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Warning! Spoilers ahead for Young Sheldon season 5.
CBS’ Young Sheldon has subtly reminded fans that George’s cheating storyline and eventual death are coming sooner rather than later on the sitcom. The Big Bang Theory spinoff is currently on the back half of a fifth season that has tried to make George (Lance Barber) a more sympathetic character than he was posthumously portrayed in Big Bang Theory. The show was renewed through season 7, but the Cooper patriarch’s fall from grace will expectedly happen before that.
Before Young Sheldon even premiered, George’s tragic fate was already established thanks to Sheldon’s (Jim Parsons) stories about his dad on The Big Bang Theory. Most of his anecdotes involving his father were unflattering, with his mother mostly corroborating his claims that George was a dimwitted drunk who didn’t care about his family. But arguably the worst story about the Cooper patriarch was his cheating scandal. According to the adult Sheldon, when he was 13, he accidentally walked in on George having sex with another woman. The next year, George died without ever discussing the awkward incident with his son. It was so traumatic for Sheldon that he started knocking thrice before entering a room.
For years, Young Sheldon has tried dancing around this plotline, understandably so as a family-destroying affair and unexpected death don’t really fit the show’s lighthearted tone. But it’s imperative that George’s dark arc is actually tackled. Previously, the best CBS could have done would have been to keep the series going and stretch out the child actors’ ages so The Big Bang Theory prequel could run as long as possible. But that’s no longer going to work as Young Sheldon season 5, episode 15, “A Lobster, an Armadillo and a Way Bigger Number,” reminded viewers that Iain Armitage is aging and therefore can’t believably pass as an 11/12-year-old after this year. Aside from the actor physically growing up, his voice has also noticeably changed, starting to sound deeper. It’s safe to say that it will only continue to change moving forward, becoming more difficult for the show to slow down its storytelling progress. It’s impossible for Young Sheldon to delay its protagonist entering his teenage years for much longer, and thus, George’s tragic storyline playing out.
This means that George’s cheating has to explicitly begin in the second half of Young Sheldon season 5 or early season 6. It has actually started laying the seeds for this particular plotline with the character’s borderline inappropriate encounters with Brenda Sparks (Melissa Peterman). This particular storyline has seemingly taken the backseat for a while now, but with George and Mary’s marriage quietly deteriorating, it’s possible that George will ultimately cheat with their neighbor. It’s gotten so bad that George even brought up the idea of divorce recently. In any case, it establishes the cracks in Sheldon’s parents’ relationship, which would ultimately be the cause of his dad’s decision to be unfaithful. Assuming that this is the case, Young Sheldon season 7 would have to include George’s death. Whether or not CBS renews the sitcom beyond that remains to be seen.
Audiences have started to like the character of George in the prequel series because, unlike how he was described on The Big Bang Theory, he’s actually a decent guy and devoted family man. The show has also gone a long way to illustrating how Mary and the kids often take George for granted and mistreat him. Ideally, George Cooper would be on the show until it wraps up. Unfortunately, there’s just no way that Young Sheldon can skip tackling his infidelity and eventual death since they both played a massive role in Sheldon’s life.
New episodes of Young Sheldon season 5 air Thursdays on CBS.
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