I'm wondering if we should always reconnect here, even if it is using 2.2 of the redis gem.  My impression is that the explicit exception was added to 3.0 because inconsistencies can occur if you don't reconnect in the child process.  So in 2.2 the reconnect may not be explicitly required due to the lack of exception, but it might be a good idea anyway (and would simplify the logic here).