The Conners is gearing up for its 100th episode in Season 6, a feat previously conquered by its sitcom predecessor Roseanne, which Sara Gilbert nodded to during filming. But even before setting that benchmark, the ABC fave is nodding back to its roots by bringing back a former co-star for an episode in which Dan will be facing the music for some past financial dishonesty. But will those two narrative paths be directly connected?
For the fifth episode of the ongoing sixth season, The Conners is welcoming back Natalie West, who portrayed family friend Crystal Anderson in nearly every season of Roseanne, as well as a pair of episodes in the spinoff’s first season. It’ll be her first appearance since the sixth ep, "One Flew Over the Conners' Nest," though it’s not 100% clear how she’ll factor into the upcoming storylines.
But it doesn’t take a studied look to see that Crystal wastes no time in making herself squarely at home within the Conner home. Old habits die harder than family matriarchs, I guess.
Crystal’s history with Dan and Roseanne went way back to their school days, and carried on after she started working with both Roseanne and Jackie at Wellman Plastics. Things got a lot more complicated after she married Dan’s father Ed (as played by Ned Beatty) and had Ed Jr. and Angela.
Interestingly, Crystal’s name isn’t mentioned in the episode synopsis, and West is not noted as a guest star, with only the visual evidence to clue fans in on the big return. But take a look at the synopsis below to see what Dan’s latest troubles are.
Darlene crashes Mark’s college trivia night to prove how smart she is. Elsewhere, Neville finds out the money he loaned Dan was used for something other than its intended purpose.
As Conners viewers may remember, Neville put his money where his family loyalty was and lent Dan a chunk of change to help fill out and expand the hardware store’s product inventory. And now it appears evidence will surface that leaves Dan red-handed and guilty over misappropriated funds. Not that we know what actually happened yet, but the signs are there that Crystal might be involved.
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For one, when Natalie West reprised the role for her two Conners eps in Season 1, her appearances didn’t shine any informational light on where her relationship was at with Ed. She was grieving Roseanne’s death, and later returned to voice her dislike for being in retirement mode. Then in Season 2, Dan discovered that Ed Sr. died after they’d been estranged for 20 years, and his father’s home life did not imply that he was still happily married in the slightest.
Second, let’s expand the shot of her in the Conners’ kitchen.
She’s definitely rocking a robe there, and unless Dan and Neville are throwing caution to the wind with some morning revelry, she appears to be just waking up in the middle of the day/evening. Not the most positive sign, and could indicate that she spent all night at the casino, not necessarily in the way of earning professional wages. (Although maybe she did get her old job back.)
But given the way all three characters are smiling in the shot above, I guess it could be that nothing terrible is happening with Crystal, and Dan lying to Neville about where he invested the loan money could be completely unrelated. But that wouldn't explain why Neville is smiling at all, beyond the fact that he's just a nice guy in general.
We can only hope that Crystal's return means a second appearance from Shameless’ Noel Fisher as Ed Jr. Or maybe some other guest-star surprises that I haven't considered yet. I guess we'll find out when the episode airs on March 13.
The Conners airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m., with eps available to stream the next day with a Hulu subscription.
