The excitement emerging from Thursday’s 100th episode of Young Sheldon focused mostly on Sheldon’s older brother, Georgie – but there’s a second moment before that groundbreaking cliffhanger that seems to have raised a few eyebrows.
Halfway through the milestone outing, 12-year-old Sheldon (played by Iain Armitage) goes to his twin sister Missy (Raegan Revord) and asks if he can borrow one of their “Sassy Magazines”. Unaware that he is putting together a care package for her troubled friend Paige, Missy learns that this is Sheldon’s way of telling her he’s gay.
“I knew it!” she calls. “Look, I think that’s cool, but don’t tell Dad.”
“Dad say what?” Sheldon replies, not knowing what Missy just concluded.
It’s a moment that harks back to The Big Bang Theory. In Season 2, Episode 6, “The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem,” a college student’s attraction to Sheldon confused everyone—including Sheldon himself. At this point, Penny questioned Leonard et al. about her eccentric boyfriend.
“What is Sheldon’s deal?” She asked. “Is it girl? People? Sock puppets?” But Leonard, Howard, and Raj assumed Sheldon didn’t have a “deal.” He had never expressed a romantic interest in anyone else and would not do so until Mayim Bialik introduced Amy Farrah Fowler at the end of season three.
“I think Missy has spent a little time understanding who her brother is and what his sexuality might be,” executive producer Steve Molaro told our sister site Deadline. “Which, as we know through The Big Bang Theory, is quite a question mark for a long time to come.”
In a post-mortem with TVLine, Molaro discussed the spinoff’s ability to push the boundaries a little now that the young ensemble is getting older. “We started with Georgie, Missy and Sheldon, who were between the ages of eight and 14 in real life [when we did the pilot],” he said. “Now we’re able to tell more interesting, more mature stories with these actors and characters. That’s a big part of what we’re looking forward to and how we ended up with how the hundredth ends with Georgie. “
Did you catch young Sheldon’s sister mistaking her brother’s request for something else entirely? Balance the misconception below.