The Conners: Aldo’s Dad Is Right About Harris

When guest star Joe Walsh appeared as Aldo’s ne’er-do-well dad in The Conners season 4, few viewers expected him to have a worthwhile take on his son’s relationship with Harris — but Aldo’s father managed to sum up their biggest problem in one conversation. Harris’s relationship with Aldo is not the most tumultuous one in the history of The Conners, but it is a fairly mismatched pairing. Harris is a rebellious but ambitious nineteen-year-old, whereas her boyfriend Aldo is twice her age, has three children, and has no interest in self-improvement.

Despite this, Harris and Aldo have managed to make it through The Conners season 4 with less trouble than Ben and Darlene, whose messy romance has dominated the show’s serious storylines. That said, the couple is still doomed, as proven by Aldo’s dad. Played by Joe Walsh, Aldo’s father used his first appearance on The Conners both to argue against them staying together and to prove that the pairing was a bad idea.

Aldo’s father Jesse (played by Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh) met with Harris’ grandfather Dan and a combination of his demeanor and his arguments soon convinced John Goodman’s character that the pair were a poor match. Jesse’s argument was not rooted in the fact that Aldo is older, but that he is limited in his ambition and maturity. It is a fair point, and the failure of Jesse’s own marriage is proof that their relationship is doomed. While Dan losing Roseanne made him a better father on The Conners, the character was always a stabilizing influence on his more chaotic partner, whereas both Harris and Aldo are free-spirited firebrands who won’t temper each other’s worst impulses.

When Jesse warned Dan that Aldo’s first wife was less the victim of addiction and more the victim of Aldo’s immaturity, his inability to raise their “creepy children,” and the rest of the pressures that led to her drug reliance, he was right to protect Harris from this fate. When Jesse went on to outline how he also drove his wife to psychosis, this only underlined the fact that Aldo and his father are trapped in a cycle of poor parenting and subsequent immaturity that Harris can’t pull him out of but instead will inevitably be dragged down into. Much like The Conners season 4 Mark plot and the show’s earlier storyline about Becky’s alcoholism highlighted how much the family environment can contribute to addictive behaviors, Jesse point about how Aldo is prone to shirking responsibility and making terrible decisions was mirrored in Jesse’s own bad life choices.

Dan was left with little reason to believe that Harris and Aldo could somehow break this cycle, particularly when Harris’s insistence that she and Aldo would make their relationship work was rooted more in anger at him and Jesse than anything else. Jesse’s life (or at least, the little bit of that viewers heard about) was a dire warning for Harris, telling The Conners supporting star that the same fate which befell Jesse and Aldo’s wives was soon in store for her. Despite this, Aldo and Harris remained together, for now, ensuring The Conners has another messy couple to join Ben and Darlene’s dysfunctional ranks.

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Cathal Gunning
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Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

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