Roseanne

- Season 6

(1993)

Roseanne is looking forward to taking Darlene to college, but Darlene wants David to take her instead, hurting her mother's feelings.

Roseanne makes a deal with Jackie: if Jackie asks Fred out, Roseanne will ask their mother to become a silent partner in the restaurant and stay away; feelings hurt, Bev swears she won't have anything to do with either of them. Jackie and Fred go out; he wants them to keep going out, but she doesn't. Roseanne feels guilty about hurting Bev and wants her to do something hurtful back to lessen her guilt; Bev takes her up on that by selling her share of the diner to the very last person Roseanne expected...or wanted.

Jackie and Roseanne plan a housewarming party for Jackie's new home and try to hide it from their mom. Roseanne invites Darlene home for the weekend to get her back together with David. D.J. goes through a rebellious period of skipping school and enlisting Darlene's help in covering for him, and Roseanne is determined to find out what's going on. Fred pursues Jackie after their one-night stand.

When Roseanne finds a bag of pot in David's room, she's angry---and worried about how Dan is going to react. Of course, he goes ballistic, until he realizes the stuff is a 20-year old relic of his and Roseanne's youth, inevitably, they roll a joint for old times' sake, and before you can say "like, wow," Dan, Roseanne and her sister, Jackie, are adrift in a Cheech-and-Chong time warp. At first, they have fun sneaking around like they did in the '70s, hoping not to get busted by their children, but then adult realities set in like a bad trip.

Trying to conceive another child, Roseanne puts Dan on a "lovemaking schedule", to no avail. Jackie discovers that she's pregnant from her one-night stand with Fred and hesitates about telling him. Roseanne has no problem spreading Jackie's good news to their mom and their friends, but is stopped before she can tell Fred. To relieve the pressure and disappointment, Dan and Roseanne decide to stop actually trying to get pregnant, and let nature take its course.

The Conners gear up for their favorite holiday, with their traditional flair for trying to out-prank one another. Roseanne, the queen of Halloween, falls for the various elaborate pranks pulled on her by her family, for a change. Nancy is upset because she is painfully aware that Dan doesn't like her, so Roseanne sets out to convince her she is wrong by insisting that Dan pull a prank on Nancy, before Nancy sells her share of the diner to Leon.

Roseanne's attempt to encourage David to snap out of his moping over Darlene and do something with his life backfires when he decides to move back in with his mom in Michigan; when Darlene comes home for a visit to surprise David, they wind up at each other's throats; D.J. is humiliated when the entire family figures out why he locks himself in the bathroom for long stays.

Roseanne's high-school nemesis, and Dan's high-school fling, visits Dan at the city garage and invites him to lunch. Jackie finds out from Fred, lies to Roseanne, and confronts Dan at home that evening, but believes him that it was just an innocent lunch date. Unaware of how Dan spent his lunch hour, Roseanne confides in Jackie that Dan played hooky and they had the best sex ever. Since Jackie can't lie convincingly to her sister, Roseanne realizes that she's been lied to and forces Dan to come clean. Enraged and humiliated by the answer, she walks out on him.

Following the Homecoming game, Dan holds a 25-year-reunion party for his former high school football team and begs his family to behave begging his family to put up a loving, happy front for the duration. Becky and Mark come home for a visit after a long absence following their move; they're fight and Becky contemplates leaving him. Roseanne invites them to move in so they can get on their feet financially, and Darlene shares a secret with Becky.

Becky volunteers to take over cooking duties for the Conners' Thanksgiving; Dan and Mark are still at each other's throats; Fred is shocked at the dysfunction of the family he might marry into; and Nana Mary reveals a long-kept secret about Bev's marriage.

Leon manipulates Nancy and Jackie into voting to serve breakfast at the diner, among other changes, without consulting Roseanne. Starved for attention, D.J. steals and wrecks the family car while joyriding, and a stressed-out Roseanne lashes out violently, which she quickly regrets. The power play between Leon and Roseanne escalates, and Dan advises Leon to back off, but when he realizes that Roseanne is not just being paranoid about Leon, he steps aside and leaves Leon to Roseanne's mercy.

After receiving notice from the neighborhood association about not putting up tacky Christmas decorations on their property, the Conners go all out for a "white trash" Christmas. Dan and Roseanne offer Becky money to start college, but freak when she gives the money to her husband Mark to attend trade-school. When they forbid her to give it to him, she retaliates by refusing the money and taking a job in a Hooters-like bar/restaurant, Bunz, to pay for Mark's schooling herself. Meanwhile, Bev and D.J. drop in on Darlene unannounced and D.J. discovers the secret ...

Roseanne decides to join the Lanford Women's Association to develop contacts for her restaurant, especially since Leon is opposed to her being the one to do it. In an effort to suck-up, Roseanne makes D.J. play with one member's weird son, Elijah. Dan discovers that Mark has dropped out of school and spending those evenings at the Lobo Lounge. In a special cameo skit at the end, the famous "Luke" and "Laura" from "General Hospital" compare hardships with Dan and Roseanne.

Darlene is fed up with David, who has been secretly living with her for months instead of his mother in Michigan as her parents believe, but feels guilty for constantly lying to them. A miserable Becky unfairly blames Roseanne for Mark walking out on her; tired of being blamed for the whole mess, Roseanne tries to get Mark to patch things up with Becky. Looking for him at his friend's apartment, she discovers the truth of David's whereabouts from Mark's confused roommate and heads to Chicago. She drags David home with her, but lies to Dan about why he's back.

Roseanne and Becky try to convince Dan to hire Mark at the city garage. Riddled with guilt (and tired of Roseanne overworking him), David confesses to Dan that he was living with Darlene in Chicago instead of his mother's in Michigan. Furious, Dan throws him out of the house and tells Roseanne to take him to the bus station and send him to Michigan for real, but she takes him to Jackie's instead, then goes on a mission to guilt Dan into taking him back. Since Jackie wants nothing to do with Fred, she's upset that Roseanne has been helping him sneak financial support ...

Darlene comes home to try to convince her father to let David move back in the house "from Michigan", unsuccessfully. After catching David making out with Darlene in the basement, Dan finds out that his family lied to him again: not only did David not go his mom's in Michigan when Dan threw him out, but he was staying with Jackie--and Roseanne was responsible. Darlene joins David at Jackie's to get away from her furious father. Jackie gets irritated when people keep asking her to leave the room, in her own house, when they want to talk out their problems.

Since Jackie has made it very clear that Fred is not welcome to be a part of their baby's life, Fred retaliates with plans to sue Jackie for custody after the birth, which throws Jackie into hysterics. Fighting over whether Fred has the right to force himself into his baby's life, split the men and women of the Conner house. Roseanne learns that Dan put the idea in Fred's head, which puts him under the doghouse. Mark and D.J. gang up on David to challenge his masculinity, or lack there of.

Nancy introduces her new girlfriend Sharon to Roseanne and Jackie. Sharon invites them to go dancing with her and Nancy at a gay bar and winds up giving Roseanne a romantic kiss. This freaks Roseanne out, but she has a hard time figuring out why. Jackie is openly uncomfortable about people assuming she might be gay, which prompts an amused Roseanne to behave like they are a couple.

Jackie tells Roseanne that Fred wants to be in the delivery room, and the hospital will only allow one extra person to be with her. When Jackie realizes that she is in labor, Roseanne puts off calling Fred to inform him, hoping she'll get to be the one who stays with Jackie, but she feels guilty later and sends Dan out to find him. Bev reveals to Jackie that her birth name was "Marjorie," but little Roseanne's version, "My Jackie," stuck.

Audrey cries to Dan about his father owing her money, so he confronts Ed, hoping he will do the right thing. Jackie and Fred go out on a "get-to-know-you-better" date to try to build an honest, solid relationship, but Jackie's admission that she's had many more sexual partners than he has causes a big step backward in their fragile relationship. D.J. goes through a rebellious stage.

Dan's mother Audrey is put into a mental institution and Dan blames her emotional problems on the years of neglect by his father. Determined to confront his dad, he shows up at Ed's second wife Crystal's house drunk and destructive. Tired of Dan blaming everything on her husband, Crystal tells Roseanne a secret about Audrey that had been kept from Dan his whole life. Dan is filled with mortified disbelief at the revelations. Meanwhile. the older Conner-Healy kids work overtime to make D.J. think he might be crazy too.

Darlene discovers that D.J. has been sneaking off after school to attend church; D.J. gives Roseanne a hard time about morals when she accepts a mistaken delivery of a second stove at the diner.

Roseanne finds out Bev didn't get injured by slipping in the shower like she told everybody. Fred plans to propose to Jackie.

Fred climbs out of the doghouse with Jackie by gathering inspiration from her soaps and figuring out a romantic way to propose to her. David climbs into the doghouse with Darlene by commenting that it's a woman's obligation to bear children. Dan joins David in the doghouse when his attempts to be romantic with Roseanne fall short. Roseanne dreams of being romanced by the men on One Life to Live (1968).

Fred is unsettled by the fact that Jackie turns to Dan, and not him, when she needs help from a man. Upset, convinced that Jackie has feeling for Dan, and half-drunk, Fred confronts Dan, takes a swing at him, and tells Jackie that maybe they shouldn't get married, but offers no explanation. Dan tells Roseanne, who tells Jackie what is really troubling Fred, and they both have a good laugh at the idea. Clearing the air paves the way for Fred and Jackie's wedding.