SEE MORE: Young Sheldon Season 1 Offered An Idea How George’s Death Happened (& It’s Harrowing)
George’s death went down off-screen, but Young Sheldon season 1 offered an idea of how his heart attack and subsequent happened in Medford High School. After seven years, the biggest Cooper family tragedy finally happened.
Long established in The Big Bang Theory, George’s death was one of the two prominent arcs expected for the character before coming into the prequel. Young Sheldon retconned George’s cheating scandal story, helping the show’s effort to rehabilitate the character’s image. Unfortunately, it couldn’t change his death, although the prequel delayed it as much as they could.
In Young Sheldon season 7, episode 12, “A New Home and a Traditional Texas Torture,” things appear to be already turning a corner for the Coopers. George’s life, in particular, is on the precipice of a major breakthrough following his Rice College coaching offer.
In the cruelest way possible, Young Sheldon takes it away, when he dies due to a heart attack. The tragedy was long expected, but it was still difficult to get through watching Mary, Missy, and Meemaw receive the news of George’s passing. Still, Young Sheldon could have made his demise much more heartbreaking.
SEE MORE: Young Sheldon Season 1 Showed George Suffering From A Heart Attack
Early in its run, the prequel already showed George suffering from a heart attack. In Young Sheldon season 1, episode 3, “Poker, Faith, and Eggs,” Sheldon’s father was rushed to the emergency room for having chest pains and difficulty breathing.
The outing prominently featured a visibly struggling George, and it was very difficult to watch, considering that his death was established in The Big Bang Theory. Even as the doctors worked on him, and he was breathing heavily with all the medical apparatus connected to him, Young Sheldon stayed with him and chronicled the ordeal.
This gives the viewers a good idea of how George’s death happened years later in Young Sheldon season 7, which is helpful, considering that the tragic news doesn’t come with any additional details regarding what really went down that caused his demise.
While he did have another mini-heart attack in the Young Sheldon season 4 finale during his flirtatious relationship with Brenda Sparks, The Big Bang Theory prequel didn’t fully explore his medical emergency because the focus was on the brewing affair between George and the Coopers’ next-door neighbor. Ultimately, however, nothing came out of the tease.
