The best young Sheldon episode according to IMDb will make you cry

It’s always a nice surprise when a spin-off actually ends up becoming its own thing, and The Big Bang Theory prequel series Young Sheldon stepped up tonally and narratively to do just that. The series was told using a flashback where an adult Sheldon (Jim Parsons) looked back on his younger life while writing a memoir, resulting in a slightly more sentimental story. Instead of the fast-paced jokes of The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon is more of a drama and even ditched the infamous laugh track and/or studio audience from “The Big Bang”. As young Sheldon Cooper (Ian Armitage) goes through the awkwardness of adolescence (while also having a neurodivergent personality), we also get to know his family. There’s his athletic and business-savvy older brother George Jr., aka Georgie (Montana Jordan), his sympathetic younger twin sister Missy (Raegan Revord), his overprotective mother Mary (Zoe Perry), and his football coach father , George Sr. (Lance Barber).

Some of the roughness surrounding the characters mentioned in The Big Bang Theory has been erased, and even the strained relationship between Sheldon and his father has been given real depth. Barber George Sr. didn’t really understand his youngest son, but he tried his best to be a good father, and that’s part of what makes his death at the end of the series all the more tragic. In the ambitious penultimate episode, “The Funeral,” Sheldon reminisces about saying goodbye to his father, and it’s fantastic television. So fantastic, in fact, that it’s the best episode of the series (at least according to user feedback on IMDb). The second half of the finale of “Memoirs” in which Parsons made a cameo appearanceranks #3, but there’s something special about Burial, even if it does make you cry.

While a funeral can be funny (“Death at a Funeral,” anyone?), Young Sheldon’s episode “The Funeral” definitely doesn’t aim to make you laugh. Instead, the episode shows the Cooper family dealing with the sudden loss of their patriarch when George Sr. dies of a heart attack shortly after landing his dream college coaching job. The funeral takes up a good portion of the episode and features many heartfelt moments between characters we’ve come to know and love, which is surprising for a series that supposedly started as a sitcom. Again, one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, “M*A*S*H” had an incredibly dark series finaleso maybe they just pulled from the best.

Although the specifics of the episode The barber is hiding in the background of the funeral in drag as a hilarious goof, otherwise it’s much more focused on showing us the full impact of George’s death on the family. Not only will serious implications for Young Sheldon spin-off Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage which takes place only a few months after the end of Young Sheldon, but it gave the writers a chance to really comment on Sheldon’s relationship with his father.

In The Funeral, not only do we see the Cooper family say goodbye to George Sr., but we see Sheldon trying to process the loss. Unlike his family, who are openly grieving, Sheldon turns inward, replaying the last moment with his father over and over in his head, reliving different versions of what it was. could looked like. Sheldon has always been a little alienated from everyone on both The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon because he just sees the world differently and his family has a hard time with how he deals with his grief. His repeated dreams of his last conversation with George Sr. are absolutely devastating because they clearly show that father and son had a hard time communicating and understanding each other, but there was clearly love between them.

Losing someone suddenly can bring up many different feelings, and Sheldon’s response feels very natural and relatable. While the character can be completely impenetrable on The Big Bang Theory, the best parts of Young Sheldon help viewers understand him a little better. It’s unlikely we’ll ever see Barber’s George Sr. againeven on potential highlights, so it’s also a fitting farewell for him.