'Roseanne' Recap: Pill Problem Reveals Painful Financial Reality

For the remaining episodes of its 10th season, Patch will give weekly recaps for "Roseanne," the revival of the popular sitcom. And we're posting these recaps on Elgin Patch because that's the nearest community to the Conner family's fictional Illinois home of Lanford.

The following recap talks about the episode of "Roseanne" that aired Tuesday, May 8. Be warned: There are potential spoilers below if you haven't already seen the show.

Before you read about the latest episode, check out Patch's previous "Roseanne" Recaps:

• Episode 3, "Roseanne Gets the Chair"
• Episode 4, "Eggs Over, Not Easy"
• Episode 5, "Darlene v. David"
• Episode 6, "No Country for Old Women"
• Episode 7, "Go Cubs"

Caught up? Good. Here's a breakdown of the highlights — and lowlights — from the latest episode.

"Roseanne" (Season 10, Episode 8): "Netflix & Pill"

What Worked: Roseanne's (Roseanne Barr) misuse of her prescription pain pills. Eight episodes in and the revival finally hits its sweet spot, juggling plot elements and characters without shortchanging either. This week's show brings to the fore Roseanne's mounting health issues that come with growing old, as well as the financial struggles of dealing with them, dilemmas that have been lingering in the background throughout the season.

A new wrinkle pops up, too: Roseanne has been hoarding the vicodin she needs for her bum knee, and she's been taking higher doses than her doctor prescribed. In some cases, she's even "borrowing" friends' leftover pills. She's found out after she mixes her meds with some wedding anniversary champagne, leading to Dan (John Goodman) scouring the house for her hidden stash(es).

Topicality has always been a calling card and strength of the series, so it's no surprise that the show would tackle the country's opioid epidemic. It's the execution, however, not the subject matter, that makes the episode noteworthy and illustrates why the nation's current drug problem is so difficult to untangle.

Roseanne's problems are shown as two-fold. Yes, she's clearly abusing her vicodin, but it's not to get high. The Conners can't afford the $3,000 deductible to surgically fix her knee, and the pills let her physically function so she can do the housework and work part-time as an Uber driver. Roseanne faces the same agonizing predicament that hundreds of Americans suffering from chronic pain and other health problems do, and she decides to self-medicate so her family can survive financially, not so she can get ripped to the gills and party.

What makes the choice even more striking is that it's presented in the same episode that Dan scolds Darlene (Sara Gilbert) for putting the pursuit of a writing career ahead of providing for her kids.

"Sometimes you just have to suck it up and put your family first," he tells his youngest daughter to convince her to take a casino waitressing job because it comes with health insurance.

If "Roseanne" is a window into working class life in 21st century America, then it's dismaying view that shows families have to sacrifice their dreams and even their health simply to scrape together enough just to get by.

What Didn't: Roseanne's reaction after mixing alcohol and pain meds. I'm not a medical expert by any stretch of the imagination, but her giddy, "happy drunk" behavior seemed a little too fun-loving for a concoction that can be responsible for shallow breathing, loss of consciousness and, you know, death. Plus, there's all that potential liver damage that a combination of booze and acetaminophen can cause, but that's not very telegenic.

That's So '90s: "Netflix & Pill" is a dark counterpoint to one of the original series' most memorable episodes. In 1993's "A Stash From the Past," Roseanne and Dan blaze through a forgotten bag of their pot from back in the day after mistakenly blaming David (Johnny Galecki) for bringing the weed into their home. The episode is famous for two reasons:

1. It was a network sitcom that took more of a Peter Tosh-"Legalize It" view of recreational marijuana use at a time when a Nancy Reagan-"Just Say No" attitude toward drugs still prevailed.
2. Laurie Metcalf as Jackie sits in Roseanne's bathtub — which she briefly mistakes for the sink and worries that she's shrinking — to deliver a wonderfully stoned and paranoid performance that is capped off with her haunting pronounciation of "ganja." (Check out the scene in the video below.)

Landmark Decisions: "Roseanne" has a history of dropping real-life locations into its fictional Illinois. This week's episode might have had a little of both:

• As noted, the Conners' fictional hometown of Lanford is near the actual city of Elgin. Does that mean that when Darlene lands a job at a Generic Riverboat Casino, she's really working at the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin.
• Darlene suggests that Becky (Lecy Goranson) go back to college part time and attend University of Illinois-St. Charles, a campus in the U of I system that apparently exists in their TV universe even if it doesn't in ours.

Best Line: "And look, between classes you can sit under a tree and play guitar with one friend of every color." — Darlene as she goes through a brochure for the fictional University of Illinois-St. Charles.

"Roseanne" airs at 7 p.m. Tuesdays on ABC.

Roseanne Barr and John Goodman in the eighth episode of Season 10 of "Roseanne." (Photo by Adam Rose | ABC)