‘Roseanne’: Johnny Galecki’s Return Is a Perfect Metaphor for a Show Wrestling with its Own Messiness

[Editor’s note: The following article contains spoilers for “Roseanne” Season 10 Episode 5, “Darlene v.

David.”]One of the challenges of a new ABC season of “Roseanne” was to make it feel like something other than a simple parade of familiar faces.

To make this seem like a fulfilling storytelling exercise and not a pure nostalgia grab, it wasn’t enough just to bring the whole gang back: There needed to be a reason.

Though the first handful of episodes has found things beyond “Roseanne” canon to discuss — with mixed results — this reboot did well to frame its experiences around the main members of the family.

Keeping that interconnected web of Conners and Healys at the heart of the show was the only way to revive the series.Still, this new “Roseanne” would still have been possible without the return of Johnny Galecki’s David Healy.

With the actor’s commitments elsewhere and a Darlene storyline that explained her new chapter as a single mom,

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