User Reviews

Well, this was certainly different. Not sure why they felt the need to do this episode, but on that front it kind of makes sense. These events happen randomly so why not do it in the middle of the season.

Ignoring the political slant, it was just not that entertaining. Not bad, just not great.

On Team Dan's side for this episode. Couldn't help but roll my eyes at the pearl clutching at the family finding out Dan still has a gun in the house. Why wouldn't he? Dan's not gonna be shooting up the neighborhood. I can see wanting and having a gun to protect your family and property if somebody breaks into your house. And let's face it, when something like that happens you won't have time to be getting the police on the phone when you need to take IMMEDIATE action.

I really wish Dan had went down to the police station and picked his gun back up after Harris took it down there and got paid in exchange for it.

I can see Mary being traumatized by what happened but it was a headscratcher at Darlene acting like this is the first time a shooting has happened and they have to shield Mary from what's going on. We're at a time period where this really shouldn't be shocking or anything new. Hate that I sound so callous about it but it is what it is.

I know the gun nuts will get their panties in a twist over the notion of even thinking about taking a gun away from someone, but that's not the biggest problem with this episode.

Fundamentally, the idea is sound. A mall shooting takes place (there have been two in the upscale mall a few miles from where I live, by the way), and a neighborhood goes into lockdown. By the end, a teenager is dead, shot to death by police. These are no longer once in a lifetime events. They do happen. And families are affected, especially as it plays out on TV and the Internet.

The problem with the episode is how poorly it's constructed. The pandering is obvious, to the point of being an after school special from the 1970s. Characters practically shout (and they do shout) statistics from Wikipedia instead of lines of dialogue. They're bent to the message the episode wants to preach rather than evolve naturally out of the characters we know.

Lecy Goranson, who wrote the episode apparently, is the worst offender, screechy and histrionic, but John Goodman's Dan is not far behind. He has a pistol in his own house used only for self defense and he's been responsible with it. We know this because there has never once been mention of the gun before nor of Dan using it improperly. Yet by the end of the episode even though it's been stolen by the creepy granddaughter and traded for cash, he's okay with it. That neither fits the character nor seems dramatically honest -- it's just a convenient construction to make the message of the episode work.

If anyone was going to spout of gun statistics, it would be ex-cop Jackie, who in the earlier incarnations of the show was usually sharing, Cliff Claven-like, information nobody asked to be told. Yet here her character is reduced to some lowbrow wisecracks when not being the butt of the joke.

So, it's not the idea -- had this been done in the show's heyday and with Roseanne, it would have come across with more humor, complexity, and naturalness -- but the amateurish construction. This feels more like a skit put on by the local high school to warn against the dangers of too many guns.

And before someone says something inane like "it's just a TV show," two things: 1) This episode was hyped as being some sort of dramatic milestone, and 2) At it's best, Roseanne was one of the more thoughtful shows on TV. Like The Simpsons, it often used satire (or as close as Americans get to it) to make a serious point. But this episode is just a shell of what that former version would have accomplished. With two many characters and weak writers, The Connors is never going to be as good as Roseanne was, but it no longer even wants to try.

This episode just goes to show how people have no respect for legitimate respectable gun owners. Harris had no right to do what she did and them putting this into the episode is setting a bad example for respecting other peoples property and opinions. It states that if you firmly believe in something you should have the right to push your feelings onto other people. Dad never tried to force other people to our guns, but he had anti-gun rhetoric thrown in his face when his granddaughter stole the firearm and sold it. I've loved this series up until now, but this was downright ridiculous.

Conner family goes into hysterics discovering that Dan has a pistol and arms himself after the town goes into lock down after a mall shooting. Grand daughter then steals Dan's gun and turns it into a police buyback.

Disposing of the most effective tool available for defending the family in their economically staggering suburb town. The sheer idiocy of this episode is staggering. Doing this will in no way make things better. I just renders more people helpless victims.

Despite this episode's hysterical rhetoric, There is no such thing as gun violence. Guns are inanimate objects and as such, are incapable of violence. Only biological organisms, humans and animals are capable of violence. Anthropomorphizing inanimate objects with qualities only biological organisms can possess is a demonstration of a mental illness.

Guns are the antidote to crime and violence. That's because they're the most democratizing device humanity has ever devised. They put everyone on an equal footing, size and strength no longer matter, their physical superiority is irrelevant. Guns are the creation of the scientist and the engineer, thus the thinking, educated person's solution to violence. Make a tool to negate physical strength and superiority. Make everyone equal. Make violence untenable.

As is the case with 30-minute-episode TV shows in general, but this show in particular this was a seriously dumbed down version of reality. That works okay when you're covering topics like arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes, but it doesn't work with complex topics like this. No one would have seen the kid get shot live on the news because they simply don't broadcast stuff like that. And if that kid STOLE her grandfather's pistol and sold it, she should have had real consequences for that, not just a pathetic "I don't agree that you stole my property but I understand why you did it." He chewed her out for it...kind of...but I think he should have made her go back, tell the police it wasn't hers to give them in the first place, and get it back. They have had some ridiculous episodes on this show, but this was one of the worst. Another hysterical oversimplification brought to you by Hollywood whose goal is to make sure that only criminals and their bodyguards are allowed to have guns.

We get it, Hollywood, you don't like guns. People own guns, and some of those households have children in them. Doesn't make them wrong.

Quit politicizing this show. I have grown up with these characters and I love the family, but this season is making me question why I keep watching. When did the Conners I grew up with become such left-leaning liberals? Please, just stop using this show to hype the left agenda. I watch sitcoms to escape politics.