Two cut scenes from the funeral for the Young Sheldon series finale have been revealed, with a co-showrunner calling one a hard cut.
Young Sheldon wrapped up with a funeral bidding farewell to Lance Barber’s George Cooper. There was a lot that went into the big scene, but not every moment filmed for the funeral made the final cut.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, co-showrunner Steve Holland commented on which moments were axed from George’s funeral in the Young Sheldon finale. Originally, Georgie (Montana Jordan) and Mandy’s (Emily Osment) baby was heard crying throughout the funeral. Another axed aspect was a scene that saw Sheldon’s professors attempting to cheer him up with scientific talk. With the latter scene, Holland admitted it was hard to get rid of, but ultimately, everything that was cut was for a good reason.
That was a hard cut, but it also felt better to keep Sheldon just sort of in his own head. All the cuts made it a stronger episode, Holland explained. 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. 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.
Holland also addressed the upcoming sequel series, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage. He said that while the Young Sheldon team knew the spinoff was coming, they did not want to develop the series finale as a backdoor pilot for the new show. The focus was entirely on wrapping up the story of Young Sheldon in a satisfying way, while the building blocks for the sequel series had already been getting laid in earlier episodes.
It was important for us to end this show on its own terms, as Holland said. I mean, there was already things in place: Georgie and Mandy had gotten married, that was always a part of this season, and had the baby and moved in with her parents. But we didn’t feel the need to make this finale about the new show. We wanted this finale to be about this show and family, and just honor that and not try to make it a backdoor pilot for a thing that was coming.
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage will arrive in the fall on CBS.
