Spoilers below for Roseanne's "Darlene v. David," so be sure to watch before reading on.
Since Roseanne's revival season started up, fans have been anticipating how everything would play out for two main characters. No, it has nothing to do with Jackie being grossed out by Beverly's sex stories. I'm talking about Johnny Galecki's short-lived return as (the now-vegan) David Healy, who re-entered Darlene's life with the big news that he was moving back to Lanford, and with a new girlfriend. It sounds like this episode, and perhaps the overall storyline, would have been pretty different had Galecki been around for more than a single episode.
Darlene and Roseanne: Some fans out there probably held the opinion that Darlene was a little too accepting of Roseanne communicating with David in secret, considering the two women are often seemingly seconds away from taking each other's heads off. But take comfort in Sara Gilbert saying that aspect of the narrative would have likely gotten expanded had Galecki's situation been different. Here's how she put it to TVLine.
Yes. That could've been an entire episode. One of the challenges we had was that we only had Johnny for one episode, so we had to accomplish a lot in 22 minutes.
Hopefully Darlene will at least use Roseanne's nosiness against her later in the season. However it goes, I'm pretty sure this mother and daughter will have more to argue about during the final batch of Season 1 episodes, with David being one of several topics.
David and Mark: While Johnny Galecki spent most of his onscreen time with Sara Gilbert, he did get one scene with his on-screen daughter, Emma Kenney's Harris. It wasn't the biggest moment, as David basically said he'd buy her ice cream instead of weed, but it was still an important scene between an estranged father and his mostly forgiving daughter. Doubly so, since David didn't get to see his son Mark at all. It was strange for the episode to have skipped on that moment, but it turns out that was also due to the timing. In her words.
We had spoken at length about the fact that Mark might not recognize David. And that would be [opening up] a whole can of worms. And, with just 22 minutes, we would not have been able to properly serve that storyline.
Indeed, Roseanne would have taken fans to some even more potentially disheartening places had David and Mark's relationship been shown in such a fragile and one-sided way. It was already kinda sad enough to watch Darlene end their fling before it really started, so it would have been soul-crushing to watch Mark cluelessly eyeballing David without recognizing him.
Blue: One of the biggest jaw-droppers in "Darlene v. David" came when David revealed his new love interest, who just so happens to share her name with a crayon. Again, because there was only a limited amount of time and story elements that could come into play, Blue could exist in name alone. Though if Johnny Galecki is able to escape Big Bang Theory long enough to do more Roseanne for Season 2, Sara Gilbert says that Blue could very well get a proper introduction.
There was no way we could've thrown [her] into this episode. We wanted the focus to be on David and Darlene. But I think it's certainly a possibility that we'll see Blue next season. We're just assembling the writers room now and just starting to talk about ideas. But I think that would be fun.
Roseanne's writers and producers no doubt have many, many storylines and characters to address in Season 2, now that it'll definitely be a reality. Fans definitely need to see what's up with Jerry Garcia Conner, as well as Andy Harris, and there are plenty of other O.G. characters that are due for a return. So if they have to postpone Blue's arrival to make room for everyone else, so be it. (I'm so not on Team Blue, guys.)
Be sure to keep watching the rest of Roseanne's first revival season to see where Darlene's story is going next. It airs Tuesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. And head over to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer premiere schedule to see what now and returning shows are on the way.
