Behold, your first look at Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik in Young Sheldon‘s series finale.
As previously reported, Parsons and Bialik will reprise their roles as Drs. Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler in the prequel series’ hour-long sendoff, airing Thursday, May 16 (CBS, 8/7c) — which will be exactly five years to the day since The Big Bang Theory signed off in 2019.
Parsons, who is an executive producer on Young Sheldon, has served as narrator on all seven seasons, while Bialik has reprised Amy and served as co-narrator on two episodes. But this is the first time that anyone from Big Bang will appear in person, on screen, on the wildly successful spinoff.
So, what might these photos tell us? For one, we pick up with Sheldon and Amy years after the events of Big Bang — but that doesn’t come as much of a surprise: Young Sheldon, which stars Iain Armitage as the future theoretical physicist, is told from the perspective of a more mature Sheldon, who is older than the version that Parsons last played in 2019. Through his narration, we’ve learned that Sheldon and Amy go on to have multiple children — including a son named after Sheldon’s best friend, Leonard Hofstadter.
In Big Bang’s last episode, Sheldon and Amy took home the Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery of super asymmetry. Sheldon’s prize is framed and hung up on his office wall, while a photo snapped shortly after Sheldon and Amy accepted their Nobel prize sits on the shelf below, along with a family photo featuring Young Sheldon’s George Sr., Mary, Georgie, Missy and Meemaw.
In another photo, Amy is holding a Flash coffee mug. Behind her, we spot the atomic model that once stood in Apt. 4A — the same atomic model that Leonard and Sheldon spent nearly 140 hours rebuilding before they left for Stockholm. There’s also a Rubik’s Cube-inspired coaster on Sheldon’s desk, not unlike the tissue box that sat on the end table in Leonard and Sheldon’s place.
A third photo shows a smiling Sheldon as he takes a closer look at his laptop screen. Is it possible that he’s writing his life’s story, which we’ve been told over seven seasons of Young Sheldon? That’s our Big Bang theory!
Young Sheldon will be followed by a second Big Bang offshoot, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, centered on Sheldon’s older brother Georgie (played by Montana Jordan) and his new wife Mandy (Emily Osment), which is slated to air on CBS, Thursdays at 8/7c, this fall.
Series co-creator Chuck Lorre is also working on a third Big Bang Theory series — a top-secret project “derived from” the CBS mega-hit that is earmarked for streaming service Max.
