MovieChat Forums > Roseanne (1988) Discussion > The Series Finale Makes NO SENSE!

The Series Finale Makes NO SENSE!

posted 9 years ago by JaysonT
12 replies | jump to latest

(SPOILERS BELOW- don't read unless you've seen the finale of the series)

So I liked Roseanne as much as everyone else, but agree that it began to decline after season 5. But my observance of the final episode is that this was NOT the way it was intended to finish. I'll go into detail:

Roseanne admits that she made all of the events of the series up in a book she began writing, after her husband and kids give her privacy in the basement to write. But the confessions she makes don't make much sense in terms of what happened in the previous seasons:

1) She admits Darlene really was with Mark, and Becky really with David. That's a big fat lie. Becky was older then Darlene, so are we now going to assume Becky married DAVID??? And ran off to Minneapolis? Or are we to assume Darlene was really older then Becky, and she ran off with Mark? The narrative is made worse because Roseanne admits Darlene almost lost her baby. So this was Mark's baby in real life? HUH?

2) She admits Jackie was really a lesbian. "She always told me she was." So this means that all those dates, all the relationships with Gary, Booker, Fisher - all made up, and they were women? Or do we assume Jackie was dating men even though she was secretly gay? If you're a female and you're gay- you date women. Not men. Unless Jacki was bisexual.

3) She admits Dan really died of his heart-attack. This one makes a little more sense, because the following season is a lot of nonsense like them winning the lottery, doing a Steven Segal movie, Dan cheating on Roseanne--- so all that seems to fit in to a woman dealing with grieving. Because Dan was a big important part of Roseanne's life, this would be the only fiction in the book that serves a logical purpose to exist.

After watching the finale again, it's clear this was a last-minute decision by the writers and probably Roseanne herself. I highly doubt when they first started the series 10 years before, they said "Okay now the whole series is really fake- it's just a book Roseanne is writing. And we're gonna lie to the viewers for 9 seasons until the very end." I doubt that happened. I heard Roseanne herself was not happy about doing a 9th season, but the producers forced her - so she purposely botched the episodes. I also heard her creative control got worse as the seasons progressed, and that's why the show lost it's Working Class edge and everyone got more 1 dimensional.

Thoughts on this?

[–] eastSixtyEightgrl 9 years ago

My take on the series finale is this: Roseanne Barr knew that the final season was awful and needed to come up with something to remedy it. She decided that in the last minutes of the series finale, it would be revealed that from the beginning of Season 3 on, it was all a part of a book Roseanne Conner had been writing. The majority of events on the show were either made up or altered to fit her perceptions of how she thought things in her real life should have gone. Basically if her real life daughters were dating guys she thought were wrong for them it was switched on the series. It doesn't mean that Becky was with David and Darlene with Mark just that in real life one daughter was with a David type the other a Mark type and she thought it didn't make sense and changed it around for the show as she did many other story lines. Personally i think Season 5 was when the series should have ended.

[–] shop-girl23 9 years ago

Points 1 and 2 have always bothered me too, I have assuned that it was Darlene that eloped with Mark, as she was only 1 year younger than Becky. i don't know what that means for the college story, did Becky get to go to college and fulfill the Darlene storyline? Or did she and David live in the trailer park? Roseanne should have explained this a little better, but it was meant to be that Darlene bought Mark home first, so in my mind I just switch the storylines for the daughters. Who had a baby? I don't know.
As for Jackie, that was once again Roseanne throwing in another gay character because she could. It made no sense, was Andy actually born? Was Jackie physically assaulted by a partner? It's so dumb.
I stop watching the show at the end of season 8 now, season 9 is such a mess I can't stand it. I read that Roseanne knew it was her last season and just went for it, despite making no sense.

[–] DimlyGlowingEmber 8 years ago

They were 18-24 months apart.

Darlene was 11 when Becky was 13. Darlene was 14 when Becky was 16. etc.

[–] Samuraibro 8 years ago

So they were 2 years apart. 

[–] drowningintheseaoflovexx 9 years ago

I hate season 9 so much. The finale is such a huge disappointment!

1) Darlene and Mark together would make zero sense! I wouldn't see her putting up with Mark, because there is no nice way to put this, but Mark was really stupid. Haha. She may have first been attracted to him, but I couldn't imagine there would be any chemistry between them.

2) Jackie dated several guys, so unless she was actually dating women, I didn't understand revealing that she was a lesbian. It wouldn't make sense that she dated and slept with all of those men if she was secretly a lesbian.

3) I agree that Dan having a heart attack would be the plot twist that would make the most sense. I just couldn't see him cheating on her, physically or emotionally.

The finale was just a huge train wreck!

[–] dpcole7 8 years ago

I perceived it as she started writing this novel back after Dan converted the downstairs into her writing room (season 3?). The Roseanne character wrote a novel imagining her family under a different set of circumstances after observing her family in "real life" in the episodes and writing out in the book what the situation could have been like otherwise.

I think Roseanne, the show's producer and creative input comedienne, was writing the episode as to how she would have portrayed these characters if she had full reign at the time.

The season 9 DVD set had an extra, which had Roseanne saying she was persuaded to stay. After which point it really makes sense as to why the show became so weird.

[–] BugisStreetAnnie 8 years ago

I also found the last episode so confusing.

With this comment:

2) She admits Jackie was really a lesbian. "She always told me she was."

[–] jname967 8 years ago

If I remember correctly, in Roseanne's sisters' (Geraldine Barr) book "My Sister, Roseanne" she wrote the Jackie character was originally supposed to be her and a lesbian since Geraldine is. At the time they didn't have any lead gay characters in a sitcom, so Jackie became a heterosexual instead. Roseanne does often say the show is based on her life: the three kids are modeled after her three kids and Dan, is based on her then-husband, Bill Pentland. Jackie is the only one not based on her actual sister.

Yes. I have Geraldine's book. She states this. And it's fair to assume the idea of Jackie coming out as gay was surely too risky at that time. Sure, we had Leon and Nancy—but they weren't nearly as large a character as Jackie.

[–] dpcole7 8 years ago

I just rewatched it.

Those who sat through the weirdest season 9 episodes (Roseambo being the worst, if not the jetsetting and prince Vern arcs) were later rewarded with what is actually a very strong finale, bookending with the camera-around-the-table but reminding us that this is still a family that stayed together even during the worst of times.

Yeah, it more or less hints that Roseanne the TV mom wrote a book about her family, the origins of this meta-textual setting are arguably from season 2 when the basement becomes her writing room, back when Roseanne the producer started adding more input into the shoot.

Whenever the TV mom making book about how the TV mom wrote a book on how her actual TV family was, also based loosely on the producer (Roseanne) was is actually pretty brilliant, even if it is a case of series deconstruction. It manages to bring back the three-dimensional aspects, which later seasons (especially 9) were lax on.)

But even despite the dumber episodes, it was another stroke of brilliance to incorporate the infidelity subplot. Season 9 is not perfect, but is absolutely is underrated, and its high notes are stronger than even some of the earlier seasons since there were still ways the show could carry on.

Even Darlene's baby, and unlike Harris Connor Healy, I was 3 months premature. They easily could have made a season 10 involving not just Mark and Backy's baby, but David and Darlene and her baby and what, if anything, all those drugs could have caused, and save what is really a good finale for the end of 10... But it was heartfelt when it was the spirit of the women circled around the baby that helped it survive.

And, dang, that ending really is pretty darn BLEAK when it goes from family setting, to Roseanne's thoughts, to Dan's empty chair... Wish the DVD had the full uncut episode and not the syndicated 2-part edit...

[–] tinkerbell_jonna 8 years ago

"1) She admits Darlene really was with Mark, and Becky really with David. That's a big fat lie. Becky was older then Darlene, so are we now going to assume Becky married DAVID??? And ran off to Minneapolis? Or are we to assume Darlene was really older then Becky, and she ran off with Mark? The narrative is made worse because Roseanne admits Darlene almost lost her baby. So this was Mark's baby in real life? HUH?"

I thought about that but who's to say in their REA LIFE that Darlene was not the older sister and Becky the younger one? When new Becky took over, I always got the impression they kinda intended BECKY to be the YOUNGER sister for some reason, it just seemed that way, esp. when Darlene commented once when Becky was born she looked so "uninformed"~paraphrased~ and how she still looks like that.....implying Darlene remembers Becky being born. OR Who's to say David may not be the older brother and Mark they younger one? But yes it was definitely Mark's and Darelen's baby in real life. BUT in the story version it is reviled that Becky is pregnant too, so we still end up with David going to be a father.

"2) She admits Jackie was really a lesbian. "She always told me she was." So this means that all those dates, all the relationships with Gary, Booker, Fisher - all made up, and they were women? Or do we assume Jackie was dating men even though she was secretly gay? If you're a female and you're gay- you date women. Not men. Unless Jacki was bisexual."

Yeah they were either made up OR Jackie was just FINDING herself. Sometimes lesbians DO date men if they are not fully out, or trying to FIGHT their feelings.

"After watching the finale again, it's clear this was a last-minute decision by the writers and probably Roseanne herself. I highly doubt when they first started the series 10 years before, they said "Okay now the whole series is really fake- it's just a book Roseanne is writing. And we're gonna lie to the viewers for 9 seasons until the very end." I doubt that happened. I heard Roseanne herself was not happy about doing a 9th season, but the producers forced her - so she purposely botched the episodes. I also heard her creative control got worse as the seasons progressed, and that's why the show lost it's Working Class edge and everyone got more 1 dimensional."

I feel they probably had the ending in mind as early as season 8, POSSIBLY even season 7. B/c in season 8 there are vague foreshadowings and hints to what's to come.. Once Roseanne says, "I get the feeling something GOOD is about to happen to us like we are on some cosmic streak of luck!" ~paraphrased again~

[–] euronick61 8 years ago

I believe that the reason for Season 9 was that Roseanne tried to buy the US rights to the UK series 'Absolutely Fabulous' starring Jennifer Saunders & Joanna Lumley about two rich women living in London living a life of drink, drugs and celebrity but the US censors and the network wouldn't let her make it containing bad language and scenes of drug taking and sex (which were a huge part of the UK version, allbeit comically handled) and Roseanne said that without those it was pointless trying to make it ... so she tried to turn Roseanne The Series into a version of that thus having the Connors win the state lottery and Roseanne and Jackie more or less becoming the two characters from Absolutely Fabulous .. in fact the two stars from that series, Jennifer & Joanna, made an appearance in the 9th series of Roseanne as their characters Edina & Patsy from AF

[–] BlondePanther2 8 years ago

They should have had the winning the Loto been the dream of Roseanne and left everything else the same. This is one of my favorite shows but I rarely will watch any episodes from the 9th season.