‘The Conners’ Fans React As Roseanne’s Former Wellman Plastics Co-Workers Return To Put Darlene In Her Place
The Conners dug deep into Rosenne’s past in its latest episode.
In the Season 3 episode. titled “Plastics, Trash Talk & Darlene Antoinette,” the late Conner matriarch’s (Roseanne Barr) former workplace was heavily featured as her daughters Darlene and Becky (Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson) reluctantly took jobs on the front lines of the local plastics factory to earn a paycheck during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In one scene, Darlene was feeling like a failure who had nothing in common with her new co-workers — some of whom worked with her mom at the factory more than 30 years ago — so she separated herself from them. In one scene, the middle Conner kid holed herself up in a restroom stall to eat her lunch, only to overhear her angry co-workers talking smack about her.
The Wellman workers Nicole (Anna Maria Horsford) and Juanita (Evelina Fernandez) later called Darlene out for her elitist behavior as they recalled working with Roseanne back in the day.
“I worked with your mom,” Nicole said. “She was friendly to everybody. She was a bad a**, but at least she didn’t walk around her like a prissy little b*tch.”
When Darlene explained that working at Wellman wasn’t exactly her dream job, Juanita chimed in to say, “It wasn’t your mom’s either but she didn’t act like it was beneath her.”
Nicole then told Darlene that if her mother saw how she was hiding in the bathroom and turning her nose up at everybody, she would be “ashamed” of her. Darlene fired back to say her mother wouldn’t be ashamed because she always wanted her to have a better life than she did.
“She worked the lines so I wouldn’t have to!”
Darlene later apologized and said she appreciated the job, which prompted Nicole to tell her she remembered when she was born.
“Your mother told me that you were gonna be special,” she said.
The episode marked the most Roseanne-centric installment of The Conners yet, aside from the episode about her death.
In comments to an Instagram photo from the episode, seen here, viewers got nostalgic about the old days as they recalled Roseanne’s co-workers from the plastics factory where she once ruled the roost.
“I love that the Welman employees are talking about Roseanne!” one fan wrote.
” I wonder can they show flashback footage of her?” another asked.
“Sadly I don’t think that will ever happen,” a third fan chimed in.
“I miss Roseanne so bad,” another viewer added.
Fans of the original Roseanne series may recall that the Juanita Herrara character was actually a recurring role played by Fernandez, but Horsford’s Nicole was not a regular on the 1980s ABC sitcom.
Other memorable Wellman workers from back in the day included Sylvia Foster, Vonda Green, Pete Wilkins, and Booker Brooks, who was played by a young George Clooney.
