Early in Roseanne’s original run, it was tough to predict what kind of woman Darlene Conner would one day become. The younger of Roseanne and Dan’s two daughters, Darlene was clearly smart and athletic—but she was also listless and rebellious. She barked—literally barked—at her teacher; she put more effort into mocking her older sister, Becky, than she did into her schoolwork; she didn’t have much ambition beyond, perhaps, becoming a superstar basketball player.

Halfway through Season 2, however, things started to change. When Darlene agreed—mostly under duress—to read a poem she’d written in front of her class, her future began to take shape. In the seasons to come, Darlene would eventually supplant Becky as the Conner child destined for greatness. Becky had school smarts, but Darlene was special; she had an artistic vision, and a fiery ambition to get out of Lanford, Illinois—to do something greater with her life. Over time she became, in many ways, an early emblem of a certain Gen-X malaise: her creative talents were undeniable, and often it felt she deserved so much more than the opportunities afforded her. But there was always a hope that she’d make it.

That’s what makes Darlene’s fate in the revival so tragic. Despite all her promise, the Conner family’s great hope is now unemployed, scared, and lost, without a career, a home of her own, or a partner to help her care for her two children. (Though her ex, David, has sworn he’ll be more present in his family’s lives, actor Johnny Galecki’s ongoing gig on The Big Bang Theory is going to make that promise difficult to keep.) Like the rest of the Conner family Darlene is struggling with problems that face much of America’s working class: few opportunities and even fewer options.

“I thought I’d be a huge success by now,” Darlene tearily tells her mother in the show’s premiere. “I thought I could buy a huge house that I could hold over your head.” As Darlene cried and Roseanne gently joked, it was hard not to mourn the loss of what could have been—and this week’s installment of Roseanne drove home even further just how profoundly her dream has fallen apart.

This week, as the series reveals its title character’s struggle with addiction, Darlene faced a crushing problem of her own. She found herself competing with Becky for the same job: a waitressing gig at a local casino, which comes with full benefits. Darlene passes on the opportunity at first, explaining to their father, “I still want to be a writer. I mean, I’ve gone from novels to textbooks to menus. If I take this waitress job, I’m just giving up completely.“ But as Dan pointed out, Darlene also has two children to think about—so in the end, she goes back to Becky and asks her sister to let Darlene take the position. When Becky protests, pointing out that Darlene at least has a college degree—unlike high-school dropout Becky—Darlene gets glum. “Unfortunately, Walmart has no more openings in their English-lit department,” she tells her sister.

Ultimately, Darlene gets the job—complete with a humiliatingly revealing uniform—temporarily giving up on her dreams in order to support her kids. As Sara Gilbert, who both stars as Darlene and executive produces the revival, pointed out in a recent interview with V.F., that’s a reality many Americans face.

Before sitting down to plot out the revival, Gilbert had a slightly more optimistic view of how Darlene might have turned out. “I thought about her doing pretty well. I never thought she’d be Bill Gates,” she said. Then Gilbert considered the reality of the struggle many people face as they age, even big dreamers—and “it became more important to represent that.” In general, Gilbert said, the goal in reviving Roseanne has been to depict what life is really like for working-class people—not some Hollywood imagination of what it might be.