Take Three: The Conners

The Conners: Season 1, Episode 3 “There Won’t Be Blood” (B)

This is actually the way to do a Halloween episode: have characters dress up in costumes that mostly serve as fodder for one-liners or figure more specifically into the plot. It’s interesting to have Darlene and Dan remaining on this show as opposite political figures, and in this case of political correctness that Dan decried, Darlene actually ended up arguing against it because she saw it stifling Mark’s creativity and the incredible effort he put in to make his Frida Kahlo costume. That felt to me like a pretty legitimate and unoffensive way to deal with the topic of just how much is too much to censor without providing a decisive answer, since Mark ultimately wasn’t let in to the carnival. Becky’s costume was entertaining, as was her commitment to it. I was surprised to see Matthew Broderick as Jackie’s new boyfriend Peter, who was incredibly boring with his pre-prepared facts about Halloween. It was pretty funny to watch Darlene try to score a job as a waitress insulting diners as she obliterated David Paymer’s self-esteem with her genuinely mean comments. Dan, on the other hand, did his best to hold his tongue and dance around what he really wanted to say about Peter even though Jackie was begging him for something reminiscent of how Roseanne might have skewered him. Harris passing her driver’s test by some miracle helped show a much more mature side of her as she came up with an impressive and adult plan of how she would be able to afford the car and everything related to it.