Young Sheldon’s Iain Armitage Mourns On-Screen Loss: “Love You”

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Young Sheldon, season 7, episode 12, “A New Home and a Traditional Texas Torture.”

Iain Armitage is paying tribute to a Young Sheldon regular who departed the CBS series this week.

In an Instagram post, the actor behind the juvenile version of The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper gave his regards to his onscreen dad, George Sr., played by Lance Barber. “Love you, George! Love you, Lance!!!” he wrote in his caption.

Lance Barber and Iain Armitage on 'Young Sheldon'

In Thursday’s second consecutive episode, “A New Home and a Traditional Texas Torture,” Young Sheldon fulfilled a prophecy foretold by The Big Bang Theory — the original sitcom established that Sheldon’s father died when the central character was 14 years old. Now that Armitage’s iteration of the character on the CBS prequel is, indeed, 14, Young Sheldon fans knew it was only a matter of time before George bit the dust.

“A New Home and a Traditional Texas Torture” saw George suffer a heart attack at work at the end of the episode. Executive producer Steve Holland explained the show’s storytelling decision in an interview with Variety. “We wanted to do it in a way that was hopefully a little surprising,” he said. “So that’s why it happens at the end of [episode 12] — we thought maybe we can catch people off guard. Even though they know it’s going to come, maybe they won’t see it coming then.”
Holland also told the outlet about Barber’s knowledge of his character’s departure. “He’s known since the beginning of the show that George Sr. had an expiration date,” he said. “We slowed time down a little bit… We stretched one year out into a couple seasons to keep Lance alive as far as long as we could. But he always knew this was coming.”
Holland continued, “And I think also it being the last season made it a little easier on him that there wasn’t going to be seasons going forward that he wasn’t going to get to be a part of, but he was great because he really wanted to be there.”
Young Sheldon will air its final two episodes on CBS next Thursday, May 16. Holland teased how the sitcom will wrap things up after seven seasons. “You know, the Coopers have to deal with their grief over the death of George Sr.,” he said. “And Sheldon has to prepare to start his life journey onto Caltech in California.”
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