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The Nonsensical 'Roseanne'​ Twist

Roseanne is changing up her beloved sitcom for the reboot.

By Edward AndersonPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Who is going to watch the new Trump-loving reboot of Roseanne? If I'm honest, the Trump-loving part lost me, but I may still give it a shot because why not? It's my job to keep up with pop culture, and the Will and Grace reboot also went heavy with the politics their first episode. There's another thing, though, that has me on the edge of my seat, story-wise. In the original finale, Dan is dead. He died. How in the world are they going to write around that?

Roseanne herself calls us all idiots and says that Dan never died. Here's what she told Michael Ausiello (who I'm still mad at for making me ugly cry, but that's a different post):

“A lot of the reason that I did that was to add another layer of freshness for people who are going to watch the series over and over.” Say what? Even I don't know what she's saying, and I speak fluent crazy. Just ask my ex. Ausiello pressed her with the indisputable fact that Dan is said to have died in the last episode of the original series, and her response was “I think that you should rewatch it.”

So I did just that. I rewatched the last episode of Roseanne and came away thinking that Roseanne lost her mind. In the final monologue, she talks about how writing helped her escape the feelings of sadness that engulfed her when Dan died. She said the words, "When Dan died..." so there's that. There is also the part where she says that her mom was not a lesbian, but in the book made her one so that she had a personality. But Jackie, her sister, was a lesbian. David was with Becky and Mark and Darlene were a couple, but she thought that pairings of Darlene and David, Becky and Mark worked better. Of course, it seemed to be that the big reveal was that at least the last season had all been part of a story that she was writing.

Which is what at least one fan has theorized. As it was stated, The Roseanne that we watched was the story of "Writer Roseanne," and nothing was real. Therefore, Dan did not die. But the speech at the end of the series was from "Writer Roseanne," which would then make it real, wouldn't it? Especially since the entire story was written because her beloved husband had passed away. If you take that away, what was her motivation to write the story? She uses the words "that's why I wrote the story." She wanted to get her emotions out. What happens to the heart of the show if you take that away? Maybe nothing, because nothing makes sense anymore.

Adding to that confusion is the short story thing that Roseanne put on her blog in 2009. In this story, Roseanne suggests that Dan faked his death (for some reason) and came back to Llanford. Yes, it is very much a soap opera-esque plot, but that's because Roseanne loves, or at least used to love, her soaps! Llanford was named that because it was inspired by One Life To Live's setting of Llanview. So there is a chance that she is getting the short story confused with something that happened in the series. Or maybe we were supposed to take things from the short story seriously, as part of the Roseanne universe.

Is Roseanne Barr a creative genius or just crazy? It's a fair question to anyone who has watched this lady go from beloved sitcom queen to talk show host to a banana farmer and then inexplicably wanting to be a sitcom queen again after running for President. Or is all of this just a marketing ploy to get us to watch the reboot? Maybe it's a little bit of all of it. After all, this season only has nine episodes, but nothing is stopping ABC from ordering another season if it is a huge success. Let's just hope she doesn't kill and un-kill another character.

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About the Creator

Edward Anderson

Edward has written hundreds of acclaimed true crime articles and has won numerous awards for his short stories.

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