The Conners: John Goodman Says Spinoff Will Kill Off Roseanne

If John Goodman is to be believed, upcoming Roseanne spinoff The Conners will see the family dealing with the aftermath of the death of matriarch Roseanne Conner.

Earlier this year, ABC announced that it was cancelling the newly-revived Roseanne after a single season, following series star Roseanne Barr's controversial comments on Twitter about former White House adviser Valerie Jarrett . But, given the show's success (the season premiere drew over 18 million viewers), it wasn't long before ABC announced that the rest of the cast would be moving forward with a Roseanne-less spinoff, tentatively titled The Conners, although it wasn't clear how the show would deal with Barr's absence.

Now, with thanks to EW, it seems that John Goodman has at least partially answered that question. Goodman conducted an interview with The Sunday Times (behind a paywall) in which he commented that his character Dan Conner will "be mopey and sad because his wife's dead".

There's no official word from ABC at time of writing. Ironically, Dan himself was revealed to have died in the original series finale back in 1997 - a move that was retconned for the series revival this year.

Despite the controversy, Goodman seems to have remained somewhat loyal to Barr herself - firmly stating that "she's not a racist" and that he was "surprised" by the response to her tweet. He also reveals that he emailed her to thank her for relinquishing her rights to the series to allow The Conners to move forward, but that he hasn't received a reply.

The Conners will premiere on October 16, 8pm ET on ABC.