Young Sheldon season 7 episode 12: George Sr. dies

Young Sheldon season 7
Photo: CBS

We knew that at some point in Young Sheldon season 7, the moment of George Sr.’s death was coming. It was mostly a matter of when.

In the closing minutes of episode 12, the police showed up to the Cooper household right as the family was about to take their bluebonnet family photo — one that nobody other than Mary wanted to take. That is when they were informed that Lance Barber’s character had a heart attack, and that he didn’t make it.

Speaking to TVLine, executive producer Steve Holland noted that there was a lot of deliberation that came into when the show decided to put this on TV:

“At least some part of our audience expects it, or knows that it is going to happen … Maybe they don’t know that it’s going to be [featured] on the show, but they know that it’s coming. We thought, ‘Is there a way to do it and still catch people off guard?’ So the thought of doing it not even in the penultimate, but in the antepenultimate episode, might be a way we can still catch them off guard.

“George’s death was a huge part of Sheldon’s growth as a person. To deal with that death was important to Sheldon as a character, especially as he’s about to go off to Caltech. To deal with that death was [also] important [for] the rest of the family.”

The series finale is clearly going to revolve now around changes and new beginnings, with a huge one being the entire family trying to wrap their heads around this really difficult loss. Meanwhile, at the same time you also have the component of Sheldon heading to Caltech and Georgie and Mandy starting out on their own. It is a lot to take in, but it was smart for the writers to give us this moment — even if it is hard.

Related Be sure to learn more about the Young Sheldon series finale

What did you think about how Young Sheldon handled the death of George Sr.?

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This article was written by Jessica BunBun.

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