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S07.E13/S07.E14: Funeral/Memoir

DanaK

By DanaK
in Young Sheldon

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Katy M
Katy M

This is a hill I'm willing to die on: Loved ones should NOT be expected to speak at funerals.

Browncoat
Browncoat

Man, this is rough.  My father died in February, and we had the memorial service in April.  I think I've felt all the emotions that all these people are expressing.  And all at the same time.

ams1001
ams1001

By the way, your daughter wants to take acting classes. I told you we never should have let Penny babysit.

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AriAu

AriAu

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This is how a finale should be: no retcons, no character assassinations, no last-minute audience-insulting bullshit…just a simple bowing out gracefully. I’ll miss you, Young Sheldon.

I'll give you all of this and that it was well done, but the problem is that this is, at its core, a sitcom and I don't think I laughed one time the whole hour. It would have been hard to have much humor (other than MeeMaw's eulogy), but that is why I wish it had been done off screen as a recap like in The Wonder Years.

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Dimity

Dimity

16 minutes ago, rollice said:

I would have loved to see that! 

I did like that they showed that 10-12 years or so after BBT ended Amy and Sheldon are in a lovely home of their own, they have two children, and they seem to be a happy family.  I did always wonder how long they were going to stay in Penny's old apartment!  Now we are just left wondering if Penny and Leonard are still together and if Raj ever found the woman of his dreams.

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snarkylady

snarkylady

So many wonderful comments here, I will have to do a second read-though in a few days.  Some observations for now:

Pastor Robb was absent, obviously spending time with Paige.  Ministering to the young and all that. 

Mary not helping Missy...no surprise there. Insisting on getting her way, although "I am your mother" is wearing thin.  I don't see much good in Mary.

Meemaw doesn't make many mistakes but telling Sheldon and Missy to go through with the Baptism was one of them.  Missy was right, Sheldon was wrong.  I also don't understand how pastor Jeff could go along with it. 

I thought Mayim Bialik did a better job with Amy than Jim Parsons did with Sheldon.   Since he has been doing the voice overs as adult Sheldon all these years I would have thought his ability to portray the role would have been somewhat better.  

I liked Dale's quiet support for Meemaw.  Well done.

Put me on the list of people who will not be watching Mandy and Georgie's First Marriage or whatever it's called.  I think they are supporting characters at best and her mother is not worth any screen time.

I never enjoyed Brenda Sparks but thought their resolution for her was perfect.

Comic relief from Peg (I hope that's the right name, the ghastly coughing woman from the church). 

My final thought for the moment....the show's best scene over it's entire run, the radio broadcast of the Nobel prize awards showing Sheldon's future friends.  Brilliant. 

 

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Dimity

Dimity

16 minutes ago, snarkylady said:

Mary not helping Missy...no surprise there. Insisting on getting her way, although "I am your mother" is wearing thin.  I don't see much good in Mary.

Mary was a mess in the last two episodes and I felt her reactions were very believable.  I liked in her speech at George's funeral that she acknowledged that she and George had had their ups and downs but that things had turned around for them and they were in a good place.  She was angry with him that he died and this was also so true to life. 

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Chit Chat

Chit Chat

(edited)

In the South, saying "I'm sorry for your loss," or simply "I'm sorry" isn't usually taken as an offense.  It's a sign of respect - that and a casserole and or cake!  😉  Comedienne Jeanne Robertson (RIP) has a whole bit on this very subject (from "I'm sorry" to a 7-Up pound cake.) 

Seriously though, if the bereaved then wants to talk about it some more, I'll ask them about their loved one.  If they seem to not want to talk about it, then the conversation moves on.  

54 minutes ago, snarkylady said:

My final thought for the moment....the show's best scene over it's entire run, the radio broadcast of the Nobel prize awards showing Sheldon's future friends.  Brilliant. 

Yes!  That's my favorite too.  I've rewatched it many times on YouTube. 

Edited by Chit Chat
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anna0852

anna0852

30 minutes ago, Chit Chat said:

In the South, saying "I'm sorry for your loss," or simply "I'm sorry" isn't usually taken as an offense.  It's a sign of respect - that and a casserole and or cake!  😉  Comedienne Jeanne Robertson (RIP) has a whole bit on this very subject (from "I'm sorry" to a 7-Up pound cake.)  

I love Jeanne! And Left Brain’s trip to the grocery store for those ingredients sounds exactly like something Sheldon would do.

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AD35

AD35

(edited)
18 hours ago, Chit Chat said:

Maybe I'm the only one, but I really didn't like how this ended.  Missy is filled with rage (understandably so), but I wanted some closure for her.  There was no mention of how MeeMaw faired, and now we know that Mary moved off, but that's it?  No other mention of where she went to.  I could've used another half hour to tie up some loose ends.  I feel like I was left hanging with the second episode.  YMMV. 

Perhaps the Georgie & Mandy spinoff will address this with one of the first eps. I like to think even if Missy, Mary and Connie won't be regulars on the new show, a guest appearance by one of them can't be ruled out. Along with a mention of an unseen Sheldon. Overall I enjoyed both episodes.

Edited by AD35
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MaryMitch

MaryMitch

I really enjoyed both episodes, though I wish they had been longer. I guess we can blame it on the writer's strike.

I have never been to a funeral where the spouse spoke, and I was really surprised that not only Mary was preparing a eulogy, it seemed like it was expected that she do that. I know funeral traditions vary widely in various cultures/religions, but I have never heard of that.

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rollice

rollice

I just watched the TBBT episode on YouTube (S11, E23) where Georgie tells Sheldon that after Sheldon went away to college after Dad died, Mom was a mess and Missy was a "dumb teenager," and then Georgie took care of both of them.   So the way YS ended the way that it did  fits, because Mom and Missy were "a  mess" and needed taken care of.  I guess that's why we don't see Missy get closure in this spinoff. 

If you want to watch it on YouTube for free, it's entitled "Sheldon finally apologizes to his brother ..."

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januaryman

januaryman

The first episode was excellent, the second was just good. It needed 10 more minutes or less Jim and Mayim. I'm always a sucker for scenes of walking around the empty sets for the last time.

Iain did some of his best acting of the show here, as did Montana, who was terrible in the earliest episodes. I'm still not convinced he can carry a multicam sitcom, but who knows? Annie Potts and Zoe Perry were excellent as always. 

As with This Is Us, I'll miss this great cast even if the writing and the stories weren't always great.

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Dimity

Dimity

(edited)
2 hours ago, MaryMitch said:

I have never been to a funeral where the spouse spoke, and I was really surprised that not only Mary was preparing a eulogy, it seemed like it was expected that she do that.

I wondered about that as well.  I've never been to a funeral where a spouse spoke either.  IME while it's often a family member the usual choice seems to be a sibling or else an adult child of the deceased.   That said it probably comes down to if you can handle it, a close friend lost her son during Covid and she spoke at the funeral.  I honestly have no idea how she could do it.  I feel if that had been me I'd have been a sobbing basket case.

Edited by Dimity
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Katy M

Katy M

21 hours ago, shura said:

That’s the thing.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but since Sheldon does not believe, and Mary knows that, she must know his soul is not going to be saved by a baptism, right? 

No, but she's grieving and not thinking clearly.  In the voiceover, Sheldon said it had been 27 days.  That's less than a month. It's nothing.  Do I think she did the right thing trying to make them get baptized?  No.  But, do I understand that she was grasping at straws, grieving and not completely rational yet?  yes.

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Katy M

Katy M

6 hours ago, snarkylady said:

Missy was right, Sheldon was wrong.  I also don't understand how pastor Jeff could go along with it. 

Missy was right, and Pastor Jeff was wrong. Mary was wrong, but like I said, not evil. I don't know if I would go so far as to say Sheldon was wrong.  To him it was meaningless.  From his point of view, he was doing something nice for his mother.

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Spartan Girl

Spartan Girl

7 hours ago, Starchild said:

Did we know before this that George was a Vietnam vet?

So they didn't try to reconcile this George with the horrible father Sheldon talked about in BBT. And I'm OK with that.

George being in Vietnam was referenced back in season 1 when the family met Tam. George asked Tam if his mother was someone he, ahem, knew back in Vietnam.

Sheldon’s explanation that he spent more time focusing on his father’s shortcomings until he became a father himself was enough for me.

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SnapHappy

SnapHappy

Sometimes in a family, you go along to get along.  And I think the baptism was the rare event that showed Sheldon could actually do that on occasion.  And it was for his mom, that's what he focused on. 

Annie Potts really nailed that scene, asking for just 20 minutes of their time.  Best Supporting Actress Emmy performance right there.

Placating people that are desperate to somehow "save" the ones they love can be an act of kindness, not hypocrisy. Sheldon got it and followed through in his own weird, lovable way.  

 

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rmontro

rmontro

4 minutes ago, SnapHappy said:

Annie Potts really nailed that scene, asking for just 20 minutes of their time.  Best Supporting Actress Emmy performance right there.

That was a very good, convincing scene.  And yet Missy ended up still backing out, I was a little disappointed with that.  She did end up getting the last joke in the series with her "Ha!" response to Sheldon saying he couldn't forget her because of his eidetic memory.

They're saying the spinoff will be filmed in front of a live audience.  That's going to make for a very different feel.  I hope they know what they're doing.

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Dimity

Dimity

34 minutes ago, SnapHappy said:

Sometimes in a family, you go along to get along.  And I think the baptism was the rare event that showed Sheldon could actually do that on occasion.  And it was for his mom, that's what he focused on. 

Many people have commented in the past that Mary seemed soft on Sheldon and not like the Mary we see in BBT.  I think this whole season we've seen Mary evolving into the mother Sheldon had as an adult.  He listens to her in a way he simply doesn't listen to anyone else.  Partly that's respect for her as his mother but also it's because, aside from Meemaw (and eventually Amy) he loves her.

On a related topic, did I miss something this season because it seemed really unlikely to me that Mary would send Sheldon off to university (a) so far away from home and (b) without her at least coming along to settle him into whatever living arrangements were being made for him, because (c) how likely is it that any parent - least of all Mary Cooper - would expect a 14 yr old to live in a dorm or alternatively in his own apartment?  

They never addressed this as far as I remember.

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ams1001

ams1001

29 minutes ago, Dimity said:

On a related topic, did I miss something this season because it seemed really unlikely to me that Mary would send Sheldon off to university (a) so far away from home and (b) without her at least coming along to settle him into whatever living arrangements were being made for him, because (c) how likely is it that any parent - least of all Mary Cooper - would expect a 14 yr old to live in a dorm or alternatively in his own apartment?  

I'm kind of handwaving that the university has some kind of provisions for supervising a minor student living away from their family and we just didn't see all that worked out, but I did think it unlikely that he would just arrive on campus with his laptop and a suitcase and his mom wouldn't be there to make sure he was settled in wherever he was living. Maybe she did and this was after he moved in; the case he was carrying might have been just books and stuff for classes (he'd want to be fully prepared and make sure he has everything he needs with him, after all, right?). One of the things George and Mary negotiated for him during the recruiting episode was a driver to get him around; I could be wrong but I thought that was at Cal Tech.

Fun fact: The guy who stops to ask if he's lost is David Saltzberg, the science consultant for both TBBT and YS. 

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possibilities

possibilities

Mary let go a lot during the season. Sheldon was getting himself back and forth to school, sleeping in the dorm, etc. He left medford approx 30 days after George died (Meemaw asked why she wasn't spending more time with her living kids, when one of them was leaving in a couple of days, as I recall). I imagine Mary was still in a fog. I can believe Sheldon just decided to go by himself. He was very withdrawn in his grief.

But I also think we didn't see him moving in. Nobody arrives on campus in a different state with just a briefcase. We saw him packing a lot of stuff to bring with him. The campus shot was not his moving in scene.

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bybrandy

bybrandy

On 5/16/2024 at 8:25 PM, Katy M said:

I have no idea why Pastor Jeff would even consider baptizing Sheldon or Mary. They clearly were not professing their faith. 

Yeah the pastor knew my dad was an atheist when he was baptized as well. He didn’t want to do it. And only agreed if his unbaptized mom would get baptized to. So they both did. But yeah at no point ever did my father pretend to be a believer. 

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Wanda

Wanda

(edited)

Having the entire show framed as Sheldon’s memoir allows the discrepancies with TBBT to be addressed. 
I see the negative picture both Mary and Sheldon painted there coming from two different places. As she is still deeply hardcore religious, she still seems to be in the state of mind George’s death put her in. Where a major component was ANGER. And that colors her memories. That’s how she’s protected herself all these years.

Sheldon protected himself with standing on the outside looking in, reading situations incorrectly and allowing his mother’s anger and his regrets to reframe his memories.

But writing his memoirs, with the distance of time added in, allowed his love for his father to break through the barriers that affected the stories we hear through TBBT.

Edited by Wanda
Oopsies fixed
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Lovecat

Lovecat

(edited)

Considering I teared up every time a PROMO aired in the past week, I knew I was in for it during the first half hour.  Whoo baby.  I was a hot damn mess.  My husband had to pause halfway through so I could tell him that the last time I saw my father I cleaned his glasses for him.  I'm sure that I gave him a kiss and told him I loved him before I left that night, but I don't remember it.  I do, however, vividly remember cleaning his glasses at the bathroom sink, drying them off, and putting them back on him.  That was 30 years ago, and Funeral *still* devastated me.

I got myself together enough to enjoy hunting for easter eggs in Memoir...in addition to the couch, pillow, DNA model, poster, and a couple of recognizable action figures, I was *delighted* to see the Rubik's cube tissue dispenser from the old apartment.  I was looking for it :)  I also spotted the card catalogue--it's in the hallway outside Sheldon's office, and you can see it when Amy is standing in the doorway.  [ETA:  Also!  He was wearing the same green plaid robe!  Either the very same one (because we know Sheldon has trouble getting rid of things) or a newer one and the same style (because we know Sheldon cherishes consistency).]. Oh, and the sign board outside the church on Baptism day?  "SHELDON COOPER BAPTISM TODAY.  IT'S A MIRACLE!"  I made my husband re-wind so I could read it again.

Overall, I thought these were 2 great episodes to end the series on.  If Funeral doesn't spawn a couple of Emmy noms, I'm going to riot.  I'm so glad I recorded and re-watched the pilot when it aired earlier this week; I wouldn't have caught all the callbacks if I hadn't.  Just wonderful.  <3

And I'll be over here all by myself, on my couch (in my spot) watching Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage.  I've really grown to love Georgie--the kid's not the brightest bulb in the string, but he's got a damn good heart. 

 

Edited by Lovecat
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ams1001

ams1001

4 minutes ago, Lovecat said:

I also spotted the card catalogue--it's in the hallway outside Sheldon's office, and you can see it when Amy is standing in the doorway.

I always loved the card catalogue. I kinda liked that it's still in the background (in the old apartment it was in that back little area that no one ever really spent any time in, and I don't recall seeing anyone ever even opening it).

5 minutes ago, Lovecat said:

And I'll be over here all by myself, on my couch (in my spot) watching Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage.  I've really grown to love Georgie--the kid's not the brightest bulb in the string, but he's got a damn good heart. 

I'm gonna give it a chance, too.

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Chit Chat

Chit Chat

9 minutes ago, Lovecat said:

Oh, and the sign board outside the church on Baptism day?  "SHELDON COOPER BAPTISM TODAY.  IT'S A MIRACLE!"

Thanks for posting that!  I meant to pause and read what it said, but I forgot.  

10 minutes ago, Lovecat said:

I've really grown to love Georgie--the kid's not the brightest bulb in the string, but he's got a damn good heart. 

 

I'm going to give the new show a chance too, but honestly, my expectations are low.  Here's hoping that I'll be pleasantly surprised!  In general, I try to keep my expectations low in life.  That way I'm not disappointed very often.  ;)  

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Starchild

Starchild

1 hour ago, Wanda said:

Having the entire show framed as Sheldon’s memoir allows the discrepancies with TBBT to be addressed. 
I see the negative picture both Mary and Sheldon painted there coming from two different places. As she is still deeply hardcore religious, she still seems to be in the state of mind George’s death put her in. Where a major component was ANGER. And that colors her memories. That’s how she’s protected herself all these years.

Sheldon protected himself with standing on the outside looking in, reading situations incorrectly and allowing his mother’s anger and his regrets to reframe his memories.

But writing his memoirs, with the distance of time added in, allowed his love for his father to break through the barriers that affected the stories we hear through TBBT.

I agree with this. Now when I rewatch TBBT and Sheldon or his mom say something that make it sound like his dad was crazy mean, I'm going to think about it in terms of George actually teasing his family, or of George overreacting in a heated moment between himself and Mary, and Sheldon misreading because he didn't see the emotional drivers of the actions. I'll be fine :)

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cmahorror

cmahorror

I appreciate reading the recap and opinions on the end of the series because I cannot watch it yet. I lost my Mom earlier this year and she died a week before the anniversary of my husband's death (he passed away suddenly from a heart attack when I was 32). Needless to say, January and I are no longer on good terms.

I am still dealing with my Mom's death and am, in general, avoiding anything remotely dealing with the loss of a parent. I am still too raw. I love this show and we would watch this and Big Bang together whenever I visited which never seemed like often enough. But right now, it just hits too many of my triggers to be anywhere close to an enjoyable watch. I applaud those who could watch it, I just can't yet. 

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Skooma

Skooma

On 5/16/2024 at 9:13 PM, Chit Chat said:

.. and now we know that Mary moved off, but that's it?  No other mention of where she went to.

No, Sheldon said she sold the house.  She stayed in the same town but probably downsized some because that was where Sheldon and Howard came to visit her.

On 5/16/2024 at 9:34 PM, Spartan Girl said:

I wish we had gotten to see the whole older Cooper family at the hockey game ...

Why would they be at just another youth hockey game half way across the country from where they live?

If any other "characters" could have been there it would have been all the Big Bang Theory gang there in Pasadena.

On 5/16/2024 at 10:14 PM, shura said:

That’s the thing.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but since Sheldon does not believe, and Mary knows that, she must know his soul is not going to be saved by a baptism, right? 

Some religions think so.  Read up on the Mormon practice of "baptizing" dead people from other religions to save their souls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_for_the_dead

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