: I bet that Sara has it.
DEADLINE: The last and most important question: what are you going to do now? Will you do another multi-cam?
Rasmussen: I was doing drama. I was at Sitcom Writer for years, then I did drama for 10 years, and Bruce called me and told me: Do you want to come back and do comedy? It was one of the few shows that you can do real heartbreaking things, real honest things, then do really funny things. So if these guys have something like that, I am absolutely in it.
Helford: Once you have seen the top of the mountain on a show like RoseanneSo you really have to continue this honesty. It makes us feel great to honor the nobility of the working class. We all come from that, and this is something that is sorely lacking on television. So yes, we haven’t finished.
