Roseanne: This Old House

Roseanne: This Old House
ABC
February 25, 1992
Sitcom
DVD
B

This is the only Roseanne story by Michael Poryes, who did a couple of Who's the Boss? episodes, and it was turned into a teleplay by staff writers Abugov & Lorre.  Darlene is starting to take an interest in something again: making comic books (or "graphic novels" she says with an early '90s proto-hipsterism) with Mark's brother, now known hereafter as "David."  But when Darlene's parents find out she went to a comic book convention (no trendy shortening to "con" yet), they ground her and forbid her to see David.  Jackie, who wants to be a good aunt, belatedly sticks up for Darlene, partly by taking Roseanne to see the house that the Harris sisters grew up in.  There are good and bad memories, including, it's clear, physical and emotional abuse (a belt that their father sometimes used on them and otherwise hung on the wall where everyone could see it).  Meanwhile, Becky isn't seeing Mark but misses him.  Mark doesn't appear this episode, but we get to know David a little better and it's easy to see he's the right match for Darlene, even if they do contribute to each other's delinquency.

Note that Darlene tells her mother that since she and David were home alone, she decided to "become a woman," which David denies, not yet used to the Conner sarcasm.  Darlene and David would eventually lose their virginity to each other, and in fact we'd sort of be witnesses to it (in the dark I recall), unlike hearing about it after the fact like with Becky and Mark.  And, yes, we're already more emotionally invested in this couple than we are in Sam and Hank over on Who's the Boss?