Georgie’s Young Sheldon Season 7 Story Reveals A Big Bang Theory Problem

While Young Sheldon season 7’s Georgie storyline is bound to end badly, this is just one example of The Big Bang Theory’s canon setting its spinoff up for failure. Although Sheldon Cooper was one of The Big Bang Theory’s lead characters, this didn’t necessarily mean that viewers knew a lot of in-depth details about his childhood. Much like Leonard, his backstory was painted in broad strokes. Viewers learned that Sheldon was bullied as a child and often felt ostracized due to his status as a child prodigy, but his strained relationship with his siblings was only the focus of a few episodes throughout the show’s 12 seasons.

As such, The Big Bang Theory’s spinoff was perfectly primed to illustrate this character’s origin story in more detail. Unfortunately, as Young Sheldon season 7’s release date grows closer, it has become increasingly clear that that series did too good a job of humanizing the Cooper clan. In later seasons of Young Sheldon, the spinoff effectively disregarded its title as the show focused less on Sheldon himself and more on his parents, Mary and George Sr, his siblings Georgie and Missy, and his grandmother, Meemaw. Now, viewers have grown to love these characters in their own right, but The Big Bang Theory set the Coopers up for failure.

Georgie’s Impending Breakup Makes Young Sheldon Season 7 Sad

Georgie and Mandy are sure to fail thanks, to The Big Bang Theory

The original series gave the entire Cooper family sad futures, and this has become a major issue since Young Sheldon has now made viewers care about their fates. While the ending of Young Sheldon season 6 left Mandy and Georgie in a sweet place, their inevitable breakup is a perfect example of this problem. Even if Georgie and Mandy have an ideal, flawless engagement and wedding, viewers already know they end up separating thanks to Georgie’s first appearance in The Big Bang Theory. Since their fate is predestined, it is tough for viewers to get invested in their season 7 subplots.

Screen time spent on Georgie and Mandy’s wedding preparations is wasted for two reasons. If the pair get on well and prove they have plenty of chemistry, then it is heartbreaking to wonder how they ended up divorced by the time The Big Bang Theory introduced Georgie. If the duo are constantly fighting and can’t get on the same page, this will feel redundant since viewers already know their union ends in separation. This makes Georgie’s story one of Young Sheldon season 7’s biggest canon problems since The Big Bang Theory already told viewers how this ill-fated marriage would end before it began.

The Big Bang Theory Gave Meemaw, Mary, and Missy Bleak Futures Too

Sheldon’s other relatives don’t fare better, according to TBBT lore

While Georgie’s doomed marriage isn’t a fun Young Sheldon storyline for viewers to follow, his relatives don’t fare much better, according to The Big Bang Theory. Meemaw and Mary have both become more bitter and close-minded, judging by their appearances in the earlier show, where Meemaw has seemed less like her rebellious self and more like an older version of Mary. Meanwhile, Missy will get stuck in Texas raising kids in a doomed relationship, with her final appearance on The Big Bang Theory confirming that she was divorced but pregnant with her former partner’s child and unhappy about this situation. This grim outcome seems unfair to the characters viewers have grown to love.

While Young Sheldon season 7’s trailer seemingly cut Paige out of the spinoff to avoid dealing with her absence from The Big Bang Theory, it won’t be so easy for Young Sheldon to write its way around Missy, Meemaw, and Mary’s futures. These characters all play a pivotal part in Sheldon’s upbringing, and the quirky character is close to each of them in his own unique way. As such, it is sad to think of season 7 dooming Missy to an unhappy marriage and eventual breakup like Georgie, while Meemaw and Mary have years of bitterness and loneliness ahead of them.

George Sr’s Death Underlines All Young Sheldon Season 7’s TBBT Issues

The Cooper family’s breakdown seems to center around Sheldon’s big loss

Admittedly, none of the Cooper clan have a worse fate in store for them than George Sr. Not only does Sheldon’s father canonically cheat on Mary in season 7, but he also dies suddenly while Sheldon is still a young teen. Although it might not be responsible for Georgie and Mandy’s breakup, this pivotal tragedy does seem to be a turning point in the character arcs of most of the Coopers, and none of them recover from it in the decades that follow.

George Sr’s death will be Young Sheldon season 7’s saddest story because viewers know how much of a knock-on effect the event has on the family. Georgie ended up resenting Sheldon as he felt pressure to parent his little brother and sister throughout the rest of their adolescence, which could contribute to his divorce. Mary spent The Big Bang Theory complaining that George Sr was a philandering drunk, hiding her grief under a veneer of cold sarcasm and judgmental piety. Sheldon, meanwhile, refused to even admit that he looked up to his father outside of one throwaway line in The Big Bang Theory.

Young Sheldon Season 7 Can (And Should) Improve The Cooper Family’s Future

The Coopers deserve better than their maudlin Big Bang Theory fates

There is no way for Young Sheldon’s final season to simply avoid the reality of George Sr’s death or write the event out of the show’s canon. However, the series can at least try to make life after George Sr’s passing more palatable for the Coopers. The spinoff has focused on these people for seven seasons, so it would be cruel for their stories to end with grim confirmation that their lives lead down The Big Bang Theory’s sad paths. Sheldon’s narration could reassure viewers that Georgie and Mandy parted on good terms, Missy found happiness after ending her marriage, and Sheldon’s mother and grandmother made peace later in life.

Young Sheldon already has a way to bring back The Big Bang Theory’s main characters thanks to the show’s season 2 finale, which offered viewers a glimpse of their childhood selves. However, the spinoff needs to do more than reassure viewers that Sheldon eventually ends up happy, as this is evident from The Big Bang Theory’s finale. Instead, Young Sheldon must grant its main characters the same grace and reveal that the brutal endings doled out to each of the Coopers in the earlier series weren’t completely hopeless. Since George Sr’s Young Sheldon season 7 death is inevitable, this is the least The Big Bang Theory’s spinoff could give the Coopers.