‘The Conners’ Airing Live During the New Hampshire Primary

The Conners cast

ABC announced Wednesday, January 8 that its hit sitcom The Conners will air live the night of the New Hampshire presidential primary in a special episode focusing on the first-in-the-nation election Tuesday, February 11 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

The Conners Live

ABC News’ coverage of the New Hampshire primary will be incorporated into the broadcast as real-time results roll in throughout the evening. The episode will also air live on both the east and west coasts — meaning the actors will perform the episode twice and the episodes likely will not be exactly the same.

The live episode will find Mark (Ames McNamara) watching the results of the primary for a school report, while Harris (Emma Kenney) sits by watching and feeling apathetic about the electoral process. She believes that money’s influence in politics means that any meaningful change is impossible.

The rest of the family will share their differing perspectives on why they think everyone should vote, including their own working-class perspective that you may have to vote a candidate you don’t love but one that will “screw you the least.”

Meanwhile, Louise (guest star Katey Sagal) gets an opportunity that might send her away from Lanford, which spurs the family to interfere in Dan’s (John Goodman) complicated relationship with her by throwing Louise a surprise going-away party, which creates major new tensions between Dan, Becky (Lecy Goranson) and Darlene (Sara Gilbert).

It’s nice that the family has come around on Louise, especially Jackie. As recently as the December 10 episode, Jackie and Louise were still at odds because Jackie felt a little uncomfortable about Dan moving on from Roseanne after her recent death. But Louise told Jackie that Dan is lonely and he’s a great guy and he deserves to have someone to spend his life with.

But now if Louise is leaving Lanford, maybe Dan won’t find that just yet. We’ll just have to tune in to find out if Louise is sticking around or not.


The Conners’ Political Track Record

The Conners and its predecessor Roseanne have never been shy about tackling political issues and this is just another example in a long line of the Conner family exploring different viewpoints, whether those be political or not.

“I hope that the candidates are watching our show because I think what our show is depicting is a working class that can be very stuck socio-economically and these people in our country are not victims, they are not powerless, but their voices need to be heard,” Goranson recently told The A.V. Club. “I feel like I want one politician at least to pay attention to that demographic that we’re representing.”

The show also doesn’t shy away from inter-family struggles, like in the recent Thanksgiving episode where Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) got so angry at Darlene that she slapped her in front of everyone.

The Conners may not always be pretty, but it shows what real life is like for a lot of families. The live New Hampshire primary episode should be an interesting and provocative episode.

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