The Conners is gearing up to take its final bow.
ABC renewed the series for a seventh season on Friday, May 10, which will serve as its last. The final season will reportedly be shorter than previous installments and consist of six episodes, according to Variety.
ABC declined to comment on season 7’s episode order.
“You’ve been part of this family for years. After 6 seasons, be there to say goodbye,” ABC captioned a trailer sharing the announcement on YouTube Friday.
The sitcom premiered in October 2018 as a replacement for the Roseanne continuation that began that March. The show was forced to pivot after nine episodes when series star Roseanne Barr exited the series after receiving criticism for racially insensitive social media posts. Barr, 71, has since apologized for making a “bad joke” about White House aide Valerie Jarrett’s appearance and politics.
After Barr departed the show, The Conners focused on the rest of the family as they faced life after the matriarch’s on-screen death. The series stars John Goodman as Dan Conner, Laurie Metcalf as Jackie Harris, Sara Gilbert as Darlene Conner, Lecy Goranson as Becky Conner-Healy, Emma Kenney as Harris Conner-Healy, Ames McNamara as Mark Conner-Healy and Jay R. Ferguson as Ben Olinsky. The Conners was renewed for a second season in the spring of 2018.
“While we wish the very best for the cast and production crew of The Conners, all of whom are deeply dedicated to their craft and were Roseanne’s cherished colleagues, we regret that ABC chose to cancel Roseanne by killing off the Roseanne Conner character,” Barr and her rabbi, Shmuley Boteach, told Us Weekly in a statement after the premiere in 2018. “That it was done through an opioid overdose lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show.”
Six years after her exit, Barr opened up about the sitcom continuing without her, telling The Los Angeles Times in February 2023 that she “just can’t bear” to watch, so she doesn’t tune in.
“When they killed my character off, that was a message to me, knowing that I’m mentally ill or have mental health issues, that they did want me to commit suicide,” she told the outlet. “They killed my character. … And all of that was to say thank you for bringing 28 million viewers, which they never had before and will never see again. Because they can kiss my a—.”
The rest of the cast, meanwhile, have often expressed their gratitude that the show has been able to continue despite the drama.
“I was really excited, and I did not know what to expect in the sense of everyone coming back together,” Kenney, 24, gushed exclusively to Us on the subject of returning to The Conners for a second season. “I’m really grateful that it came together the way it did, and I’m really excited for the stories that we’re telling this season. … It was a happy moment seeing everyone again, and I’m really happy that we’re all back together, and I know everyone has each other’s backs.”
She continued, “Everyone is very professional. Everyone is very kind, and it’s just a very good group of people working together. We all have very similar kinds of motives and agendas. And, we know the stories that we want to tell this season, and this is the same family – the Conner family – and I’m really looking forward to telling more of their stories and their lives.”
Season 6 of The Conners premiered in February, with the series celebrating its 100th episode last month. At the time, showrunner Bruce Helman told Deadline that there have been “no long-term contracts” for the show, as the cast and crew have continued to go season-by-season and “see what happens after that.” He added that he was crafting the end of season 6 to work as a series finale, if necessary.
“We’ve got a final episode that may be one or the other. We love it,” he told the outlet. “Well, we can promise you this, whatever it is, it will not be what people expect, because we pride ourselves on doing that. And so it will be unexpected, and it will be emotional.”
The Conners airs on ABC Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET.
