The Conners Finale: EPs Reveal Reason For MIA Wedding Guest, Clarify Jackie's Marital History And Tease Season 5

Two out of three couples made it down the aisle during The Conners' Season 4 finale.

Wednesday's eventful half-hour saw Harris demoted from bride to bridesmaid. She broke things off with her much older, dimwitted fiancé Aldo, who was determined to start a family as soon as they got married.

It was a much happier day for Harris' mother Darlene and her great-aunt Jackie, who wed Ben and Neville in a joint ceremony that involved a judge, a priest and an operatic clown.

Meanwhile, with Becky and Beverly Rose set to move in with Darlene and Ben, the recently remarried Dan came down with a case of empty-nest syndrome. Little did he know that one of his grandkids will be sticking around...

After screening the finale, TVLine hopped on the phone with executive producers Bruce Helford and Dave Caplan, who not only answered all our burning questions about the wedding (and Jackie's marital history — remember Fred?), but also served up multiple hints about Season 5. Grade the episode via the following poll, then keep scrolling for our Q&A... 

TVLINE | You've previously gone on record to say that Jackie's son Andy is no longer canon, but you have yet to declare, one way or the other, whether ex-husband Fred (played by Michael O'Keefe in Roseanne Seasons 6-8) has also been retconned. Are you able to provide any clarity on the matter? As far as you're concerned, does Neville represent Jackie's first or second marriage?

HELFORD | We're careful not to [have Jackie] say, "This is my only marriage." I think the idea of her having had Fred in her life [remains]. The kid is not part of our universe. It's a multiverse, as you know. The Roseanne multiverse.

CAPLAN | [Laughs] We're the Spider-Man of sitcoms.

HELFORD | You never know when we'll slip into another universe and find someone else.

TVLINE | Jackie's never had much luck in the boyfriend department. It's been a nice change of pace to see Laurie Metcalf's eccentric alter ego so happy with Nat Faxon's Neville...

HELFORD | It was never easy to find a mate for Jackie. We had Matthew Broderick [in Season 1 of The Conners], and went through all these different people [over the course of both shows], but it's tough with Laurie. She's so mercurial, so fast and so funny, and it takes a certain kind of personality to maneuver that. Nat is exactly the guy. He's great. And by the way, her enthusiasm about the proposal was genuine. Laurie loves working with Nat. She enjoys the hell out of that relationship, and so does he.

TVLINE | Was there an effort to bring 94-year-old Estelle Parsons back for the wedding, to reprise her role as Bev? At the beginning of the season you'd both said the plan was to have her return at some point during Season 4, but that never happened.

HELFORD | Her husband passed this past year. She was ready to go, she was ready to come out. I think she had also been offered [another episode of] Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin's show [Grace and Frankie]. She was going to do those spots, then he got very sick and unfortunately passed. And with the pandemic and everything going on, it was just too much for her right now. But I do believe that she's probably immortal, so we're hoping [in Season 5] that she'll come back to make Jackie and Neville miserable.

TVLINE | Talk to me about the decision not only to have Ben and Darlene reunite, but to have them get married so soon after a long time apart. Was it always the plan to get them back together by season's end? Or were you seeing what felt right as you went along?

HELFORD | We had to maintain the credibility of the breakup. There were real reasons behind it. Obviously, the chemistry between Jay R. Ferguson and Sara Gilbert is so amazing. They have known each other since they were kids, and they're funny as hell. I think it was always in our minds to find our way back to something, but we had to take our time so it didn't feel like we were jerking the audience around.

CAPLAN | But we were listening to the audience, and the audience was [asking] "When are you going to get them back together?" And they were fun as a battling couple, too, so we wanted to squeeze all the juice out of that, then figure out an honest way to get them back together after everything they had been through, and we think we found that. [Darlene's accident] forced them to look at things from a new perspective. They had to move past all the little things that were standing in their way and look at the big picture.

HELFORD | But then we go and move Becky into their house, so we're not going to let them off easy!

TVLINE | How important was it to have a moment between Darlene and Jackie where they acknowledge Roseanne's absence, and what this joint wedding would have meant to her?

HELFORD | We've always operated under the assumption that they miss their mother (and sister) tremendously. She was the center of their universe. So whenever it makes sense to bring her up, we certainly try to — and for Jackie to have feelings about her sister not being there for her glorious moment of having found the right guy, and seeing Darlene get to a good place after all the drama and tragedy of the relationship with David to then find someone stable and solid [in Ben], it just made sense to bring her up there. And it was important to the actors, too.

CAPLAN | I think Jackie knew that Roseanne thought the strength of the Conners is when they circle their wagons against the world, and that it would have meant a lot to her to see everybody get married together — an ultimate family moment, or "us against them" moment.

TVLINE | You could have had Harris marry Aldo, then realize she made a giant mistake — that's what Darlene was willing to let happen — but she ultimately broke up with him on her own accord. Why was it important to show her come to that decision herself, without any outside interference from the family?

CAPLAN | It was a moment of growth for her. She's starting to become the young woman that she is meant to be. It would have been easy to marry Aldo and get away from the family, to gain some independence. There was a lot pulling her in that direction. But when he wanted a kid right away and she didn't, she had to think, "How am I going to take responsibility for myself and my choices in life?" That was a tremendous step forward for Harris.

TVLINE | Dan and Roseanne had the house to themselves before Darlene and her kids moved back in with them. But the idea of being an empty nester again seems to be hitting Dan rather hard. Why is that?

HELFORD | He's older, he knows he's getting older, and he sees life from a different perspective than he did 20-something years ago, when everybody left when they were supposed to leave.

TVLINE | He also seems to have a lot more faith in Darlene's marriage to Ben than he ever had in her marriage to David...

HELFORD | He sees Ben as a much more stable partner for Darlene than David was. He loved David, but he never respected David all that much. So there's that, and then you have Becky moving in with them. They're only moving a block away, so you know they're going to be in the Conner house all the time, but he's feeling that natural evolution of the family drifting a little bit.

TVLINE | So, are Dan and Louise really going to be empty nesters in Season 5?

HELFORD | Harris is going to decide — and this is not really a spoiler — she's going to decide to live with Dan and Louise and not with her mom, which is going to make for some interesting [stories].

TVLINE | Will there be a time jump at the start of Season 5? Will Darlene, Ben and Becky already be living in their new home?

HELFORD | We're not going to spend a whole season watching that house be built, but there's a lot to come. Maybe some honeymoons...

What did you think of The Conners' Season 4 finale? Drop your full review in a comment below.