Tuesday TV Touchbase: Young Sheldon

Blog Bidness: after today's Tuesday TV Touchbase, I will not be updating the blog for the next three days.

I plan to be back with posts for Weekend Movies on Saturday and Sunday.

They're not written yet so....

On with this week's Touchbase.  

Young Sheldon reached it's series finale last week.  Certain events described in The Big Bang Theory came to pass.  Now 14 years old, Sheldon Cooper goes to Caltech after the death of his father.  

The last act of Young Sheldon began the week before with the 12th episode of the 7th and final season, "A New Home and a Traditional Texas Torture".   Changes are coming to the Cooper household. In addition to Sheldon heading off for post graduate studies in Pasadena, George Cooper has been offered a coaching job at Rice University in Houston. Unlike previous promotions opportunities, Mary is actually on board with George taking this offer. 

With all this change going on, Mary is determined to set up a family portrait with the family posing in matching outfits in a field of pollen ladened, bee infested blue bell flowers (the "traditional Texas torture" in the title.)  

On the morning of the family portrait in the Cooper kitchen, Sheldon's lost in a book, oblivious to everything, George asks Missy if she wants a ride to school (she says she will take the bus) and Mary reminds George one more time to be home by 4 PM for the family photo.  

I am struck by the sheer mundanity of this sequence and I am gripped by an ice cold realization: in the next act, the family will be gathered waiting for George when there will be a knock at the door.  

The next act:  the family is gathered in the living room when I spot 2 figures through the curtains approaching the house and there is a knock on the door. 

It's Principal Tom Petersen and Assistant Coach Wayne Wilkins.

George had a heart attack at work and....

He's gone.   

The scene ends with Mary, Missy and MeeMaw breaking down in tears while Sheldon sits down, silently staring a thousand mile stare.  

Here is Chuck Lorre's title card at the end of the episode.  

The two episodes that follow the next week to end the series are very powerful.

Episode 13 is entitled simply "Funeral" and it is what is says: the funeral of George Cooper.  There are emotional displays one associates with grief: Missy is angry and Mary is crying all the time. Georgie Cooper steps up to take care of things in planning the funeral (which lines up with what Georgie told Sheldon back on Big Bang Theory  about how HE took care of the family while their mother was falling apart).  

But what of Sheldon?

The young genius hardly speaks, his expression an implacable  stone face. Missy angrily wonders if Sheldon underneath his cold, stoic expression even cares his farther is dead. 

Sheldon is reliving the last moment he saw his father alive. 

And he keeps thinking of alternatives to just ignoring him as he left that morning. 

Simply said "Bye!" or "I love you" or...

The moment keeps rewinding over and over in his mind.  

Underneath that emotionless exterior, Sheldon has carved a special corner of hell for himself.   

And it continues at the funeral.  

Mary asks if Sheldon wants to say a few words. He rises and goes to the pulpit where he speaks from the heart about how he wishes he had told his dad more about how much he meant to him, how much he loved him and...

The scene turns to black and white and freezes.  Adult Sheldon, the narrator, says "I wish I would tell you I said all those things."

Rewind.  

Mary asks if Sheldon wants to say a few words. He gives a slight nod of the head "no".  The moment passes.

It's up to adult Sheldon in the narration to now say what he could not say then, he loved his father and will miss him forever. 

....

I'm not crying! 

You're crying!

Oh shut up!

Episode 14 is entitled "Memoir" and it brings us the much anticipated on screen return of Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik as Sheldon and Amy.  The narration from adult Sheldon is him writing his memoir. 

Back in the Young Sheldon time frame, it's been 27 days since the funeral and Mary is leaning even harder into her religion and has made it her mission that Sheldon and Missy need to be baptized.  Sheldon is an atheist and Missy just does not want to but MeeMaw, distraught over watching her daughter fall apart, convinces the kids to give up 20 minutes of their day to do this one thing and they agree. 

Until Pastor Jeff says the wrong damn thing at the wrong damn time that sets Missy off and she refuses to go through with it. Sheldon agrees to go through with it not because it's important to him but because it matters to his mom. 

But Sheldon does this thing on his own terms, showing up for the baptism wearing a scuba suit, a life vest and a snorkle mask.  Mary comments,"The important thing is he's here."

Back in the future, Amy is surprised to learn Sheldon was baptized just to make his mother happy.  Which she uses to convince Sheldon to attend his son's hockey game. 

It seems our two Nobel Prize winning scientists produced a son who is an ice hockey prodigy. And a daughter who  wants to take acting lessons.  ("We should not have let Penny babysit", Sheldon complains.)   

The last scene of Young Sheldon is of the young man arriving on the campus of CalTech.  

And we're out. 

...

I'm not crying! 

You're crying!

Oh shut up!

(sigh!)  

Sticking the landing of a series finale is never easy and can leave a lot desired.  But I think the end of Young Sheldon is a virtually perfect culmination.  

While the show began as a spin off prequel to Big Bang Theory and was bound to certain canon elements of that series, Young Sheldon developed a unique voice with a talented ensemble that could not only bring laughs but also dramatic moments as well.   

Young Sheldon deserved more recognition of this cast, not just of Iain Armitage as Sheldon but the nuanced work of Lance Barber as George Cooper and Raegan Revord as Missy to name a couple of stand outs. Annie Potts as Connie "Mee Maw" Tucker should be lining her shelves with Emmy Awards for her work on this series.  Maybe at last with the show on the way out the door, Young Sheldon may get the long over due recognition it deserved all along.  

None of us wanted to see George Cooper die but the moment was inevitable and the events surrounding that tragedy were handled with grace, heart and good humor.  

Young Sheldon stuck the landing. 

Next week's Touchbase, Hacks and Interview With the Vampire.   

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.