Highlights
- Young Sheldon season 7 resolves George’s cheating storyline with a surprising twist not seen in The Big Bang Theory.
- Sheldon’s childhood memory of his father cheating is revealed to be a misunderstanding surrounding a hilarious mix-up with Mary.
- Young Sheldon alters darker aspects of Sheldon’s past to create a more family-friendly dynamic without compromising character development.
Young Sheldon’s seventh season finally gives audiences a storyline first introduced by The Big Bang Theory in 2016. Sheldon Cooper has always believed he caught his father, George, cheating on his mother, Mary, totally altering their relationship and his long-lasting impression of his father.
In Young Sheldon season 7, episode 4, “Ants on a Log and a Cheating Winker,” the Coopers are brought back together after a tornado splits them apart. George’s cheating is finally addressed after being mentioned in The Big Bang Theory.
Sheldon tells Penny on the original CBS comedy that his relationship with his father was severely altered after he walked in on him with a woman who wasn’t his mother. He admits the pair never spoke about it, as George suddenly dies not long after.
Young Sheldon has spent numerous episodes hinting at an affair between his father, George, and Brenda. The truth was finally revealed about the affair; only fans were not happy with how it was being played for laughs.
In the following, we take a look at how Young Sheldon covered Sheldon’s horrible memory of his father cheating on his mother and how it differs from what was discussed in The Big Bang Theory. We also talk about why Young Sheldon changes parts of The Big Bang Theory story.
How Did Young Sheldon Address Sheldon’s Big Bang Theory Memory Of George Cooper’s Cheating
After spending the summer in Germany with his mother, Sheldon comes home and feels abandoned. His room at home has been taken over by his brother Georgie, and his partner and baby. His school dorm now has a lodger, and he feels like his family moved on without him.
As Sheldon explains to Penny in Big Bang Theory, Sheldon comes home from college to find his father in a compromising position. The recent episode of Young Sheldon reveals that the young Cooper mistakes Mary for another woman, so he mistakenly believes his father is cheating. Mary is wearing a traditional German costume and wig, and Sheldon doesn’t realize it’s her.
In recalling the incident, The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon explained how, in its aftermath, he and his father had locked eyes before he ran out of the room, and they “never, ever spoke of it.” Because they never spoke of it, Sheldon never learned that it wasn’t an affair and that George was with his mother.
Jim Parsons’ adult Sheldon narration acknowledges that this is the moment that he was telling Penny about in The Big Bang Theory, admitting that the incident is the reason why he knocks so many times before entering a room. Although Young Sheldon has played around with canon before, it has never drifted this far from the truth presented by adult Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory.
This means George didn’t cheat on Mary, but Sheldon always believed he had it. This change in events allows the show to keep George as its hero but also doesn’t change what Sheldon thought he saw in his youth.
What Adult Sheldon Remembered About His Father
Adult Sheldon, played by Jim Parsons, never had fond memories of his father, George Cooper. Passing away long before the events of The Big Bang Theory, he also referred to his father as an adulterous drunk. This portrayal has always confused fans of Young Sheldon, as George appears to be a loving and attentive father in the prequel.
Adult Sheldon rarely described his father in flattering terms, recalling instances of his dad forcing him to watch football and teaching him how to shoot close enough to a raccoon that it “c****itself.” He also tells stories about his father shooting guns inside the house and getting angry at his football team losing.
During an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon unearths an old VHS tape of his father giving a pep talk. With Amy’s help, he realizes that some memories can be“observer-relative.”
Some fans have wondered if Sheldon’s bad memories of his father are a way to cope with his sudden and untimely passing. The mistake of Sheldon thinking his father was having an affair will only make George’s upcoming death even more tragic.
Why Young Sheldon Keeps Changing Parts Of Sheldon’s Big Bang Theory Childhood
Young Sheldon has been repeatedly criticized for playing around with Sheldon Cooper’s past. Sheldon’s stories about his childhood in The Big Bang Theory don’t often match what happens in the prequel, Young Sheldon.
Although Chuck Lorre and his team try to honor the canon, they admit that they sometimes have to alter the storytelling to make the show enjoyable. Young Sheldon is a lighthearted family sitcom about the Coopers, which means they have to make the family more likable than Sheldon portrayed them in his stories.
Lance Barber, who plays George Cooper on Young Sheldon, explains that the change in the canon could be due to the way people’s opinions of their parents change as they age and have their own kids.
“For us to explore something more, we had to lean into what is real, gaining the perspective of our parents as adults. At some point in our lives, we start seeing them not as parents but as people. The narrator [adult Sheldon] on our show is not the younger Sheldon from
Big Bang
. He’s an older Sheldon as a parent himself. That allowed for us to see [different sides of George]. We also know Sheldon as a character in life who doesn’t always have the most reliable narrative.”
Many of Sheldon’s darker stories have been eliminated from Young Sheldon, excluding his father’s alcoholism and his relentless bullying. His father, George is a much nicer character in the prequel. A light-hearted family comedy simply couldn’t feature a character like George described by adult Sheldon.
To fit the wholesome tone of Young Sheldon, many characters were changed to become more well-rounded characters. His mother is less harsh, although still religious, and his sister is portrayed as being bright and ambitious.
George Sr’s cheating would have been out of character for the spin-off’s version of George, forcing Young Sheldon to divert from The Big Bang Theory‘s established canon. Barber admits that playing with Sheldon’s memory “allowed George to be more than the punchline he was on Big Bang.” This retcon is the smartest way the writers could have blended George’s character from Young Sheldon and Sheldon’s memories from The Big Bang Theory.
Source: NewsFinale