Young Sheldon creator reacts to major death: 'There were a lot of tears'

Spoiler alert: The following piece contains spoilers from the latest episode of Young Sheldon, particularly the episode’s major death. 

The moment we always knew was coming has finally arrived. In the third-to-last episode of the show’s final season, Sheldon’s dad George Sr. died of a heart attack at work. It’s an event we know would someday happen on the show given the fact that The Big Bang Theory had previously revealed that Sheldon lost his father when he was young. Still, that didn’t make the moment any less impactful or heartbreaking. 

Nothing prepared us for the moment Tom and Wayne showed up to tell Mary that George Sr. had died and much like Mary, Missy, and Meemaw, we too broke into tears when the news was finally relayed. It seems our reaction was actually on par with the tears spilled by the cast and crew when the time came to finally incorporate the cannon moment from The Big Bang Theory. 

Chuck Lorre shares regrets killing George Sr. on TBBT

In the vanity card for season 7, episode 12, “A New Home and a Traditional Texas Torture,” Young Sheldon creator Chuck Lorre expressed his regrets in deciding to kill Sheldon’s father on The Big Bang Theory never realizing that one day we’d come to fall in love with the character in the way we did. 

“Eighteen years ago, when we were writing and producing The Big Bang Theory, it seemed like a good idea to imagine Sheldon’s childhood was deeply disrupted by the loss of his father. No one could have thought that someday we would regret that decision. That someday is now,” Lorre wrote. 

Just as the audience at home in tears watching the episode, Lorre shared that the filming of the episode was an emotional time filled with “lots of tears.” However, as he noted, that’s the beauty of television. It makes us fall in love with fictional characters and a reminder to show that love to the real characters in our lives. 

“There were a lot of tears on stage when this episode’s last scene was shot. A reminder that we had all fallen in love with a fictional character. Which is, itself, a reminder to love the characters in our life who are real. To do otherwise is to live without regrets,” Lorre wrote.

Don't miss the Young Sheldon series finale Thursday, May 13, on CBS!