Spoilers below for The Conners' Season 1 finale, so be sure to watch before reading on.
Bookending the somewhat calamitous series premiere, The Conners' Season 1 finale went to some familiar places. (Quite literally, in the case of the Lanford Lunch Box's return.) Viewers watched Darlene and David's "Could they again?/Would they again?" arc take a big leap, now that he's no longer dating Juliette Lewis' Blue. He and Darlene didn't exactly rekindle anything, but does that update imply Johnny Galecki could be more involved if Season 2 gets ordered up? According to Sara Gilbert:
That's something I'm very hopeful about. I know he loves doing the show. I love having him. We have a magical time together. I would anticipate that he would do some [episodes] but I don't want to speak for him.
In the episode, titled "We Continue to Truck," Darlene is mulling the idea of moving back away from Lanford in order to advance her relationship with Ben in Chicago. That's a decision that already comes with a lot of thinking points and caveats, even without one's estranged husband reasserting himself in one's life in order to make a spontaneous plea to get back together.
As such, it was obviously a complex conversation when David dropped by to do just that, at one point saying that there was no reason why they shouldn't be together. An interesting point-of-view from the guy who had previously been dating and sleeping with the very obvious reason why they weren't able to get back together whenever Darlene had previously entertained that idea.
There are undoubtedly plenty of fans out there who would prefer to see Darlene and David together again, largely due to nostalgia from their years together on Roseanne. Their current situation is not one through which romance could easily blossom, but it's certainly possible. That's all assuming Darlene isn't back in Chicago when Season 2's storyline would kick off.
Speaking with TVLine, Sara Gilbert compares Darlene's fresh relationship with Ben to her long-established connection with David.
I think Darlene does love Ben. But a love that's new is obviously different than a love of 30 years, with someone that you have children with. In some ways it's stronger and in other ways it can't compete.
Beyond the specific plotlines, Johnny Galecki's potential return to The Conners would be more likely than ever for its likely-to-be-announced-soon second season. After all, he'll soon no longer be one of the highly paid stars of CBS' mega-hit The Big Bang Theory, which is possibly what limited his time on both Roseanne's revival and The Conners' first season. Big Bang is one of the biggest shows ending in 2019, and Galecki doesn't currently have any major time-eating projects lined up to follow it.
What the world needs now is clearly more awkward scenes between John Goodman's emotionally rattled Dan and Johnny Galecki's permanently frazzled David. Of course, David may want to wait until Dan has calmed down a bit after dealing with both Jackie's drunken split from Matthew Broderick's Peter and Becky's baby daddy Emilio facing deportation.
Also, he may want to wait until ABC has officially announced that The Conners is indeed getting a second season to keep this blue collar family's heads above water. Here's hoping that news makes its way to the public soon, and that it'll get an even more expanded batch of episodes next time. Laurie Metcalf thinks it's happening, and in Laurie Metcalf we trust.
The Conners is currently wrapped on Season 1, which can be streamed on Hulu. While anticipating news of its future, keep track of everything coming to primetime soon with our midseason premiere schedule.
