ABC Releases The First ‘Roseanne’-Free Trailer For ‘The Conners’

— The Conners (@TheConnersABC) October 2, 2018

After countless bits of casting news, a first teaser, and Roseanne Barr’s having potentially spoiled her character’s demise, ABC’s Roseanne spinoff series The Conners has finally scored its first trailer. The 30-second preview mentions neither Barr nor her titular character by name, but the narration is undoubtedly referring to her absence when it declares, “Tuesday, October 16th, there’s one thing on everyone’s mind!”

Meanwhile, in a new exclusive feature with People, The Conners stars Sara Gilbert, John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf opened up about the new show and the oh-so-obvious absence of Barr. And while they explicitly avoided any talk of the character’s long-rumored death, they practically confirmed it nonetheless. “We have to react to what’s missing, but everything else is pretty much the same,” said Goodman. “It was awkward but not awkward,” added Metcalf. “It was right but not right, wrong but not wrong. We were sort of looking at each other like, ‘How do you feel How is everybody'”

The latter also noted that everybody involved in The Conners was essentially “checking in.” She also explicitly talked about the “grief” of it all:

“Sara and I had this scene in the first show where we addressed the grief,” Metcalf recalls. “Sometimes when you’re an actor and you have to go to that place, you substitute something, but in this case there was no need to do that, because it was there. And it was real. And still makes me choke up, because that part of it’s been really hard.”

So yeah, Roseanne’s character is totally dead. The Conners premieres Tuesday, October 16th at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.