The Conners is nearing its season one premiere, which means fans of the Roseanne spinoff's characters are about to face a potentially uncomfortable twist in the storyline — Roseanne Conner is dead [1], and her family is continuing on without her. Although the loss of star and creator Roseanne Barr is completely justified — the 65-year-old's bizarre, racist tweets [2] caused the Roseanne reboot to get pulled from the air [3] by ABC earlier this year — one of her costars is still coming to terms with her absence.

"She is missed, definitely," John Goodman, who plays Conner patriarch Dan, told Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night. "After that many years, it's like a family. And last year, it was so miraculous and so unreal that when [the show] went away it was almost like a dream."

Goodman went on to say that he's trying to "be a big boy" about the situation, but "crashed for a couple weeks" after Barr's Twitter tirade against Valerie Jarrett got the show cancelled. "All kinds of weird stuff happened," he continued. "My wife got sick right after that [and] then I fell down the stairs."

At first it was unclear how Roseanne would continue on without its namesake star, but according to Goodman, costar Sara Gilbert's tireless effort helped The Conners come to be. He also noted that Barr "gave up a lot" so that people involved with the series could work. "It was very weird doing the first show without her because she's my buddy," he said. "I mean, we'd just sit there and she'd make me laugh and I'd make her laugh, which is fun because there's always a danger of her peeing herself."

The Conners premieres on ABC on Oct. 16.