Up to 5.6% cash back check out this fortnite sun strider cosplay costume and start saving big today! Price (low to high) price (high to low) savings new. We wanted to make sure that one kid who's obsessed with the loot llama, can dress up in a fortnite llama costume (it also makes for an amazing giddy up fortnite costume if we're being completely honest).
Photo: Hulu/ABC
sunny fortnite costume
There’s no other way to look at it: Roseanne’s return was all about politics. The 2016 election directly influenced ABC’s decision to revive it (Roseanne Barr and John Goodman have said exactly that), and all the press surrounding the first episode earlier this year focused on Roseanne Conner’s #MAGA devotion. Fast-forward just a few months and nothing has really changed. The Conners is still about politics, just in a broader sense. And like the Roseanne revival, it’s entire existence is owed to politics as well since Barr was fired from her show for tweeting racist remarks about a former adviser to President Obama. This is a show that is tangled up in real world issues, and that’s the way it’s been since the blue collar Conner family debuted 30 years ago.
The problem with the Roseanne revival, though, is that it never wanted to actually engage in those politics. The Roseanne premiere episode from back in March was all about Trump without actually being about Trump. Characters just traded buzzy insults at each other, dumbing down real fraught family fissures into something that could be solved in a scene or two. There was no nuance and no character-driven POV.
The Conners, which debuted earlier this month, has mostly avoided the pitfalls of the Roseanne revival by not addressing the Trumpiness of the midwest by name. Instead, the first two episodes focused on broader issues that are still inherently political (the opioid epidemic and substance abuse), but in a natural way. The issues were character-driven and the writing let the Conners deal with them in their own voices.
“There Won’t Be Blood,” The Conners‘ first Halloween episode without Roseanne, feels different from the previous two. This episode’s hot-button topic, whether or not it’s okay to wear Halloween costumes others might find offensive, feels a bit more “Very Special Episode”-y. But then again, this is the first Halloween episode of a Roseanne show in 22 years and talk of cultural appropriation has become a seasonal tradition since then. Was there anything else this episode could be about, really? Maybe if The Conners gets a Season 2 we can see them do a riff on the rise of A24’s arty mainstream horror (we all wanna see Laurie Metcalf channel Toni Collette in Hereditary, right?). But right now, PC Halloween culture is the issue of the week–and The Conners‘ take on it isn’t as terrifying as that sounds!
Instead of simplifying the matter into black and white, right vs. left, snowflake vs. deplorable issue, “There Won’t Be Blood” actually offers multiple sides to the argument and lives with the fact that there’s a whole lot of uncomfortable gray area in matters like this. Here’s how it breaks down:
Darlene’s (Sara Gilbert) youngest child Mark (Ames McNamara) wants to dress as a character from Fortnite with a severed head accessory.
But it turns out that Mark’s school has banned any costume that could be deemed offensive, which includes characters from violent video games. Dan (John Goodman) voices an opinion fresh from the Roseanne revival, calling all this “PC crap” and saying he and his late wife woulda totally fought this. If Roseanne were alive, that’s what this episode woulda been: a right-wing crusade against whiny libs and, since Roseanne was the title character, the show would’ve had to have placed her as correct (this wouldn’t have been the case in the original run, but the revival had a real hard time showing Roseanne as anything other than right).
Thankfully that doesn’t happen here. The show’s now titled The Conners and Darlene, not Roseanne, is the co-lead of the show. Because of that, Darlene’s opinion gets to be expressed (we never got to see Darlene fight with Roseanne over their definitely differing political views in the revival!), and she doesn’t agree: “I know you and mom felt that way but maybe I don’t. Some stuff does cross the line and Mark will be completely fine in a different costume.” Wow–The Conners just had two characters of equal prominence voice differing opinions rooted in their world views!
Things don’t go well for Mark’s second costume, though. He spends two days whipping up a picture perfect celebration of Frida Kahlo, “one of the great artists of the 20th century” he says, a woman whose style he admires. But even though his costume’s coming from a place of celebration and admiration, the principal denies him entry to the Halloween carnival citing cultural appropriation.
“No, it’s cultural appreciation,” says a now agitated Darlene. “He loves Frida Kahlo.”
The principal doesn’t budge. “I get what the rule is for, I really do,” says Darlene. “But sometimes the good intention of the rule gets taken a little far, don’t you think?” Darlene wants the principal to “start judging Mark on an individual basis instead of lumping him into some category on a list.” It doesn’t work. Instead, Darlene and Mark spend the evening wandering around a cemetery.
So the episode ends without a happy ending, with the characters all in disagreement but all right and wrong in their own way. Dan’s right to want to fight for his grandson, but he’s wrong in wanting to disregard the genuine feelings of others. The principal’s right to make sure no kid wears something heinously offensive to a school function, but he’s wrong to lump celebrating Frida Kahlo in with kids potentially dressing up as a degrading Mexican stereotype. Darlene’s right that there are costumes that cross the line, but her request that Mark be given special treatment does sound a little culturally privileged.
This is the way these arguments play out in real life, with no easy solutions. This is also how these issues played out in the original Roseanne run; episodes weren’t afraid to end with you not sure who was right or racist or wrong. Darlene basically says this at the end of the episode when she and Mark return home and tell Dan what happened: “You were still mostly wrong but this guy was mostly wrong too. So what have we learned? Men are wrong.”
“There Won’t Be Blood” isn’t a perfect episode by any means. The principal (played with snippy charm by the always great John Billingsley) is just an obstacle dropped in the episode to parrot and parody what conservatives would call “PC culture.” It helps that Darlene agrees with his sentiment and, more tellingly, doesn’t agree with Dan. Maybe that means this episode plays too far down the middle, and I know that certain parts will make people on the right or left cringe. But considering how unfairly weighted this show was just earlier this year, I call this progress.
Stream The Conners "There Won't Be Blood" on Hulu