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Cathal Gunning
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Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.
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While The Big Bang Theory’s best Thanksgiving episode might not seem very moving, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage season 1, secretly made the outing tragic in retrospect. As a classic hangout sitcom, The Big Bang Theory only featured a handful of Thanksgiving episodes. After all, the holiday is one that many spend with family rather than friends.
This means that The Big Bang Theory’s iconic cast of characters were often split up during Thanksgiving, and any episodes ran the risk of feeling disjointed as a result. Despite this, season 7, episode 9, “The Thanksgiving Decoupling,” ambitiously attempted to tell the story of numerous intersecting Thanksgiving dinners, and it was a triumph for the sitcom.
In “The Thanksgiving Decoupling,” Mrs. Wolowitz hosts Thanksgiving dinner for Leonard, Penny, Amy, Sheldon, Bernadette, Raj, and Bernadette’s father. The celebrations descend into chaos when Penny learns that her joke marriage to Zack from years earlier was legally binding, but it is Sheldon who steals the show when he unexpectedly bonds with Howard’s father-in-law over a football game.
Sheldon Bonds With Bernadette’s Father In The Big Bang Theory’s Best Thanksgiving
Image courtesy of IMDb
Since Sheldon scarcely seems like a football fan, it is a hilarious surprise to see him getting granular on sporting strategies and impressing Bernadette’s father in the process. Longtime fans will remember that Sheldon’s late father, George Sr, was a high-school football coach, so, despite his limited interest in the game, Sheldon picked up an encyclopedic knowledge of it during his childhood.
This means that, as unlikely as it sounds, Sheldon is effectively a football expert thanks to his dad’s line of work. As Howard struggles to impress his father-in-law, Sheldon effortlessly outclasses him with this unlikely expertise, providing some of the episode’s biggest laughs in the process.
However, while this makes for The Big Bang Theory’s funniest Thanksgiving episode, “The Thanksgiving Decoupling” could hardly be called moving. At least, not until Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage season 1, episode 5, “Thanksgiving,” arrived years later. “The Thanksgiving Decoupling” is a comedic romp that lacks the poignant edge of the show’s more serious episodes.
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 5 Revealed Sheldon Missed The First Thanksgiving After George Sr.’s Death
Georgie and Baby Ceecee in Georgie & Mandy's First MarriageCBS
However, the first Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Thanksgiving special, simply titled “Thanksgiving,” lent the storyline a new dramatic depth. This episode revealed that Sheldon didn’t come home from college for the first Thanksgiving after his father died, meaning the 13-year-old spent the holiday alone in Caltech instead of seeing his family.
While Sheldon didn’t come back from college, the rest of the family hardly had an easy holiday, either. Mary caused a fight at the Thanksgiving dinner that Mandy’s family hosted and ended up leaving early, prompting Georgie to follow her. Eventually, Georgie and his mother ended up having Thanksgiving dinner at George Sr’s grave alongside Missy.
This sad sight was made all the more moving because of Sheldon’s absence. It is hard to imagine Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage season 2’s upcoming Christmas episode leaving Sheldon out of its story, but, in many ways, Sheldon’s absence from “Thanksgiving” was an even bigger blow to the Cooper clan than his missing Christmas a year later.
It would be sad if Sheldon missed the second Christmas after his father’s death, but he is at least around 14 or 15 by now, according to The Big Bang Theory’s timeline. In contrast, he was still only 13 when “Thanksgiving” took place, meaning he was incredibly young to be spending the family holiday alone after his father’s sudden death.
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Made The Big Bang Theory Season 7 Episode 9 Sadder On A Re-watch
George in Young SheldonCBS (via MoviesStillsDb)
It is brutal that Sheldon missed out on the family’s first Thanksgiving without George Sr, but this surprising Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage twist becomes even sadder when viewers revisit “The Thanksgiving Decoupling.” Throughout The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon usually treats his late father as a figure of fun, mocking his intelligence on the rare occasions that he mentions him at all.
However, Young Sheldon’s best episode, “Funeral," proved that Sheldon had a deep, abiding love and respect for his late father, even if he struggled to express it due to his unique way of seeing the world. With its best gag, “The Thanksgiving Decoupling” expresses this better than a more serious dramatic storyline ever could.
Seeing Sheldon flex his unlikely football knowledge decades later and display his unexpected passion for the sport proves he was closer to his father than he let on. An episode where Sheldon broke down in tears about missing the first family Thanksgiving without his father would have been mawkish, misjudged, and totally out of character.
However, seeing a character who displayed little prior interest in sport suddenly get unexpectedly invested in the game his late dad coached during a Thanksgiving dinner is a subtler, funnier, and more fitting way to express Sheldon’s closeness with George Sr. Thus, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage’s first Thanksgiving can be credited with making The Big Bang Theory’s festive episode even better.
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Do you think Sheldon's unexpected bonding with Bernadette's father over football added depth to his character in The Big Bang Theory?
Cathal
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5 minutes ago
Some viewers might feel that this moment humanized Sheldon and showed a rare emotional connection to his late father. Others could argue it was simply a comedic plot device and not a significant character development. A few might find it out of character for Sheldon to suddenly display such deep knowledge and passion for football.
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