Scripted TV shows aren’t always the best at telling extremely timely stories, since episodes are often written weeks, if not months, ahead of their eventual airdates. But as The Conners proved with its Season 5 finale, it’s easier to achieve currency relevance when angling to the future, leading to not just one, but two scenes referencing Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. And one of them involving Mark ripping on his mom, which doesn’t seem like it would be approved by Star-Lord.
In The Conners’ latest season capper, an early scene showed Jay R. Ferguson’s Ben rocking a sweet T-shirt featuring Chris Pratt’s Walkman-adoring hero, while a later scene specifically namechecked the second and third Guardians of the Galaxy films. When I talked to showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan about crossing paths with space-faring superheroes, at least in reference form, the latter confirmed that was indeed a request made by ABC and Disney, saying:
