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‘The Conners’ Fans React To Jackie’s Breakdown Over Roseanne’s Death In Nostalgia-Filled Finale

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 21:17 PST, Jan 22, 2019

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from ‘The Conners’ season finale episode, ‘We Continue To Truck.’

It only took 11 episodes, but The Conners fans have finally seen Jackie mourn the death of Roseanne. In a surprisingly emotional finale episode of ABC’s Roseanne spinoff, Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) spiraled and broke down over her sister’s untimely death. Not only that, but she did it at the siblings’ former place of business, the old Lanford Lunch Box.

After finding out that her boyfriend Peter (Matthew Broderick) was cheating on her, Jackie went into an alcohol-fueled rampage, finally landing at the building where she and the late Roseanne ran the Lunch Box more than 20 years ago. The sisters’ former eatery is now a Chinese restaurant, but longtime Roseanne fans recognized the home of the loose meat sandwich instantly. In an emotional scene, Jackie broke down and admitted the last time she was happy was when she worked at the Lunch Box with her sister Roseanne.

“We owned the place. We called it The Lunch Box, and it was the last place I was happy.”

In an interview with TV Line, The Conners executive producer Sara Gilbert revealed why Jackie broke down at The Lunch Box.

“We knew that we wanted Jackie to melt down in the [finale]. That’s something we talked about since the beginning of the season. It was just a matter of where [the breakdown occurred]. And then it sort of became, ‘Oh, yes. This is the symbolic place where they worked together and where they were happy.’ It had an emotional punch for everybody [because it served as a reminder] of what’s been lost.”

Jackie’ spiral was a long time coming. Roseanne Barr’s title character was killed off via an accidental prescription drug overdose on the October 16 premiere of The Conners, per Us Weekly. During the episode, Metcalf’s Jackie pretended to be the family’s rock as she spent her time cleaning Roseanne’s home, but later admitted she didn’t want to leave her sister’s house “because I don’t want to leave her.”

The “We Continue to Truck” episode showed Jackie finally getting real about her grief. Fans of the Roseanne spinoff took to Twitter to react to the surprisingly sad episode and the return of The Lunch Box.

Because The Conners spinoff also ended with a love triangle cliffhanger involving Darlene (Sara Gilbert), many fans are wondering if the show will continue with a season 2. While ABC has not officially announced a second season of The Conners, it would be surprising if the network left the storylines hanging. Laurie Metcalf previously teased that a second season of The Conners is indeed happening and that it will be for between 10 and 13 episodes, as previously shared by the Inquisitr.

Roseanne Barr has not commented on the nostalgia-filled Conners finale. The former Roseanne star, who came up with an opioid storyline for the Conner matriarch on the season finale of the ABC revival, made her displeasure about her character’s fate known following the first episode of The Conners. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, after The Conners premiere aired, Barr took to Twitter to write, “I ain’t dead b*tches!”

The former ABC star also posted a lengthy joint statement with her spiritual advisor, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, to Facebook, blasting producers for The Conners spinoff for the “grim” and “morbid” demise of her character.

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