Although Young Sheldon gained a huge fan base, The Big Bang Theory spinoff’s best episode proved that the show needed to move on from its original premise. Sitcoms often win over viewers with an outlandish premise, only to then abandon this initial plot to focus on another, broader story. New Girl’s heroine was no longer new to the show’s well-established group of male friends by season 3 of the series, but this was seen as one of the show’s best outings. Similarly, Young Sheldon’s series finale proved that The Big Bang Theory’s spinoff had long since forgotten its original conceit.

When it was pitched, Young Sheldon’s story seemed simple. The show was a prequel that would illustrate the trials and tribulations that The Big Bang Theory’s socially maladroit antihero faced growing up in small-town Texas. Young Sheldon’s cast of characters would be composed of family members, teachers, and neighbors who were equally confounded by his scientific genius and his zany behavior. However, as the series made its way to Young Sheldon’s ending, it became clear that the show had no intention of sticking to this story alone. Its best episode proved this was good news.

Young Sheldon’s Season 2 Finale Made Sheldon’s Fate Tragic

The Poignant Outing Highlighted Sheldon’s Social Struggles

Young Sheldon’s season 2 finale, “A Swedish Science Thing and the Equation for Toast,” followed Sheldon’s attempts to set up a party for his co-worker Dr. Sturgis’s potential Nobel Prize win. Young Sheldon proved that the life of a child genius isn’t that funny in this surprisingly poignant outing, which is one of Young Sheldon’s best episodes despite its sad plot. The episode took a turn for the tragic when, since the Nobel Prize winners were announced at 5 am Texas time, no one attended Sheldon’s party except his mother, Mary. A heartbroken Sheldon thought this meant he had no friends.

To make matters worse, Sturgis himself went through a severe depressive episode at the same time. The stress of his highly taxing work in theoretical physics, alongside the realization that he might never receive a Nobel Prize for Physics, resulted in a period of mental ill health for Sturgis. This amplified Sheldon’s concern over his lack of friends, with Young Sheldon’s hero breaking down crying as he realized just how much his intelligence alienated him from his peers. This was arguably the show’s strongest insight into its title character, and also so devastating that Young Sheldon changed its premise afterward.

Young Sheldon Proved Sheldon’s Childhood Wasn’t That Funny

Being A Child Prodigy Was A Challenge For The Big Bang Theory’s Hero

Young Sheldon’s first two seasons focused on Sheldon getting into wacky scrapes rather than his family. His advanced intellect and lack of social graces caused Sheldon to inadvertently promote Communism, refute God’s existence in church, and struggle with the concept of practical jokes. However, as Sturgis’s sad Young Sheldon story proves, being a child genius isn’t always a laughing matter. The spinoff mercifully retconned all the bullying that Sheldon described in The Big Bang Theory, but the inherent social isolation that came with being a child prodigy was still very much front and center in the season 2 finale.

Sheldon’s struggles to make friends were sad and, since he was less socially adept than Malcolm in the Middle’s otherwise comparable child prodigy, it was hard to watch him have a hard time fitting in. Sturgis’s struggles in “A Swedish Science Thing and the Equation for Toast” made it clear that viewers couldn’t expect Sheldon’s social problems to magically vanish anytime soon, as the burden of genius took a heavy toll on his co-worker throughout his entire adult life. Shifting focus away from Sheldon’s childhood was a clever decision in season 3 since this allowed the show to feel more fun.

Young Sheldon Moved On From Its Original Premise

Later Seasons Centered On The Rest of The Cooper Family

After the season 2 finale reassured viewers that Sheldon eventually found the right friends in The Big Bang Theory’s Leonard and Penny, later outings were free to handle Sheldon’s upbringing with a lighter touch. Sheldon’s relationship with his colleagues, Dr. Sturgis and Dr. Linkletter, helped paper over his lack of peers, as did Paige’s recurring role in the series. When Sheldon eventually got a dorm room of his own, his interactions with his gormless, hormone-addled roommates also provided plenty of laughs. Meanwhile, another change strengthened Young Sheldon’s storytelling as the show expanded its scope to focus on the Cooper clan.

Centering the entire Cooper family saved Young Sheldon‘s later seasons as the series stopped relying on Sheldon’s exploits to ground its storylines. Missy, Georgie, Meemaw, Mary, and George Sr. all become more rounded characters from season 3 onwards, with Young Sheldon’s Meemaw character arc eventually earning as much screen time and focus as Sheldon’s plot in season 7. This pivotal change was a great decision since Young Sheldon needed a fresh perspective after revealing the underlying sadness beneath the social ineptitude of Sheldon’s childhood. The Cooper family provided this new outlook from season 3 onward, gradually reshaping the series.

Young Sheldon’s Spinoff Proved How Much The Series Changed

Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage Centers Sheldon’s Older Brother

The very fact that Young Sheldon’s spinoff, Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage, will center on Sheldon’s brother proves just how much the show changed in its final four seasons. A Georgie-centric Young Sheldon spinoff would have been inconceivable in the first two seasons when Georgie was still a supporting character and not a hero of the series in his own right. However, by the series finale, almost any member of the Cooper clan could have carried a spin-off of their own. Georgie and Mandy’s Young Sheldon spinoff makes sense since viewers still don’t know why the couple eventually divorced.

Missy’s future could also sustain a spinof, as Young Sheldon took the thinly sketched heroine from the show’s first seasons and turned her into a complex character. Meemaw received the same improvement when she ended her relationship with Sturgis and started dating Dale, a pairing that lasted until the show’s series finale. Even Mary’s intense zealotry, which was a running joke throughout The Big Bang Theory, became an understandable and justified part of her life story in Young Sheldon‘s final season. These changes prove just how much Young Sheldon moved from focusing on The Big Bang Theory’s hero to his family.