A ton of people came together to watch Young Sheldon die

Young Sheldon died this week, carried to sitcom heaven (which he would pointedly, and annoyingly, interrupt to tell you doesn’t exist) by hordes of network TV angels (same). But while the character, played by Iain Armitage in his more larval form, has now -zinga’d his last ba-, he didn’t go quietly: Variety reports that 9 million people tuned in to watch television’s Boy King be entombed, the highest ratings the CBS show has posted since 2020.

And while that is—as has been pretty standard for Young Sheldon for most of its run—less than half of what its parent series, The Big Bang Theory, posted ratings-wise for its own final episode back in 2019, it still highlights the general oddness (commented on by the cast themselves) around CBS ending such a successful show. Especially since the network has now developed and green-lit a Sheldon-less spin-off of the series, focused on Montana Jordan and Emily Osment’s characters, so it’s not like they’re sick of series creator Chuck Lorre making them a ton of money.

(Our own secret theory, which we dare not speak openly, is that TV executives came to the dawning realization that “charmingly assholish” Sheldon-type material that was cute coming out of a pre-teen, and funny coming out of a stunted man-child, merely comes off as petulant when said by an actual teenager. But honestly, it was probably just a money thing.)

Anyway, Young Sheldon is dead now, having ended on a (genuinely sweet, really) episode that sees him leave Texas to be an insufferable 14-year-old college student in California, with the finale revealing that the whole series has been Old Sheldon (Jim Parsons, reprising the role physically after narrating the series, and with Mayim Bialik along for the ride) writing his memoirs. Oh, also, Old Sheldon seems like he’s a genuinely terrible father now, but who’s all that shocked about that?