Young Sheldon’s Wildest George Sr Story Couldn’t Have Arrived At A Worse Time

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Young Sheldon season 7, episodes 11 and 12.

Summary George Sr's wacky vasectomy subplot in Young Sheldon came at a terrible time, just before his heartbreaking and sudden death.

The ill-timed storyline highlighted the show's inconsistent tone, veering between dark drama and cartoonish silliness.

Young Sheldon's struggle with tone has been evident in earlier seasons, with serious issues treated lightly without warning.

Bizarrely, Young Sheldon gave George Sr. his zaniest sitcom subplot ever only one episode before The Big Bang Theory spinoff finally killed off the supporting character. Although Young Sheldon’s entire cast of characters are central to the show’s appeal, Lance Barber’s George Sr. has proven to be a particularly popular breakout star. Since The Big Bang Theory’s version of Sheldon wrote his father off as a philandering drunk, it was a welcome surprise when George Sr. turned out to be a kind everyman. Of course, this only made his inevitable death harder for viewers to handle.

After Young Sheldon’s season 6 finale, the countdown to George Sr.’s tragic demise was on. Viewers familiar with The Big Bang Theory’s canon knew Sheldon’s father cheated on his mother and died while Sheldon was a young teen. Although season 7 managed to retcon the former event by revealing that Sheldon misunderstood some harmless role-play, the show couldn’t cut the latter moment. The show did soften the blow by improving George Sr and Meemaw’s Young Sheldon relationship shortly before his death, but season 7, episode 12, “A New Home and a Traditional Texas Torture,” remained heartbreaking.

George Sr’s Young Sheldon Vasectomy Was Terribly Timed

The Subplot Came Shortly Before Young Sheldon’s Worst Tragedy

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However, while the death of George Sr. was appropriately somber and moving, the preceding episode’s subplot was terribly timed. In season 7, episode 11, “A Little Snip and Teaching Old Dogs,” George Sr. secretly got a vasectomy behind Mary’s back when she felt baby fever coming on. This resulted in some classic sitcom slapstick as the ailing George Sr. attempted to hide his injury and used football practice as an excuse for his aching groin. The subplot was funny and unusually ribald for the family-friendly spinoff, but it came at exactly the wrong time thanks to the next episode.

Despite some stiff competition, “A New Home and a Traditional Texas Torture,” was Young Sheldon’s saddest episode ever. The season 2 finale, where Sheldon struggled with his lack of friends, and numerous episodes featuring Sheldon’s rival turned friend Paige also had their moments of pronounced darkness. Despite this, Sheldon and his family discovering that George Sr. died suddenly during work was a crushing blow that the show has never attempted before. On a dramatic level, George Sr.’s Young Sheldon death worked. The problem was that it came immediately after one of the character’s wackiest and crudest storylines.

Why George Sr’s Vasectomy Plot Should Have Arrived Earlier

Reminding Viewers Of George Sr’s Relative Youth Made His Death Worse

George Sr.’s vasectomy storyline was always going to be unusually risqué, but this Young Sheldon subplot would have worked better in an earlier season of the spinoff. Since they have a son who is married with a child, it would be easy to forget that George Sr. and Mary are still young enough to potentially become parents again. Reminding viewers of this one episode before George Sr.’s death only made the moment more devastating, much like Young Sheldon’s Meemaw mocking George Sr.’s weight a few episodes earlier felt jarringly dark given his impending fate.

Both Meemaw’s mean joke and George Sr.’s secret vasectomy felt in character, so there is no reason that they couldn’t have appeared in earlier outings of the spinoff. Including both shortly before George Sr.’s death was an odd error as it made the tonal shift of the series feel more abrupt. Season 7 managed to set up Young Sheldon’s upcoming spinoff Georgie And Mandy’s First Marriage without disrupting its style, so there is no reason the series couldn’t have leaned into a more dramatic tone before George Sr.’s death. Instead, the sitcom inexplicably did the exact opposite.

George Sr’s Season 7 Story Underlined A Major Young Sheldon Problem

The Big Bang Theory Spinoff’s Tone Was Always Inconsistent

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Young Sheldon veered between relatively dark drama, like Brenda and Pastor Rob's almost-affairs with George Sr and Mary or Missy’s teenage rebellion, and cartoonish silliness without much warning.

What Young Sheldon’s bizarrely ill-timed George Sr. subplot highlights is that the series has always struggled with tone. The show veered between relatively dark drama, like Brenda and Pastor Rob's almost-affairs with George Sr and Mary or Missy’s teenage rebellion, and cartoonish silliness without much warning. Sometimes, a given episode of Young Sheldon could suddenly swerve from family drama to over-the-top comedy between scenes. Immediately after a tense confrontation between Mary and George Sr. over suspected infidelity, the series would then cut to Sheldon being pranked by fellow students in his college dorm room.

Although George Sr.’s Young Sheldon death is the most striking example of this phenomenon, season 7’s earlier storylines also suffered with the same issue. In season 6 of the spinoff, Missy’s acting out was treated as a serious issue. In season 7, Missy getting an underage friend to buy beer and hosting a party was a harmless lark. Similarly, Meemaw’s gambling room was viewed as a silly subplot until a police bust saw her face serious consequences for the criminal enterprise. Young Sheldon struggled with its tone long before The Big Bang Theory’s spinoff killed off George Sr.

Young Sheldon season 7 airs every Thursday, 8pm ET on CBS.