Young Sheldon Season 7: Lance Barber Has Perfect Response To George Cooper Sr.'s Death

Fans of "Young Sheldon" now know that George Cooper Sr. — father to Iain Armitage's titular young Sheldon — will die before the show ends with its seventh season. To be fair, fans have actually known this is the case for ages, because in the original series "The Big Bang Theory," adult Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) specifically says his father passed away when Sheldon was fourteen years old. So what does actor Lance Barber, who plays George in the spin-off, think of his character's impending passing?

ScreenRant checked in with Barber at the TCAs, and when they asked the actor about the fact that his character is definitely going to die, it was clear that Barber had an incredibly positive view of it. "I had fingers crossed from the beginning... that I would make it to the end whenever that came... I had the luxury of being emotionally prepared for this from day one," Barber told the outlet. "To be remembered that way is a big deal for me to see that to fruition."

Considering that the show is ending and Barber's George isn't simply being written out of the series, this response makes total sense. In fact, it's touching that Barber will get to be a part of the series' deeply emotional final season and give his character a fitting send-off in the process.

Prequels are a tricky thing to pull off, and some of the finer points about Sheldon's father George Sr. definitely got lost in translation between "The Big Bang Theory" and "Young Sheldon." Throughout the former, Sheldon frequently describes his father as a scummy womanizer who drank too much and didn't have a ton of interest in his son, a young intellectual prodigy. Because George Sr. is no longer alive during that show's timeline, audiences only meet the older Mary Cooper (played by Laurie Metcalf), who has an incredibly close relationship with Sheldon. So what is George Sr. like on "Young Sheldon?"

Yes, he drinks a lot of beer, and yes, he finds it hard to connect with Sheldon more often than not. But when it comes to being the father of a child genius and his two siblings, Georgie (Montana Jordan) and Missy (Raegan Revord), George does make a concerted effort to be a good one. What this means for the series is that it's going to be particularly gut-wrenching when George passes away, and fans still don't know how or when it will happen this season. Still, anyone who loves and watches "Young Sheldon" needs to prepare themselves for the inevitable earth-shattering event.

The seventh and final season of "Young Sheldon" is airing now.