In the Young Sheldon two-part finale, the CBS sitcom depicts George Cooper's (Lance Barber) funeral. However, the showrunners had to veer away from making the poignant moments funny.
According to Steve Holland in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the writers originally had more jokes in the funeral episode of Young Sheldon. However, they ultimately decided to cut back on the humor.
“There were more attempts at humor and more jokes in the script that we actually shot that we ended up pulling out as we got into editing because it just felt a little tone deaf,” Holland revealed. “When we were watching it back, we realized we had earned the right for this family to have their moment of grief, and that was actually honoring George Sr. and honoring the real emotions of this family.
“We didn't have to go for the release valve of a joke all the time,” he explained.
Striking a balance
As for finding the balance, Holland revealed that back-and-forth took the Young Sheldon team “all the way into editing.”
“There's still light and there's still some laughs and moments of levity, but overall, finding that tone was a process that took us all the way into editing,” he said. “We had to give ourselves permission to not go for the joke all the time and to actually take a moment.
“This family's grieving, and the audience who has fallen in love with this family and with George Sr. will also be grieving, so it's okay for people to grieve. It's okay to have those emotions, and we didn't feel the need to always have the little offramp of a joke,” he added.
Holland then revealed some of the cut jokes to EW. One was that Georgie (Montana Jordan) and Mandy's (Emily Osment) baby “can't stop crying throughout the funeral.” Another was Sheldon's former professors “trying to distract him from grief by using science,” which is left in the episode to some degree.
“That was a hard cut, but it also felt better to keep Sheldon just sort of in his own head,” Holland confessed. “All the cuts made it a stronger episode.”
The Young Sheldon series finale
On May 16, CBS aired the Young Sheldon series finale. Like the previous week, the finale was a two-part, hour-long episode.
The first part depicted the funeral of George Cooper. He died in the previous episode due to a heart attack. It shook the family, and the impact lasted throughout the entire two-part finale.
Sheldon (Armitage) is also due to go off to grad school. That weighs heavily on his mind as his family is reeling after the death of his father.
Young Sheldon is the first spin-off of The Big Bang Theory. It depicted the early life of Sheldon Cooper, who was played by Jim Parsons on The Big Bang Theory.
After seven seasons, the series has come to an end. Young Sheldon will get a spin-off, though. CBS green-lit Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage, which will revolve around Montana Jordan and Emily Osment's characters.
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