Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Young Sheldon season 7, episode 14.
Although Young Sheldon’s season 7 ending saw the spinoff finally come to a close, the series finale set up the events of The Big Bang Theory perfectly while also offering a glimpse of Sheldon’s future. When Young Sheldon began in 2018, the show’s primary appeal was originally seeing what The Big Bang Theory’s quirky genius Sheldon was like as a child prodigy. Before long, Young Sheldon’s cast of characters won over viewers and the series started to focus on the entire Cooper clan. Over time, Meemaw, Missy, Mary, Georgie, and George Sr. all had character arcs of their own.
By Young Sheldon’s season 6 finale, Sheldon was practically a supporting character in his own show. Fortunately, Young Sheldon’s series finale “Memoir” changed that. The episode began like any other, with Sheldon’s narration detailing the events after his father’s funeral in the preceding outing. Then Sheldon’s love interest Amy interrupted him and the show cut to Sheldon’s future after The Big Bang Theory’s finale as he sat and wrote his memoirs. While he was busy writing about the death of his father, George Sr., Amy wanted him to attend their son Leonard’s hockey game. Sheldon initially refused this request.
Throughout the remainder of “Memoir,” Young Sheldon cut between Sheldon’s future with Amy and his recollections of his adolescence as he finished his memoir. The most important scenes took place in the present, where Sheldon refused to go to Leonard’s hockey game since he didn’t think it was important. Sheldon protested that he had no interest in the game and claimed that his memoir was more important, but Amy appealed to his better nature. She noted that Sheldon’s parents made sacrifices for him and, when he admitted he only got baptized because of his mother’s religion, Sheldon realized she was right.
Like his parents, Sheldon struggled to prioritize the things his children cared about because of his own disinterest in them. Luckily, he outgrew this flaw and put in some effort to meet his children halfway, much like his parents had decades earlier. Amy revealed the error of Sheldon’s ways to him when she noted that his parents always accepted him the way he was. Reflecting on Young Sheldon’s George Sr. death led Sheldon to reconsider his own parenting although, hilariously, he was still reticent about his daughter taking up acting classes and complained this was due to Penny’s influence.
Despite his misgivings, Sheldon’s closeness with his mother led him to ignore his “Well-established atheism” and get baptized. Although Missy initially went along with this plan, Sheldon’s rebellious twin sister was so frustrated by Pastor Jeff’s condolences that she walked out of the ceremony before going through with it. Sheldon was baptized alone for his mother’s sake after Young Sheldon’s Meemaw admitted that she was worried by her daughter’s sudden reliance on her faith. Although Sheldon meant well, his willingness to get baptized may have made his mother’s reliance on religion even stronger, judging by The Big Bang Theory.
While Sheldon was walking through his childhood home one last time, he had a poignant final interaction with Missy. Missy asked whether Sheldon would remember her and he countered that he would unavoidably do so thanks to his eidetic memory. Missy then teased him about being stuck with her, cementing the relationship dynamic the pair shared throughout The Big Bang Theory and its spinoff. Whenever Sheldon tried to hide behind his advanced intelligence, his sister was always there to drag him back down to earth. In this exchange, viewers got further proof that the pair’s bond never changed as they grew up.
The biggest takeaway from Young Sheldon’s series finale was the confirmation that Mary’s intense religiosity was, as many fans guessed, a direct response to George Sr’s death. Although Mary was religious throughout Young Sheldon, her intense zealotry was a lot less pronounced than it was in The Big Bang Theory. “Memoir” justified this, with Georgie and Meemaw both being concerned by the sudden change in her character. Where Meemaw reacted to the death of Mary’s father by becoming more carefree and continuing to date, Mary lost interest in further romantic connections and channeled her frustration at fate into her faith.
Mary struggled with losing George Sr. suddenly and relied on the Bible to give her life a sense of meaning and purpose. While Young Sheldon set up Georgie and Mandy’s spinoff with scenes of Mandy consoling Missy, the show also established The Big Bang Theory’s version of Mary when her family members confronted her over her sudden, overwhelming devotion to religion. Mary proved that she was the source of Sheldon’s inherited obstinate streak as she argued Meemaw out of canceling the baptism, talked Sheldon into getting baptized, and left a concerned Georgie speechless. This set up her older, more stubborn self.
Although Young Sheldon’s six seasons were all set in Texas, the finale didn’t end there. Instead, the spinoff cut to the sunny environs of California as Sheldon walked into the CapTech campus. Young Sheldon’s series finale had to end in CalTech as this was Sheldon’s true home, which he acknowledged the moment he arrived there. Symbolically, Sheldon’s entrance into CalTech signified him stepping out of his childhood and into his real life. Sheldon remains at the institution throughout The Big Bang Theory, meaning his arrival marked the moment that Young Sheldon’s hero became the Sheldon viewers know and love.
Although Young Sheldon season 7 mocked the show’s biggest issue when an earlier episode conceded that Sheldon wasn’t all that young anymore, the series didn’t simply end the moment Sheldon arrived at his alma mater. Back in Amy and Sheldon’s subplot, Sheldon left his memoir behind to spend time at his son’s hockey game. He had to be coaxed into attending, but he eventually realized how important these moments were to children and did the right thing.
In doing so, this older version of Sheldon underwent just as important a transformation as his younger self. When Sheldon arrived at CalTech, he ceased to be a fish out of water and became his own person. When the older Sheldon left his memoir behind to focus on his son’s game, he left behind the self-centered antihero of The Big Bang Theory and became a better parent. Reflecting on his childhood throughout Young Sheldon led The Big Bang Theory’s hero to realize that his legacy would never be as important as his children, something he learned from Mary and George Sr.