- Even when you know the behind-the-scenes reasons, the script and cast does an impressive job of making Roseanne's death feel like a realistic loss—from Dan being unable to sleep in the bed he shared with his wife, to Darlene simultaneously feeling obligated and ill-equipped to fill her mother's role, to Jackie neurotically seeking out excuses not to go home because as long as she's hanging out in the Conners' house, she can still feel close to her sister.
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Season 1
Season 2
- Squabbles in "Tempest in a Stew Pot" boil over, with Becky and Jackie so mad at Darlene that Thanksgiving dinner is in doubt and Becky is moving out. A lot of the sniping is played humorously, but Dan actually takes the situation pretty hard. He enjoys having Becky and her baby around, specifically saying how it has really helped him after Roseanne died. When he tells Darlene to find some way to fix this, he's not angry or demanding, but rather desperate and practically pleading.
- Jackie slaps Darlene in "Slappy Holidays". Their argument beforehand and the following aftermath also counts.
Season 3
- Darlene reconnects with an old friend from high school, Molly Tilden, and the two, having matured and with both having gone through divorces, are better friends than ever. Darlene is under a lot of stress, per usual, but Molly convinces her to go out and have fun and Darlene actually does. Darlene! Has fun! Molly invites Darlene to go to Hawaii with her and, when Darlene goes over to accept, Molly's mother says that Molly had been in the last stages of terminal illness and died in her sleep. Darlene is shaken, not just by the death of a new/old friend but with the realization that she's spent so much of her life struggling on behalf of others that she's barely left any time for herself.
- Molly leaves Darlene the tickets to Hawaii, but when Darlene tells Ben, he guilts her into getting a refund and putting it towards their future apartment. Even after Darlene explains the pressure she's been under, complete with breakdowns that Ben knows about, and how much she needs some sort of break, Ben just says that they should focus on practical things and that they can go to Hawaii "later." It's jarring considering how Darlene's supported Ben, like when he quit a boring but paying job to do a podcast he never started, and how Ben is so busy pushing for the future he wants for them that he can't see how affected Darlene is by Molly's death. When Darlene agrees to get the refund, she looks and sounds so defeated and resigned.
- In "Money, Booze, and Lies", Becky has dinner with her now-successful high school friend/academic rival, Mikey Withers, and, ashamed of her life, pretends she's also a success. As she describes the way her life has supposedly gone, including paying off the family home so Dan could retire, Becky comes close to tears; the viewers know that the house has been foreclosed on and Dan is working part-time after losing his business. This also starts her drinking again after she's been sober since her pregnancy.
- Becky's downward spiral continues in "An Old Dog, New Tricks, and a Ticket to Ride". Deciding she wants to be the person she pretended to be to Mikey Withers, she begins taking business classes at the community college, which requires her to work double shifts at Wellman to cover the tuition. She acknowledges that she isn't spending as much time with Beverly Rose as she would like, but Emilio and his cousin, Lupe, have been looking after her and are bringing her over to spend the evening with Becky. But when Lupe hands Beverly Rose over, she starts crying, and only stops when Lupe takes her back again. Becky is so distraught that she tells Emilio and Lupe to take Beverly Rose away, promising to drop in later, and when they are gone, Becky is the one who starts crying. She later takes her duvet to a laundromat and deepens her relapse by sharing a bottle of vodka with a fellow customer.
- In "A Fast Car, a Sudden Loss, and a Slow Decline", thanks to the above, Becky winds up in a drunken stupor and leaves Beverly Rose unattended in another room, unable to hear the feverish baby's crying. There's some rapid-fire Mood Whiplash when Jackie describes how she found the baby trapped and suffocating, then admits she made that part up, then goes on to say that she did it because she wants Becky to understand the stakes. Jackie's Hilariously Abusive Childhood is usually played for laughs, but her anguish is palpable as she talks about growing up with an alcoholic father, dreading the days when he'd come home drunk and angry, until she eventually started praying that he wouldn't come home at all. The idea of inflicting that kind of pain on her daughter finally pushes Becky to admit that she's an alcoholic and agree to treatment.
- In "Cheating, Revelations, and a Box of Doll Heads", Becky's in rehab and Dan, in group therapy, admits that he hates Mark for convincing Becky to move away instead of go to college and using the money Dan and Roseanne sent for Becky's college tuition for mechanic school before dropping out. Becky gets angry at Dan, but breaks down as she admits that she started drinking because she was angry at Mark too, but felt that she shouldn't be after he died; most of all, she blames herself for letting Mark derail her plans. The idea that your bad decisions, especially those made in your youth, have cost you any chance at success or happiness is very relatable and all too common.
- Darlene decides to propose to Ben, only for him to turn her down because she's never put him first even once during their relationship and in his own words he's not angry with her, but tired. He says that he "needs some time to think" but it's very likely that they're done. Made worse at the end by the rest of her family getting their acts together (DJ, Geena and Mary reuniting and moving out of the Conner house, Jackie and Becky expanding The Lunchbox and giving the latter the opportunity to continue college and spend more time with Beverly Rose, and Dan's proposal to Louise which was accepted unlike Darlene's), with Darlene pointing out that she blew it.
Season 4
- Jackie being insecure about her age and Neville's ex Helen being around.
- Mark feeling intense pressure to stay academically proficient at his new magnet high school, causing him to avoid eating and sleeping and end up addicted to ADHD pills to keep up. His voice breaks as he tells Darlene about his daily struggles when he gets caught by her. A worried Darlene then decides to re-enroll Mark to his old public school.
- Darlene tells Dan that she's afraid that she's going to lose Mark like she lost Roseanne if he keeps going like this.
- "Triggered" is a brutal and depressing Ripped from the Headlines episode based around the recent shocking rise of mass shootings in the United States, with the Conner family dealing with the shooting itself at the local mall Beverly Rose and Emilio actually went to — where one shopper was shot, learning that the shooter was a sweet young boy whom Harris went to school with, watching him get killed by police on live television, and discussing the bleak realities of life in such a world in the aftermath. Mary advising the family on how to protect themselves in the event of a home invasion, later watching the shooter's killing and refusing to go back to school is heartbreaking.
- "Messy Situation, Miscommunication and Academic Probation" reveals that family friend Anne Marie suffered two strokes and is in the hospital, leaving Chuck so devastated, he leaves their home a mess.
