This Week’s Roseanne Finally Felt Like the Old Roseanne

This post contains spoilers for Roseanne Season 10, Episode 4, “Eggs Over, Not Easy.”

It should come as no surprise that the saddest episode of the Roseanne reboot so far was also its best—and, perhaps more importantly, the closest to evoking the spirit of the original series. Although the original Roseanne was obviously a sitcom, it was also infused with a dark sensibility: the Conner family, despite their fighting spirits and fierce devotion to one another, could never quite clear the economic hurdles that kept them constantly teetering on the edge. And so, as the new Roseanne turned its gaze toward Becky—whose sole goal in the revival so far has been to become a surrogate for Sarah Chalke’s character, Andrea, in exchange for $50,000—some of the most central themes of the series emerged at last. And when Becky found out that she would not only be unable to serve as a surrogate but can probably never have kids of her own, something amazing happened: the revival stopped feeling like a strange otherworldly version of the original, and began to look like its natural continuation. The most important ingredient? Roseanne Conner finally admitted she was wrong about something.

In its first three episodes, the Roseanne revival has often felt more like a megaphone for Roseanne Barr and conservative talking points than an organic continuation of the Conner clan’s story. Some of Roseanne Conner’s positions have gone so far as to fly in the face of the character’s established history. Most grating of all, in its first handful of episodes, the Roseanne reboot seemed bent on making sure its Trump-voting “domestic goddess” never, ever had to admit she was wrong. Tuesday’s “Eggs Over, Not Easy” took a different approach: it avoided issues that have historically served as political hot buttons in favor of focusing primarily on Becky and her desperation to secure her financial future. And rather than prop up Roseanne’s point of view—or brush off her brusque treatment of Becky when things turned sour—the series finally put its title character on the wrong side of an argument.

Roseanne’s refusal to support her daughter’s choice to become a surrogate has been well established, but early on in the episode, Dan manages to talk her out of sabotaging Becky’s chances of carrying Andrea’s baby. After many years married to Roseanne, it’s clear Dan knows that he has to pick his battles—and shielding Becky from her mother’s interference is apparently one fight he’s willing to endure: “Neither of us wants this to happen, but she’s a grown woman and she’s made it clear we don’t have anything to give her, so we shouldn’t be standing in her way,” he tells Roseanne. “Did you see the look in her eyes when she thought she had the money for some kind of future? We got no right to tell her she can’t take $50,000.”

Roseanne’s grudging acquiescence—and Dan’s nervous surprise—are a reminder of just how good Barr’s chemistry with John Goodman has always been. Even in victory, Dan walks on eggshells; when Roseanne asks what he wants for lunch, he wisely replies, “Something that was prepared, cooked, and sealed in another location.” And when he tells her he’ll take something she can microwave? She tosses a still-frozen TV dinner in his direction. That is the Roseanne old fans remember—and in the absence of heated political debates, that enduring dynamic shines through.

Later on, when Becky returns home from the hospital, Roseanne offers a real mea culpa: “Sometimes I’m a selfish old woman,” she says. “I get real stubborn about what I want and I forget that there are other people—and apparently they want stuff, too. But the point is, I should have gone to the doctor with you, and I should have been there for you.”

Becky’s economic struggles are only half of what makes her exchange with her mother so powerful: this week, she also revealed that she and her deceased husband Mark had been trying to have a baby before he died. (Glenn Quinn, who played Mark Healy in the original series, died in 2002 of an overdose; his death was written into the revival from the start.) Since Mark’s death, Becky says she hasn’t found anyone about whom she feels the same way. And, as she mournfully tells her mother, she thought she had more time to find that person and start a family. For fans who watched the once precocious Becky’s long path to getting stuck working at a Mexican restaurant—watching, as she put it, “white people order fa-jee-tas”—the heartbreak is even more profound. Becky dropped out of high school to be with Mark, and their rocky marriage often saw conflict in the original series due to Becky’s nagging feeling that she wasn’t living up to her full potential. With Mark gone now, Becky is not only stuck economically, but also very likely to miss out on her dreams of starting a family.

In bringing Roseanne back to air, the show’s producers have argued that ABC is giving America a chance to watch a family sort out its differences—political and otherwise. But arguments about who should hold power in Washington were never a part of the original series’ formula, which might be why the revival’s political arguments have fallen flat. Even its discussion of historically politicized issues, such as spanking, have felt contrived: Roseanne Conner’s unambiguous and vocal support of corporal punishment last week, for instance, completely defied her established position in the original series. Other political topics, like Darlene’s son Mark’s propensity for wearing feminine clothing, have highlighted some of the issues on which Roseanne Barr has been most ugly.

This week’s conflict, on the other hand, allowed the series and its characters to do what they do best: disagree, argue, reconcile, and support one another even in the face of life’s most tragic heartbreaks. Sure, there were still things that felt a little out of place—like the repeated insistence that Roseanne’s sister, Jackie, has no one to love or care about her, which might make some fans wonder what ever happened to her son Andy, who should be in his mid-twenties by now. But overall, Tuesday’s episode proved that the old Roseanne is in this revival somewhere—if viewers are willing to stick it out through some frustrating moments to find it.

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