While The Conners season 5, episode 13 will arrive soon, the Roseanne spinoff will remain on hiatus for a little while before the episode airs. It is standard practice for most TV shows to have a hiatus at some point in their 22-episode season. This break allows writers to work on new episodes and allows actors to take some well-earned time off or, in some cases, film guest roles on other shows or work on unrelated projects without worrying about missing entire episodes.
As such, it is not necessarily surprising to see that The Conners season 5 is taking a multiple-week hiatus. After The Conners season 5, episode 12 offered viewers a story centered on Jackie and Dan’s feud over their faltering memories, the family sitcom is now taking a short break before returning from hiatus. However, although Roseanne Barr’s public firing from 2017’s Roseanne revival was what led to the creation of The Conners in the first place, this hiatus is not related to similar behind-the-scenes production problems. Instead, it is simply a standard break shared by many other network television sitcoms such as The Goldbergs and The Simpsons.
The spinoff will return from hiatus after a break of 3 weeks when The Conners season 5, episode 13 airs on February 8, 2023. This hiatus will allow the show’s stars to pursue other projects without these roles getting in the way of the Roseanne spinoff. For example, in 2022, Laurie Metcalf had a brief stint as a guest star on Hacks while John Goodman starred in The Righteous Gemstones. Meanwhile, The Conners season 5 hiatus will also give the writers of the Roseanne follow-up time to work out where the season’s stories are going.
While The Conners season 5 has given Jackie a lot of focus and gotten an astounding performance from Metcalf in the process, this has meant that other supporting stars have been left out of the spotlight. The Conners season 5 is wasting Ben and Darlene’s relationship by reducing the sardonic couple to a pair of bickering, bitter characters, while Darlene’s son Mark has barely been seen since episode 4. Fortunately, The Conners season 5, episode 13, “Old Pipes and New Secrets,” could fix this issue. While the episode may revolve around Jackie and Dan like much of The Conners season 5 has so far, the title also hints at another direction.
The title “Old Pipes and New Secrets” is likely to be a reference to the Conner family home. Having housed the family for over three generations, the suburban bungalow is likely to be in a state of serious disrepair. However, while this would prompt another Dan-focused storyline from the Roseanne spinoff, the latter half of the episode’s title promises something else entirely. Since they’ve spent so long offscreen, the episode’s “new secrets” are more likely to come from Mark, Harris, or Mary.
Mark started The Conners season 5 by keeping a secret from Darlene when he took his driving test without her support. Mary hid her boyfriend from the prying eyes of her aunts for as long as she could, and the immature, often stoned Harris has been keeping secrets from her elders in the Conner family for as long as the series has been on the air. As such, The Conners season 5, episode 13’s title implies that the Roseanne spinoff could be turning to its younger cast members for the plot of its next outing, a promising development that would keep the series feeling fresh.
