Did you catch Roseanne last week? It was a pretty good one and the revival of the show has turned out to be one of the few network offerings that my (Democrat) wife and I both look forward to. Unfortunately for some of the more safe space oriented viewers, the show once again slipped in a joke that sent them diving for the fainting couches. USA Today reports that liberals are highly put off over a throwaway line having to do with illegal aliens.

Dan Connor learns that he’s lost the bid on a job, which he finds suspicious because his crew “works for union minimum.” When he inquires as to who wound up with the bid, he asks, “You’re not hiring illegals, are you?” Honestly, I didn’t even notice the line. It wasn’t even close to the being the best among the number of funny zingers peppering the show. But it certainly put Ruben Navarrette Jr. off his feed.

Last week’s episode of Roseanne preached tolerance toward Muslim-Americans. Yet it contained an intolerant slap at “illegals.”

Creator Roseanne Barr has tweeted that, in her sitcom reboot, she wants to “challenge every sacred cow in USA.” But she missed the sacred cow in the immigration debate — the fact that blue-collar workers who feel squeezed out of jobs by illegal immigrants often have only themselves to blame…

Dan blames the immigrants who “are so desperate they’ll work for nothing, and we’re getting screwed in the process.” Meanwhile, Roseanne insists the real villain in this drama is the client, who is “taking advantage” of cheap labor.

Everyone accepts that undocumented immigrants hurt working-class Americans by taking jobs and lowering wages. But Americans need to ask more questions.

This is one of those moments where I almost resent the company policy against using obscenity at Hot Air, because were we having this discussion on Twitter I would have begun this response with #FFS. It’s a TV show. It highlights many facets of normal American life using lovable, funny characters. It prompts discussions to be sure, but must you get so bent out of shape over it?

Also, Navarrette’s kindly characterization of illegal aliens as, “someone who is in the country illegally, who doesn’t speak English and has a sixth-grade education, and who can’t get legal status because both major political parties flunked the immigration issue” may indeed apply to some of the illegals seeking work in this country. But he conveniently ignores the fact that they are still in the country illegally and it’s against the law to hire them. But hey… don’t let pesky details such as those slow your roll.

Still, this episode demonstrates that the show is still hitting its mark and getting people talking at least. Which is why I found this announcement from ABC a bit confusing. Are they really going to extract the politics from Roseanne in the next season? (The Independent)

ABC has revealed that Roseanne will be pivoting from focusing on politics to family in its second season.

On Tuesday, Channing Dungey, president of ABC Entertainment told Variety: “I think that they’re going to stay on the path that they were on towards the end of last season, which is away from politics and towards family.”

The statement shows a change for the show which began its revival with a longstanding family debate between Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) and Jackie Conner (Laurie Metcalf).

Seriously, guys? Moving back to “the path they were on” in the previous season might not be such a hot idea. If you recall, the end of the run for the Conner family wasn’t exactly viewed as going out on a high note. That whole lottery story arc and the case of the mysteriously vanishing Becky made it seem like the writers were really struggling. Also, why do you think there was so much buzz about the return of Roseanne and the actual actress’ activities on social media? It was correctly pitched as entertainment focusing on a different worldview than the generic, social justice warrior storylines being cranked out in every other studio. It made for tension and debate while filling a void created by a plethora of shows which made it look like the entire country was full of families who came straight out of liberal, coastal enclaves.

Not to put too fine of a point on it, but the revival of Roseanne is ringing up serious ratings precisely because of the way it knocks around the ongoing political debates in the country without getting bogged down in them or preaching too much. If you abandon that, I somehow doubt your numbers will be going further up.