Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Young Sheldon season 6, episode 7.
While The Big Bang Theory’s story already guaranteed that George Sr will die in Young Sheldon, season 6 of the sitcom spinoff is making this worse by proving that Mary and George Sr’s marriage was doing pretty well when he passed away. As Meemaw’s character shift proves, Young Sheldon is not averse to changing The Big Bang Theory’s story in some instances. However, when it comes to major events in the main character’s backstory, there is only so much rewriting of history that Young Sheldon can get away with.
For example, Young Sheldon season 6 needs to kill off George Sr since The Big Bang Theory stated that Sheldon lost his father at the start of his teens. However, since Young Sheldon already makes George Sr out to be a much nicer man than The Big Bang Theory did, the show doesn’t need to make this even worse by showing that Mary and George Sr’s marriage was starting to improve when he died. However, in Young Sheldon season 6, episode 7, ”A Tougher Nut and a Note on File,” Mary and George Sr talk to Mandy’s father and prove just that, showing how stable and successful the Coopers were just before George Sr’s tragic death.
How George And Mary Worked Together For Georgie
When Mandy’s father secretly visited the Coopers in ”A Tougher Nut and a Note on File,” the scene clarified just how much worse their marriage could be. Mandy’s father didn’t feel like he could even tell his wife what he was doing, while Mary and George Sr were sitting together and both offered support to him. The pair were a united front, even lightening the mood with some jabs at each other, and the scene was proof that their previously troubled marriage was doing better before George Sr died. Not only that but, by having George Sr and Mary advise Mandy’s father on what to do next, Young Sheldon leaned into and highlighted their comparative success.
While it makes sense that George Sr and Mary would try to overcome any differences they have if it meant helping Georgie, they didn’t have much to overcome. George Sr’s Young Sheldon death was always going to be tough, but this depiction of the pair as a team working together to help another couple seemed almost designed to make the incident even more tragic. Much like George Sr refusing to take back his old job unless he could also guarantee that his troubled replacement would also remain employed in Young Sheldon season 6, episode 6 “An Ugly Car, an Affair and Some Kickass Football,” this gesture made the doomed character almost too decent.
Why George And Mary’s Marriage Getting Better Is So Sad
The reason that it is so tragic to see George Sr and Mary’s marriage improving is that George Sr’s death is one of few events that is pre-ordained in Young Sheldon. Much like it is sad to see Georgie’s doomed attempts to woo Mandy while knowing that the pair later break up, it is tragic to see George Sr act as a kinder, more thoughtful character than ever before so shortly before he is gone for good. While it would not necessarily have been any better to see George Sr turned into a one-dimensional villain, this proof that the Coopers improved their marriage before his passing is still a strangely melancholic choice.
How The Big Bang Theory Doomed George and Mary’s Marriage
When The Big Bang Theory stated that George Sr died, the show guaranteed that Young Sheldon would someday need to deal with this tragic moment. However, when Laurie Metcalf’s version of Mary Cooper spent The Big Bang Theory complaining about George Sr and characterizing him as a shiftless drunk, the earlier show also ensured that even before George Sr’s death made Sheldon’s life harder, the Coopers didn’t have a blissful married life. Indeed, for the spinoff’s first few seasons, Young Sheldon depicted the Coopers as a troubled couple who rarely saw eye to eye. George Sr and Mary were very different people and the vague threat of an affair always loomed over their relationship.
However, Young Sheldon season 6 leaned away from this storyline in episodes like “An Ugly Car, an Affair and Some Kickass Football” and “A Tougher Nut and a Note on File.” Here, the Coopers are depicted as a couple trying their best to make a flawed marriage work, and this makes George Sr’s upcoming death far sadder as a result. While Mary’s story is also rendered sadder in season 6 thanks to her increased independence and self-improvement shortly before George Sr’s death, it is the depiction of George Sr as a fundamentally decent man and good husband that makes The Big Bang Theory‘s take on the Young Sheldon character so insulting.
Young Sheldon season 6 airs Thursdays on CBS.
