Chicken Wing

I guess I'm less bothered by the water thing as the grabbing her by the neck and holding her head down while bracing her leg across her back thing. Like someone said somewhere upthread, if the scene had played as Harris turned around brattily and when she turned back Roseanne turned the nozzle on her, that would have carried a different tone than her physically grabbing her and holding her down the way she did. I think that part was unnecessarily rough. I don't know what I would call it in the context of this corporal punishment debate, but it was unnecessarily rough. It's all so weird and hard to square in my head, I honestly don't know what to think.

Well, for me the issue with the spanking remarks is that it's completely out of character. Original Series Roseanne and Dan didn't believe in spanking their children. And it wasn't just an idly mentioned factoid. It was an ongoing storyline with Roseanne and Jackie due to their own childhood. Roseanne resented if not outright hated their father for hitting them. She made it a mission to never treat her own children the way her father treated her, and so was horrified when she lost control and hit D.J. that time. Dan's own childhood wasn't alluded to quite so much but the implication was made on at least one occasion that he received corporal punishment from his parents and didn't want to do the same to his kids either. So for Roseanne and Dan to now be so cavalier about spanking, to advocate that kids ought to be smacked to behave and that Darlene's generation ruined it all by making everything so PC that no one was allowed to hit their kids anymore, well, that flies in the face of their entire character history. I'm not bothered by the idea of grandparents thinking bratty kids should be spanked (though I'm personally not for it as a rule). I'm bothered by the fact that it's a continuity error in the story.

I agree. Them splitting up is perfectly realistic -- how many people actually end up happily ever after forever and ever with the person they dated since 9th grade? -- but David abandoning his children is pushing it a little too far for me. Makes me sad. That's not the sad, mopey clown-haired David we all know and love. Some additional details I read in an article that I can't find anymore:

Darlene didn't have an issue with it at the beginning of the episode, but it became a negative (1) because Harris was selfishly monopolizing the washer and dryer all day every day as if there aren't other people in the house who have clothes to wash that they actually intend to wear, and most significantly (2) when it came out that she was selling stolen clothes. I'm not exactly going to compliment my kid's entrepreneurial spirit for setting up a business that sells stolen products. That's not initiative; that's just being a thief.

Yeah, the spanking thing bothered me too. Telling Harris she was acting like an entitled bitch didn't bother me, both because she was, and because she was unbeLIEVably rude to her grandmother. I'd be missing quite a few teeth if I ever spoke to my grandmother that way. I feel like apologizing to her in my mind just for trying to imagine it. The sink thing was a little over the top and rough, and hilarious, but I wouldn't call it corporal punishment. Dan and Roseanne's cavalier attitude about spanking bothered me because it doesn't fit with the continuity. Roseanne and Jackie's issues with their father over his spanking them was a whole ongoing storyline, and we all saw how Roseanne felt when she lost it and spanked D.J. that one time. Dan and Roseanne didn't believe in hitting their children as they were hit, I believe was the line. So it's odd to the point of feeling like a continuity error to see Roseanne ragging on Darlene for not giving Harris a good smack like any parent should to teach their kids to behave.

Another thing, it kind of nagged me a little last week that Dan and Roseanne even got a stairlift for the house (I couldn't remember what they were called so I literally just Googled "old people stair thing"), just because I imagine those things are pretty expensive and they're not exactly supposed to be rolling in it. Kind of glad that they explained that Dan stole it from the dead neighbor's house. :)

I haven't noticed John Goodman sounding particularly different, but he does look more aged than he probably ought to be but I attribute that to the weight loss. When older people lose a lot of weight, particularly if they lose it in a short amount of time, their skin kind of hangs or sags a little because it's naturally less elastic with age. It's especially noticeable if they were the heavier size for a long time and their skin was used to being, well, stretched out for a long time. As a result they get kind of a drawn look about the face that makes them seem older or sickly-looking. Yes, Johnny Galecki played David, Darlene's boyfriend-turned-husband-now-possibly-ex-husband. Andy is Jackie's son, born in the sixth season. He was the result of a first-date one-night stand with Dan's buddy from work, Fred. It likely would have ended at the one night had Jackie not gotten pregnant, but toward the end of the pregnancy they started dating for real and got married in the season finale. They split up at the end of the following season when they decided they weren't compatible.

Not just a fluke. Week 2 pulls in 15.2 million viewers.

Just the thought of speaking to my grandmother the way Harris talked to Roseanne gives me the shakes. Roseanne handled her but good, and she was great in giving Darlene what-for about reining in her kid.

According to Sara Gilbert, the Conner family are not Trump supporters -- just Roseanne. And Trump will never be mentioned by name (at least in the nine episodes for this season). So, so much for the nonsense about the show being pro-Trump and showing a Trump-supporting family.

On rewatch (actually, three rewatches and counting), the first episode wasn't as unbearable with the politics angle as it felt the first time. And I realize that it's really not a pro-Trump show, as some of these people keep saying, nor was it pushing a pro-Trump agenda. It was, simply, about a political divide in a family. One character -- the main character -- supported Trump, her sister didn't, and they fought about it to the point where they stopped speaking altogether. We know Roseanne Barr is a Trump supporter, and they made Roseanne Conner the Trump supporter, but it really wasn't pushing a pro-Trump narrative. It was not pro- anyone; the storyline was about Roseanne and Jackie fighting over their political choices and that's all, which is a real reflection of the state of the country today, to be honest. People are divided. People ended relationships and friendships over this. It's real. So in that light, it was actually a good episode. The Trump and Hillary references and catchphrases were freaking annoying, but overall the theme of the episode made sense. I liked it. And since it's only just for that episode that it's going to come up, I can live with it. And I feel like Trump supporters who only watched because of the Trump angle, and Trump haters who didn't watch because of the Trump angle, are missing the point. And I don't feel like the Conners, and the show, represent "Trump's America" at all. There is no such thing as Trump's America. They represent a working-class family, same as they did in the original run, and nothing more. So those Trump supporters who tuned in because they think, "Finally, Hollywood is representing us"? Missing the point. Those Trump haters who avoided the show like the plague just because they feel like it's normalizing Trump? Again, missing the point. Now, there are also those people who refused to watch because of Roseanne Barr specifically, and their hatred of her as a right-wing Trump-loving nutcase with some really sick, demented views. I wholeheartedly agree with the Barr hatred. I'll be honest, I think she's a psychopath. She's gone from being controversial to just flat-out disgusting and evil. When I see her in "real life" in interviews or talk shows or whatever, I have to change the channel. She's gross. But when I watch this show, I don't see that woman. I don't see her real-life self. I see nothing more than the fictitious character of Roseanne Conner and I'm in the story world of the fictional Conner family in fictional Lanford, Illinois. I've loved this show for years. I only vaguely remember watching it in the original run, mostly the later years, but I became obsessed with the reruns, look forward to weekends just for the hours-long Roseanne marathons on cable. I like the show. And I was super excited about the revival and I wanted to watch it and I like it. I'm not going to not watch it because of the politics (although I might feel differently if it were going to be an ongoing plot and not just the one episode) or because of the woman starring in it. I can separate characters from their real selves. I like the show more than I hate Roseanne Barr. And I'm not going to not watch something I like to watch because people that I disagree with are fans also because they mistakenly think it's about them.

This is the greatest typo I've ever seen.

Both Becky and Darlene were their mother's daughters in different ways -- Becky was like Roseanne in the sense that she was into girly stuff and dated a boy that her parents disapproved of who was a lot like the boy her mother married; Darlene was like Roseanne in that she was a sarcastic rebel with a creative side. But Becky was also Roseanne's child and Darlene was Dan's in the sense that, in the earlier years at least, that was the parent they were closest to and could talk and relate to more than the other, which we saw directly addressed in more than one episode. Dan never had any idea how to talk to Becky, and Roseanne was bothered when Becky went through her bratty teen years and stopped sharing with her; Roseanne couldn't relate to Darlene at all, and Dan was bothered when Darlene went through her teen phase and stopped confiding in him.

Crystal, Nancy, Bev, Chuck and Ann Marie will all make an appearance. Arnie will show up when hell freezes over. I'd love it if Leon would appear but I haven't heard anything about Martin Mull participating, or Michael O'Keefe (Fred). Not sure if they intend to acknowledge that Jackie was married before -- they kind of ignored Fred's existence by the end of the original show anyway. But like I said earlier, I will be annoyed if they directly act like Andy never happened.

That's correct, the series finale reveal explains that the series as a whole -- at least since the end of season two, when the family presents Roseanne with the writing room for her birthday -- was an altered version of reality as written in her book, while the events of the final season largely didn't happen at all. There was no lottery, Roseanne and Jackie didn't go gallivanting with rich socialites, Dan didn't have an affair -- Dan wasn't there at all, he died the year before. Thankfully this revival tosses that reveal out the window, implying that that twist in itself was part of the book and therefore everything we saw over the years (minus Dan's death and the storylines of season nine) actually did happen the way it did.

Many biracial people don't look like like they're half black, half white. It's common for some mixed-race individuals to look totally black or totally white despite having one parent of each.

He was referring to another girl about the tongue. After Dan straightened him out about the play, he asked if he should also try to kiss [whatever her name was], because his friend Ralphie said she uses tongue. Dan's like, I'd go for it.

If it were my mother, I'd legit blow up that picture and plaster it across my garage door.

Was that his last name? I don't think I remember them ever mentioning it. The closest I remember them coming to referencing it was in the episode where Roseanne and Jackie took Bev to an AA meeting and Roseanne introduced them as "Roseanne C" and "Jackie O."

It's not a real town. They're just making up "facts" for their story universe. :)

The Disney World episodes were late in the season, in February 1996. They filmed before the season premiere, that far in advance? Remember the meta joke when Sarah Chalke walked into the house and an announcer says that the role of Becky originally played by Lecy then Sarah then Lecy again will tonight be played by Sarah. It was after Lecy took over the role again. I'm pretty sure I read that Lecy was just not available for too many episodes (she appeared in ten total that year), which wasn't that big a deal because both Becky and Darlene appeared only semi-occasionally in those later seasons already, but they had to get Sarah to step in for the Disney episodes and the wedding episode when Lecy wasn't available then because Becky couldn't not be there. Lecy actually appeared again, and for the last time, in the episode after the wedding.

I've literally never seen more than eight seconds of Big Bang Theory but I assume that's a reference. :)

That was jarring to me, too, but no they're not keeping the switcharoo. David was with Darlene, Mark was with Becky just as we saw all along. David will appear in one episode. I assume they're going to avoid mentioning Mark by name too often so as not to cause confusion with little Mark, and maybe David and Darlene's split was hostile to the point where even saying his name is forbidden in the house, lol.

7:00 EST.

ABC is going to rerun the premiere episodes on Easter Sunday.