The Conners Review: The Best Laid Plans, A Contrabassoon and A Sinking Feeling (Season 4 Episode 18)

While The Conners Season 4 Episode 18, “The Best Laid Plans, A Contrabassoon and A Sinking Feeling” focuses a bit more on Mark’s continued issues with getting into college, the real win for this episode comes from Darlene. Mother and son have their fair share of struggles but, ultimately they both come out of it with a better outlook.

For Mark this means a new purpose and less dangerous approach to getting into college. For Darlene, it’s the promise of a new romance with a familiar face.

Darlene’s Stubborn Streak

Ultimately, Darlene will always be the most stubborn member of the Conner family. She gets an idea in her head and she doubles down on it immediately. 

This is something that got in the way of her relationship with Ben the first time, which also clouded our judgment of him overall. Once Darlene and Ben broke up and tried to go back to being friends we were able to see just how much his actions towards her were clouded by her perspective of things.

To be quite honest, that is the mark of a great writer. The Conners is able to show Darlene’s perspective on all Ben’s actions so strongly that most, if not all, of us failed to see that she was simply being pig-headed and independent. 

Now, that all that is stripped away we are able to see that Ben just wants the best for Darlene. He is doing all this manual labor for her house renovation because he wants to make sure she gets a fair price and a job well done. 

Even earlier in the season when he was still hanging around and we were getting frustrated, Ben was simply showing Darlene that he still loved her. 

Ben’s Helping Hand

Naturally, when Darlene thinks that Ben is simply trying to force her out of the ideas she has for her house she gets extremely set in her way. It shows the true strength of Ben’s compassion and love for her that he continues to stick around and drop hints about the second sink.

Of course, Ben should know from the start that Darlene isn’t big on subtle context clues. You have to slap her across the face with it when it comes to relationships and feelings. 

While at first I felt the kiss between her and Ben and the subsequent proposal seemed out of left field, the more I thought about it the more it made sense. All this time we’ve been given Ben’s side of things from Darlene’s viewpoint and that doesn’t lend itself to knowing his true thoughts.

But, when she falls through the roof and gets hurt it’s clear as day that he is in love with her. The thought of losing Darlene terrifies him and he knew he needed to rectify that as soon as possible. 

It’ll be interesting to see how this moves forward. While it seems Darlene is completely ready to put her guard down again that could’ve just been the pain killers talking.

Lou and Mark and the Contrabassoon

Christopher Lloyd makes a fun guest appearance as Mark’s new contrabassoon instructor. This addition to the usual Conner dynamic is bound to be fun and exciting the more we get to know him.

At first, it does seem that he is belittling Mark and not believing in him. The proceeding disagreement between him and Dan does create a few laughs though.

I mean, who doesn’t love watching two very stubborn old men argue with each other over something as frivolous as a music lesson. Seeing Dan go over to Lou’s to make it right in the end is huge for him.

Honestly, since The Conners began, Dan has been the most rock solid characters — never moving, never changing. It hasn’t always served him well, but in the past season we’ve witnessed him come out of his shell a bit more and realize he isn’t perfect.

His nature to defend Mark more than any of his other grandchildren though is very inspiring to see as a queer viewer. We need more examples of unflappable acceptance from family in our media depictions and Dan is the most unexpected of them all. 

It’s also great to see that in the end, Lou was that difficult with Mark because he actually saw passion and talent in the kid and didn’t want him to fail. It was a coming together of the elders for the continued achievement of Mark’s talents that really rounds out this episode. 

 

What did you think of this episode of The Conners? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Critic Rating:

User Rating:

 

The Conners airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on ABC.

 Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!

Tony Dalton Shares One of His Favorite Scenes from ‘Better Call Saul’ [Interview]