‘The Conners’ Announces Four Major Guest Stars For Season 2
The Conners will be opening up their home to some familiar friends when the show returns later this month. The second season of the Roseanne spinoff will reintroduce four major guest stars that fans already know and love.
On the official Conners Instagram page, producers revealed that Estelle Parsons, Jay R. Ferguson, and James Pickens will all be back this season. Parsons and Pickens are familiar faces from the original Roseanne series, playing Grandma Beverly Harris, the mother of the late Roseanne, and Chuck Mitchell, Dan Conner’s (John Goodman) friend and business partner, respectively.
Ferguson’s character, Darlene Conner’s (Sara Gilbert) boss-turned-boyfriend, Ben, was a new addition to the ABC spinoff last season.
In addition, Katey Sagal was pictured back on The Conners set. The Married With Children alum made her debut on the show last season as Casa Bonita waitress Louise, a high school classmate of Dan and Roseanne, who still had her eye on Dan 45 years later.
The Conners showrunner Bruce Helford told Entertainment Weekly that Sagal will have a supersized guest stint on the show as Louise, who will be promoted to the bar manager at Casa Bonita this season. Sagal will appear in 10 of the 19 episodes of The Conners, with her first appearance in the third new episode of the ABC sitcom.
As for a possible romance for the Conner patriarch, Helford said the widower will take it “slow,” although Louise will be pushing for a romance.
“She wants a relationship. She wants romance. She is not giving up. But Dan is still having difficulty. He’s struggling with whether he’d be betraying [Roseanne] if he does move toward someone else. And can he ever find that feeling with anybody else?”
Dan Conners’ daughter, Darlene, will have a different problem. With two suitors at her door—Ferguson’s Ben and Johnny Galecki’s longtime character, David – the middle Conner kid will have some big decisions to make. Fans of the show last saw Darlene considering a move to Chicago with Ben, just as David reemerged to tell her he wants to get back together with her.
“She is still seeing both guys and they don’t know it, so she’s caught in a tough situation,” Helford told TVLine of where the love triangle storyline will pick up.
There is no word on how many episodes Ferguson will appear in. Johnny Galecki’s return as David has not yet been announced by the network, but the actor recently teased that he may be stepping back into the role of David, as previously reported by The Inquisitr.
While there will be at least four major guest stars on The Conners, one family member will not be back for Season 2.
According to TVLine, Maya Lynne Robinson will not appear in Season 2 of The Conners. The actress, who played DJ Conner’s wife, Geena, has booked a series regular role on the CBS sitcom The Unicorn. Geena Conner, a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army, will be written out of the new episodes with the explanation that she was redeployed to Afghanistan.
The new season of The Conners premieres Tuesday, September 24 at 8 p.m. on ABC.
