Why did Lance Barber leave Young Sheldon? Here's everything we know

Lance Barber's portrayal of George Cooper Sr. on Young Sheldon made the character far more likable than what Jim Parsons' Sheldon Cooper had painted him to be on The Big Bang Theory. The twelfth episode of Young Sheldon season seven titled A New Home and A Traditional Texas Torture featured George succumbing to a heart attack offscreen and his family being devastated once the news is made known to them.

The real reason why Lance Barber came to the end of his portrayal of George Cooper Sr. on Young Sheldon was the narrative binding of his character having died early on in his son Sheldon's life, which was explained by the latter himself on The Big Bang Theory.

Here's everything that we know.

George Cooper Sr.'s death on Young Sheldon explored in detail

The character of George Cooper Sr. was forever destined to die on Young Sheldon. The reason behind this is the fact that Jim Parsons' Sheldon Cooper had revealed numerous times on The Big Bang Theory that his father died when he was just fourteen years old. Sheldon had remarkably detested his own father, whom he denounced as being abusive and being a womanizer who would often cheat on his wife and Sheldon's mother.

Things started looking up for the character as the spin-off show rewrote his character in certain ways to make him come across as more benevolent and compassionate. This went a long way to endear audiences to him, contrary to what Sheldon might have settled for. As a result, despite known about his ultimate fate, audiences were shocked to their core upon learning about George's off-screen death.

Young Sheldon showrunners presented George's death in a moment of remarkable pathos. The above mentioned episode, off the show's 7th season, featured the trio of George's daughter Missy, his mother Mee-Maw and his wife Mary all waiting for George to return home as they are all dressed up to go with him for a family photograph. However, George never returned home and the family breaks into tears after they are told that the family patriarch has passed over after succumbing to a heart attack.

George Cooper Sr.'s off-screen death in Season 7 was emotionally impactful. His family waited for him to take a family photo, but instead, they learned he had died of a heart attack, leading to a poignant moment.

This was in keeping with the larger scheme of things on the CBS show as the young Ian Armitage was fourteen years old at the time of his father's death, in keeping with the older Sheldon's statement. In the aftermath of George's death, his entire family was severely impacted, with each of them reconciling to the grief in their own ways. Missy, being the adored daughter, was affected the most as she was aleit the one who was the closest to her father. Sheldon, on the other hand, gave off neurodivergent behavior as he ended up shutting himself down in a way that made it evident that the prodigy was hit hard by the suddent death of his father.

Barber himself decided to not be around the set of Young Sheldon while the reaction scene to his on-screen death was being filmed. He had revealed in an interview with TVLine:

"I had been around quite a bit that same day and I had finished before they were shooting. I deliberately was not there (for the scene). I thought my absence would be helpful for the actors and appropriate for that moment. I wanted to wait and see it with everyone else."

Executive producer opens up about the death of George Cooper Sr. on Young Sheldon

For the showrunners of Young Sheldon, giving expression to an event that has been long foreshadowed by the original show was quite a challenge as they needed to hit that fine balance between delivering the death scene and not having it affect the finale of the spin-off in any untoward way. Speaking about this challenge, executive producer Steve Holland revealed in an interview with Deadline:

"I mean, it’s a little bit of a challenge. There are some pieces of the lore and some pieces of the ending that people know. But I think for us it’s also about trying to tell those stories in ways that are still surprising. Especially since the show has gone to Netflix, I think there is an audience that is younger and less familiar with Big Bang. So I actually don’t know the answer of how many people expect certain things to happen in the finale versus how many people will be surprised by them. It’s a good question."

He then added about the veracity of George's off-screen heart-attack on Young Sheldon:

"I don’t remember if it was sort of an implied heart attack. I’m not sure if we actually ever said heart attack. It’s what we had always thought, internally. We know Sheldon’s dad passed away when he was 14, but I don’t remember if we ever specifically said heart attack.'

Holland was then asked about the narrative merit of giving George the job that he had always wished for, only for him to die soon afterwards. To this, he answered:

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"Because we’re mean! For a couple reasons. We wanted to give George a win after all these years. Because there’s a segment of the audience that is expecting the death to happen, and they assumed it would be this season, we thought, ‘well, maybe if we put it in episode 12, not even the penultimate episode, maybe that’ll be more of a surprise.’ And so then it’s about figuring out, well, what that episode is. And it felt like it’s a nice way, even though slightly mean way, to give George a little bit of a win and to have an episode feel like it was about something that wasn’t just about treading water until you get to this last moment. I think it makes that last moment even more surprising and impactful."

All the episodes of Young Sheldon are exclusively available for streaming on Diseny+.

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