With The Conners Season 5 finale wrapping up with various family members celebrating the high school “graduations” they weren’t privy to in the past, it might have been a unique way for the network sitcom to close out entirely. Luckily for the show’s loyal fanbase, ABC is all about keeping its most popular comedy series around, with the Season 6 renewal officially getting announced this week amid all the cancellation news. What can we expect to see from the Lanford clan whenever new episodes arrive? If it looks like a happy Becky romance, and sounds like a happy Becky romance, I think we can assume that’s what it’ll be, assuming past guest star Sean Astin can make the scheduling work.
CinemaBlend talked with The Conners showrunner Bruce Helford and fellow executive producer Dave Caplan ahead of the Season 5 finale (and thus ahead of the now-ongoing WGA writers strike), and also ahead of ABC’s renewal announcement. But considering both of them are aware enough of how well the show has been doing for ABC, they talked with confidence about where they’re interested in taking the story next, and everything may be coming up roses for Lecy Goranson’s Becky and Sean Astin’s Tyler, who was first introduced as a possible love interest in the episode “What's So Funny About Peas, Love and Understanding?” Here’s how Helford teased things:
Becky’s gonna have a boyfriend. We really, really love the chemistry between her and Sean Astin. We didn’t really have a chance to capitalize on that this season, but we’re looking forward to bringing him back next season and giving her an arc regarding maybe finding a relationship that works long term.
What what? Becky Conner in an actual loving and romantic relationship for the long haul that (presumably) won’t involve potential deportation or an unplanned pregnancy from freezer sex? That sounds like a winner on all fronts, since Becky has gone through a whole lot of hardships and emotional wrangling without many avenues to long-lasting happiness. Obviously her and Emilio’s daughter Beverly Rose counts as one, but since she’s not always in Becky’s care, even she feels like less of a permanent source of glee.
But it was very clear from Episode 520 that Becky and Tyler shared a connection that felt as if it extended to the actors themselves successfully bonding in the relatively short amount of time Sean Astin was available for filming. To that end, Dave Caplan said they also feel Becky is now at a centered place where she’s ready to take on a serious romance from a sensible perspective.
That was kind of the fun of it, that we think about these things in terms of the really long arcs, too. For us, this arc goes back to Becky getting sober. And with being sober and having the baby, and being a single mom now and going back to school, she’s at a place in her development where she’s got a clearer idea of the kind of partner she wants in life. It’s not what she thought when she was younger and drinking. It’s somebody else now, and we get to explore that. Sean and her seemed to have a chemistry that we’re really looking forward to digging into next year.
For as much as The Conners’ producers probably wanted the best from bringing Sean Astin into the cast, especially since the show is a proven magnet for awesome guest stars, it sounds like Bruce Helford & Co. weren’t initially hooked to the idea of bringing Tyler in on a more permanent basis. Rather, it sounds like everyone’s experiences filming the episode led to further conversations about where that storyline could go. In his words:
We never know quite what we’re jumping into when we bring in a guest star to be a love interest. Just like with Nat Faxon, we’re really happy that they have such great chemistry, so we’re looking forward to it.
As awesome as all of the above is, we’ll close things out on a slightly more bittersweet note, with Dave Caplan sharing hopes for a lack of setbacks from the writers strike, not realizing it would soon derail the networks’ Fall TV lineup, with all scripted shows being currently held for midseason debuts.
We’re hopeful that any kind of strike, if there happens to be one, will be short-lived and won’t impact the number of episodes we’ll get to produce in Season 6. Because we think there’s a lot more stories to go. We really are feeling the glow of having done a Season 5 that everybody seemed to really joy and really like, so we’re pretty excited about Season 6 because of that. So we’re hoping we get to do everything that we want to.
Somehow I doubt the strike counts as something they all wanted to do, but if anything, here's hoping it leads to the best storylines possible being conceived, if not yet put to paper. As well, nobody ask Sean Astin to be in any giant movies where he would have to turn down The Conners. Please, and thank you.
While waiting to see when The Conners will return to audiences for Season 6, fans can rewatch all of Season 5 with a Hulu subscription.
