'The Connors' Might Be Killing Off Another Character — Find Out Who

WARNING: This article contains potential spoilers for The Conners Season 5.

ABC's popular sitcom The Conners has gone through a lot of cast changes. Several characters have been written out or simply disappeared from the show over five seasons, including Michael Fishman's D.J. Connor, a few love interests, and several kids. What happened to Jackie's son Andy is one of the show's ongoing questions.

Most notably, the series started off as a revival of Roseanne before Roseanne Barr's dismissal from the show. To explain her absence, the series killed off her character and made her husband, Dan, a widower. Now it seems like The Conners may be about to kill off Beverly Harris, the beloved matriarch played by Estelle Parsons.

Find out what The Conners has in store for Bev and why audiences are worried about her.

The controversy surrounding Bev comes from TVLine reporting that the synopsis for the show's Thanksgiving episode includes the line "Jackie must come to terms with her mother becoming ill." The synopsis doesn't specifically state what the illness is or how severe it is, leaving plenty of room for speculation.

The Conners has tackled increasingly heavy subjects for a sitcom. Topics over the last few seasons have included death, parenting struggles, and financial woes. Some viewers feel the series is now more of a drama than a comedy. That means a storyline about Bev's illness and her possibly passing away wouldn't be out of the ordinary.

Fueling the rumor mill is the fact that Estelle Parsons's status with The Conners isn't stable. Ahead of Season 5, the show's executive producer Bruce Helford told TVLine that he was "cautiously optimistic" about the actress returning for the current batch of episodes as the series had to work with her schedule.

Since Bev is not a main character, Parsons is not contracted or obligated to appear all the time, and that's led some fans to think that Beverly isn't long for Lanford. But are they right about that?

No one connected to The Conners has officially commented on whether Beverly dies in the Thanksgiving episode. That's not unusual, because they want viewers to tune into the episode and Jackie's entire subplot would fall apart if audiences already knew whether or not Bev pulls through.

But it's also possible she falls ill in this plot and passes away later on.

Some viewers have pointed out that the airdate of the Thanksgiving episode (Nov. 16, 2022) is just before Estelle Parsons's 95th birthday. It's entirely possible that the actress is ready to take a well-deserved break or that there may be reasons for working around her, similar to Linda Hunt on NCIS: L.A.

Parsons has played Beverly since the very first season of the original Roseanne, and she's accomplished a lot of other things in her career, including an Academy Award for the role of Blanche Barrow in 1976's Bonnie and Clyde. She was also nominated for another Oscar and five Tony Awards.

Whether she's moving on from Bev or just ready for a vacation, it'll be perfectly understandable if she does exit the role. However, she'll also be deeply missed.

The Conners airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.