It was weird.
If you grew up in the nineties, the Conners were basically your neighbors. They didn't have a white picket fence or a massive kitchen like the families on Full House. They had a couch covered in a crochet blanket and a sink full of dirty dishes. Then came the Roseanne TV show last episode, titled "Into That Good Night," which aired on May 20, 1997. It didn't just end the series; it effectively blew up everything we thought we knew about the previous nine years.
Most people remember the lottery. The Conners won $108 million, and suddenly the show about the working class became a surreal fever dream about high society and celebrity cameos. But the finale revealed that the lottery was a total fabrication. It was a coping mechanism. Roseanne Conner—the character—had been writing a book the whole time.
Why the twist still makes fans angry
The reveal was a gut punch. In the final moments, Roseanne’s voiceover explains that her husband, Dan, actually died from the heart attack he suffered at Darlene’s wedding at the end of Season 8. He never cheated on her. He wasn't there at all. He was gone.
Roseanne had spent the entire final season reimagining her life because the reality of being a widow in a house she couldn't afford was too much to bear. She traded her grief for a fantasy where they were rich and her family was "fixed." She even admitted to swapping the personalities of her daughters' boyfriends because she thought they made more sense that way. In her book, Becky was with David and Darlene was with Mark. In "real life," it was the opposite.
It felt like a betrayal. You’ve spent a decade invested in these people only to be told, "Actually, none of that happened." It’s a polarizing trope. Some critics, like those at The A.V. Club, have pointed out that while the twist was structurally clever, it sucked the soul out of the show’s legacy. It turned a gritty sitcom into a meta-narrative experiment.
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Breaking down the "Into That Good Night" timeline
The episode starts with the family gathered around the table. It looks like a standard, happy ending. They’re eating, laughing, and the camera does a slow 360-degree pan around the kitchen. It’s nostalgic. It’s warm.
Then the rug gets pulled.
Roseanne walks into her basement writing room. The lighting changes. The bright, sitcom-hued world fades into something dimmer and more solitary. She begins the monologue that redefines the series. Honestly, it’s one of the most depressing sequences in television history. She explains that Jackie was actually a lesbian, though she wrote her as straight. She explains that her mother, Bev, was straight, but she wrote her as a lesbian to give her some "edge."
The logic was that Roseanne wanted to "fix" the people she loved through her writing. But for the audience, it felt like being told your best friend had been lying to you for a decade. It changed the Roseanne TV show last episode from a farewell into a correction.
The 2018 revival and the "Retcon"
Fast forward twenty years.
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In 2018, the show came back. The first thing they had to address was the fact that Dan Conner was dead. The revival handled this with a single, meta joke. Dan walks into the kitchen wearing a sleep apnea mask, and Roseanne says, "I thought you were dead!" He shrugs it off, and just like that, the 1997 finale was wiped from existence.
It’s rare for a show to get a "do-over," but the 1997 ending was so universally disliked by the core fanbase that the producers decided to treat Season 9 like a bad dream. They went back to basics. No lottery. No death. Just a family struggling to pay the electric bill in Lanford, Illinois.
However, the shadow of that original finale still looms. It’s a reminder of what happens when a show loses its way. Season 9 was widely considered a disaster even before the finale aired. The Conners were hanging out with Jerry Springer and fighting terrorists on a train. It was bizarre. The finale was an attempt to justify that bizarreness by saying, "It was all a story," but many felt it was too little, too late.
The legacy of the basement monologue
Despite the frustration, the final monologue is a masterclass in acting. Roseanne Barr (the actress) delivers a performance that feels raw and genuinely tired. When she talks about Dan being the "soul of her life," you feel the weight of that loss.
Specific details from the monologue:
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- The Lottery: It was a metaphor for the "easy out" she wished she had.
- The Relationships: She felt Darlene and David were a better match, so she "wrote" them that way.
- The Ending: The final shot is Roseanne sitting alone on that iconic couch. The house is quiet. The laughter is gone.
It’s a haunting image. It suggests that the entire show was a way for a woman to survive her own mundane, often painful reality. If you view the show as a character study of a writer, it’s brilliant. If you view it as a sitcom about a family, it’s a tragedy.
What we can learn from the Conners' goodbye
The Roseanne TV show last episode is a case study in how NOT to end a long-running series, or perhaps a case study in taking massive creative risks. It paved the way for other "it was all a dream" or "it was all a story" endings, though few have been quite as jarring.
If you're revisiting the series today, the finale serves as a weird time capsule. It represents the ego of a showrunner at the height of her power and the desperation of a show trying to find its identity after it had already peaked.
Actionable steps for fans and collectors
If you want to experience the full impact of the finale without the Season 9 fluff, here is how you should approach it:
- Watch the Season 8 finale first. "Is It Someone You Know?" is essentially where the "real" story ends before the lottery madness begins.
- Skip to the last 10 minutes of "Into That Good Night." The first half of the finale is filled with more lottery-era nonsense. The real meat is in the final monologue.
- Contrast it with the The Conners (the spinoff). See how the characters evolved after the 2018 "un-killing" of Dan Conner. It’s fascinating to see how they’ve aged without the burden of the 1997 twist.
- Look for the DVD commentary. If you can find the original Season 9 DVD sets, the commentary tracks provide a lot of insight into why they chose to go the "writing a book" route.
The Roseanne TV show last episode remains one of the most debated pieces of television history. Whether you hate it for the deception or love it for the bold storytelling, you can't deny it left an impression. It proved that the Conners weren't just characters; they were a part of the American psyche that people were very, very protective of.
To truly understand the show's impact, watch the final scene where Roseanne walks out of the kitchen and the lights go down. It’s the end of an era, regardless of which version of the truth you choose to believe.
Next Steps for Deep Diving into Lanford History:
- Analyze the "Meta" Elements: Compare the 1997 finale to the Newhart finale. Both used the "dream/story" trope, but one is hailed as the best ending ever, while Roseanne is often cited as one of the worst. Look at the tone difference.
- Research the Season 9 Writers: Most of the original writers left before the final season. Researching the change in the writers' room explains why the tone shifted so violently toward the surreal before the finale attempted to reel it back in.
- Track the Spinoff Continuity: If you're watching The Conners, pay attention to how they occasionally reference "the year things went crazy," which is a subtle nod to the deleted Season 9 timeline.