Does Young Sheldon Give The Cooper Family A Proper Send-Off?

For anyone familiar with The Big Bang Theory when they began watching Young Sheldon, it was not a matter of how Young Sheldon would end, but how the prequel series would go about it. Inevitably, Sheldon Cooper must end up attending graduate school at CalTech to begin his growth into the already established adult counterpart of the character while George Cooper would meet his untimely end around that same period. But did the show's finale succeed, or did it fall flat?

Young Sheldon has been playing fast and loose with the universe's original continuity, especially in its final few seasons. However, the series finale two part episodes, "Funeral" and "Memoir" attempted to address that by having adult Sheldon explain that for most of his adult years he focused only on his father's misdeeds rather than George Cooper as an entire person. It is a nice sentiment but does not entirely work in the context of how Young Sheldon went about it.

Sheldon's declaration that he understands his father was a faulted human being is a kind one. Now at the same age his father was when George died, and having kids of his own, Sheldon's development has allowed him to see that George was more than his worst actions, but the sentiment falls flat due to Young Sheldon's inability to commit to George's faults.

Just by watching Young Sheldon, George is a kind family man. While he may not be perfect, and he certainly has his questionable moments, there is never even a true hint of the angry argumentative alcoholic cheater that Sheldon describes in The Big Bang Theory. Young Sheldon's George Cooper is a completely different person with none of the faults that Sheldon had specifically described his father had for years.

Had Young Sheldon committed to the idea of the already stated imperfections that George was stated to have, while also showing him trying to be a good man in the aftermath of those original details, Sheldon's statements about recognizing his father's faults and recognition that he was a more layered man than Sheldon originally gave him credit for could have held more merit. As it stands, it still comes across that Sheldon had painted a much worse picture of his father than that would have made sense.

Meanwhile, it seemed that Young Sheldon, in fear of making one of its leading characters look too bad, was never willing to take the plunge and give George more of an antagonistic arc to give at least some credibility to the way adult Sheldon originally describes him, and the emotional aftermath that resulted from listening to his parents fight.

Showing Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik return as the adult counterparts of Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farah-Fowler was a nice touch, but it never goes through with the storyline they are leaning so hard on, which is Sheldon's actions as a father. While Amy references that their son and daughter are interested in hockey and acting respectively, the two are never actually shown, and it is hard to gain a true impression of the type of father Sheldon is when the series finale will not even allow him to directly interact with his kids.

Otherwise, Young Sheldon's finale does set up Mary's stronger devotion to religion in begging Missy and Sheldon to undergo a Baptism. Sheldon's decision to do so in only a way Sheldon would is one of the show's more comical moments and one that leans hard into Sheldon's well-established germaphobia.

However, there are not a lot of strings for closure or pushing the characters into determining what the next steps of their journey are.

Fans already know they will see the returns of Georgie and Mandy in Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage, and by setting up Georgie with a job at the tire store, Young Sheldon did not give the couple more to look forward to regarding their upcoming spinoff.

Missy's main storyline revolves around George's death and Sheldon's move to California.

The difficult part here is that there is not much Young Sheldon could have done for them anyway, not when The Big Bang Theory has already revealed aspects of their futures.

Young Sheldon's two-part series finale certainly hits its emotional marks, especially regarding Sheldon's desperation in searching his mind for a universe where his last interactions with his father were different, rather than ignoring him entirely like it was any other day.

For the most part, Young Sheldon's series finale succeeds in telling the story it wants to get across, and leaves viewers with the knowledge of the significant future that Sheldon has ahead of him as he begins his adventure in California.