Ben and Darlene get back together in The Conners season 4, but the series rushed their reunion and needs to give the couple some more time to breathe going forward. As The Conners heads toward a potential season 5 renewal, the sitcom is quickly wrapping up stories that have been left hanging for too long in recent episodes. While not every plot hole on The Conners, like Becky’s forgotten college probation or Harris (Emma Kenney) and Darlene’s (Sara Gilbert) abandoned feud, has received a satisfactory conclusion yet, Ben (Jay R. Ferguson) and Darlene's arc has now found some closure.
The reunion of Ben and Darlene bodes well for these incomplete Conners subplots too. After all, Ben and Darlene’s on-again, off-again relationship has been a bone of contention for the family sitcom for four seasons, and a reunion seemed to be permanently off the cards. As such, seeing Ben and Darlene not only romantically reunited but engaged was a welcome surprise.
However, the speed with which Ben and Darlene reunited was jarring. The duo were on the outs throughout The Conners season 4, so while it was heartwarming to see Ben finally admit the extent of his feelings, Ben and Darlene’s long-awaited reunion was too fast and too tidy to ring true for these otherwise messy characters. And while Darlene’s brush with death when she fell through a roof near the end of "The Best Laid Plans, A Contrabassoon and A Sinking Feeling" was a reasonable conduit for Ben to finally concede that he still loves her, another contentious long-running storyline and a big-name cameo ensured that the season 4 episode didn’t have enough room for the proposal scene on top of their reunion.
Ben & Darlene’s Conners Relationship Timeline
It took Ben and Darlene almost a full season of The Conners to admit they had feelings for each other, thanks to their constant power struggles. Although Ben would later advise Darlene when she had issues with her children Mark and Harris, at first, the character balked at the idea of being a father figure. Despite these hesitations and Darlene’s ill-advised reunion with David Healy (Johnny Galecki), the duo made it through two seasons of rocky, inconsistent dating. As such, it made sense when Darlene proposed at the end of The Conners season 3, although, due to the couple’s inconsistency and constant fighting, this eventually led Ben to break up with her due to cheating and lying that had happened earlier in their relationship. Since then, both characters have tried to move on throughout The Conners season 4.
How The Conners Season 4 Set Up Ben & Darlene’s Reunion
However, Ben and Darlene were brought back together when Darlene tried to build a house with Ben’s help. Even though Dan and Louise moving out would arguably have made more logical sense, Becky and Darlene decided they needed a home of their own in The Conners season 4. Despite claiming to be over his ex, Ben took this as an opportunity to get close with Darlene again, even offering to co-sign a mortgage with her. However, it wasn’t until Darlene fell through the roof of her new house while fighting with Ben that the two finally reunited, and Ben proposed to her while Darlene was laid up in a hospital bed.
Why The Conners Season 4 Needed Ben and Darlene’s Reunion
Ben and Darlene are the heart of The Conners in terms of romance, with none of Becky (Lecy Goranson) or Jackie’s (Laurie Metcalfe) love interests having Ben's staying power. Not only that, but Dan’s new relationship always has always had to navigate the uncomfortable terrain of ensuring Louise wasn't a Roseanne replacement whereas, since Darlene has essentially been the show’s new lead since Roseanne’s death, her and Ben’s romance has inevitably become central to The Conners. With the duo’s love story taking up much of the show’s screen time, The Conners was always going to bring them back together. However, that doesn’t mean the reunion needed to happen in a single episode.
How The Conners Rushed The Reunion
Cramming both Darlene and Ben’s romantic reunion and Ben’s proposal into a busy episode that already featured a scene-stealing turn from returning Roseanne alum Christopher Lloyd was a mistake. The Conners outing felt chaotically overstuffed and could have benefited from devoting another episode to Ben and Darlene working on the house before Ben’s proposal. Alternatively, cutting Mark’s plot-hole-filled contrabassoon story and focusing the entire episode on Ben and Darlene’s slow-burn path toward reconciliation could have made for a less abrupt reunion, and the next episode could have then given Lloyd’s guest star spot the attention that the comedy veteran deserved. Ultimately, there was enough story in "The Best Laid Plans, A Contrabassoon and A Sinking Feeling" to fill at least two episodes and, particularly when The Conners season 4 dragged its feet around bringing Ben and Darlene back together, it's unfortunate that the reconciliation felt sudden when it finally did happen.
Can The Conners Season 4 Fix This?
Fortunately, The Conners season 4 has plenty of time to make up for this rushed reunion. Viewers won’t need to wait until The Conners season 5 to find out how Darlene and Ben’s reunion pans out since there are still a few more episodes left in season 4 and, despite Darlene accepting Ben’s proposal, there are still plenty of details to fill in about the pair's romantic journey. For one thing, they haven’t told the rest of the Conner family, and, as Ben is Dan’s co-worker, the sitcom is likely to mine an entire episode out of that premise. Beyond that issue, Ben and Darlene are also still fixing up a house together and now need to plan a wedding on top of this. That gives the remaining episodes of The Conners season 4 plenty of time to showcase how much better the two are when working together rather than apart, thus justifying the rushed but necessary reunion.
Since The Conners, like Roseanne, is at its best when depicting the humorous side of working-class life, Ben and Darlene working out how to afford both a house renovation and a wedding is a perfect setup to test the reunited couple’s mettle. Both Ben and Darlene have grown as characters since their breakup at the beginning of season 4 and should be ready to weather this storm together. However, The Conners must give them a chance to do so at their own pace instead of rushing to their happy ending as the sitcom did with Ben’s proposal.