Young Sheldon Season 7: The Tragic Episode 12 Moment You've Been Dreading, Explained

Contains spoilers for "Young Sheldon" Season 7, Episode 12 — "A New Home and Traditional Texas Torture"

"Young Sheldon" fans have been waiting for it to happen — and during "A New Home and Traditional Texas Torture," it finally does. George Cooper Sr. (Lance Barber of "The Comeback") passes away, suddenly and without his family present, while he's at work. The Cooper family — who had been preparing to take a family portrait when word arrives at their doorstep — understandably collapse into devastation. All Sheldon (Iain Armitage) can do is quietly, silently slump into a chair in the corner of the room, his face blank with shock. Since he's set to move to California to attend classes at CalTech fairly soon, he's clearly caught in a deep emotional quandary. Even worse, the tragedy comes after George gets a major professional victory when he receives an offer to coach football at Rice University, which would have led the whole Cooper clan to move to Houston ... thus potentially impacting Sheldon's life in a way we'll never know.

There's a reason why George Sr. dies offscreen and unseen. Since "The Big Bang Theory" fans knew in advance that Sheldon's father passed away when he was 14, "Young Sheldon's" decision to avoid showing the death allows the show to focus on Sheldon's point of view in this pivotal moment of his life. According to a Variety interview with executive producer Steve Holland, the show always intended for George to die off-camera. "We always knew we were going to address it this season. We always knew we were going to get to the funeral this season. And we always knew that George's death would happen off screen, that we didn't want to witness it. It was just a question of when," he said.

"Young Sheldon" may have specifically opted to avoid showing George Sr.'s death and to have it happen away from the Coopers' home, but not every viewer agrees with the decision. On the contrary, some fans on X, formerly known as Twitter, have expressed an opinion that the show took the easy way out when it comes to this major moment in the titular character's formative years. @EnchntdHeart521 was specifically disappointed that George didn't die at home. "Ok, so George Cooper Sr. on 'Young Sheldon' died at work and not at home like I thought he would, I was thinking they were going to make it more intense," they said. 

@AndthatsalTom thought the show chose convenience instead of blunt truthfulness. "Another cop out," they summarized their view on the decision. "We knew from Big Bang that Sheldon's Father died. THAT doesn't mean they needed to ruin the final episodes of Young Sheldon with the death of patriarch George, Sr?!! Deeply disappointed," agreed @WheresTheTruth3. 

Still, while some fans have found the choices around George Sr.'s death predictable or upsetting, Steve Holland maintains it had to happen in this episode and in this way because of how high-stakes the well-anticipated reveal really was. "We wanted to do it in a way that was hopefully a little surprising. 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," he told Variety. Love it or hate it, the show's producers had George's death planned since Season 1, and it definitely left an impression on "Young Sheldon" fans. Hold on to those tissues; Episode 13 might be just as sad.