The Conners to air politically charged live episode on the night of the New Hampshire primary

By William Hughes | January 8, 2020 | 9:28pm

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The Conners to air politically charged live episode on the night of the New Hampshire primary

There were other images we could have used for this story, but none so terrifying as this. Photo: ABC

Pulling a move normally reserved for the likes of your Stephens Colbert, ABC announced today that it’ll be airing a live episode of The Conners later this year, timed to run the same night as the New Hampshire political primary. The episode in question will see the family’s younger members, played by Emma Kenney and Ames McNamara, watching the primary for a school report, only for the rest of the family to (unsurprisingly) barge in to the conversation to offer their own thoughts on the political process.

It’s not like The Conners—or Roseanne before it—has ever shied away from politics; even when producers made the decision to kill off Roseanne Barr’s character after comments she made on Twitter in 2018, her death was still linked to the opioid crisis in America as a way to ground it in real-world issues. From a description offered up by Variety, it sounds like the live episode will focus less on explicit political views, though, and more on the rising tide of voter apathy in response to the increased influence of money on the political process—as well as the all-too-common sensation of holding your nose and voting for the candidate who will probably “screw you the least.”