The Conners will celebrate Halloween 2020 in a big way. For the third season of the ABC sitcom, the TV family will continue the spooky tradition started on the original Roseanne series more than 30 years ago by once again going all out for the October holiday.
A press release for the episode, titled, “Halloween and The Election vs. The Pandemic” teased that when Conner grandchild Mary (Jayden Rey) is “devastated” that trick-or-treating “has been canceled by the city,” the family works together to create “an unforgettable experience.”
The episode will also mark the directorial debut of Michael Fishman, who plays DJ Conner on the series.
ABC also released a slew of photos from the episode that confirm that the struggling Conners — who are in jeopardy of losing their home due to months of missed mortgage payments — have not cut back on their Halloween budget. In the pics, the characters are dressed in over-the-top costumes and the house is completely decorated with spider webs, skeletons, and spooky streamers.
Other photos give a look at the youngest Conner family members trick or treating for candy in different rooms of the house.
Fishman previously shared a copy of the script to Instagram to reflect on the fact that his directorial debut took place with the Halloween episode.
“Feels fated that for my directorial debut is the Halloween episode,” the actor wrote. “Our legacy of our show on [ The Conners ]. Often a technically complex and demanding production week. I work with a great collection of talent in front of and behind the camera.”
The Halloween-themed script follows 2018’s “There Won’t Be Blood” and last year’s “Nightmare on Lunch Box Street,” but it also continues a long tradition of scary episodes spearheaded by original series star Roseanne Barr.
On Roseanne , which aired on ABC from 1988 to 1997, the October holiday was celebrated almost every year with installments titled “Boo!,” “Skeleton In the Closet,” and “Satan, Darling,” The first Halloween episode aired in Roseanne’s second season and the tradition continued every season after.
In an interview with Yahoo TV , Barr revealed that scoring a Halloween episode in the late 1980s was “the first dragon we slayed on the Roseanne show” after the network initially balked at glorifying the “satanic” celebration. She also joked that the Conners’ love for the October holiday was the cause of their financial problems.
“John [Goodman] said the reason the Conners were poor is because they spent all their money on Halloween,” Barr said.
The Conners EP Bruce Helford recently told The Wrap . that a Halloween episode almost didn’t happen in 2020 amid the show’s delayed production due to the health pandemic. Once they got the green light to start filming, the team “rushed” to get a script in.
He added that because things aren’t the same this year, the Conners found a way to make it right and perhaps give viewers a way to “figure out how to do it a little better at their own homes without being able to go out and trick-or-treat because of COVID.”