Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage is conjuring its first spirit — well, sort of.
Lance Barber, who for seven seasons starred as Cooper family patriarch George Sr. on CBS‘ Young Sheldon, will reprise his role on the Thursday, Feb. 27 episode of the recently renewed spinoff.
Barber’s beloved character was famously killed off in Young Sheldon’s third-to-last episode. As foretold on The Big Bang Theory, George Sr. suffered a fatal heart attack, and his funeral factored heavily into the prequel’s May 2024 series finale. So how, exactly, will George Sr. appear on Georgie & Mandy?
“His dad visits him in a dream,” series co-creator Steve Holland explained during a recent press day on set of the CBS sitcom. “George is thinking about his dad, and he’s worried that his dad might be disappointed in him…. [The idea] came out of a conversation we’d had with Chuck [Lorre], even early on, talking about the show. Chuck had said about his own father that he still dreams about him, he still visits him, so that was a thing we had thought about. And then when we were breaking this episode, it just seemed like a great opportunity to bring George back.”
Holland previously told TVLine that Georgie & Mandy would never erase the events of Young Sheldon, or bring George Sr. back from the dead. “If we found the right sort of emotional reason for Georgie [to see him], and it didn’t just feel like a stunt — like, here’s George Sr. crawling his way out of the grave — and we treated it respectfully, it would be great to have Lance back on,” he said in November. And now they will.
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage has already brought back several Young Sheldon characters. In addition to series regulars Montana Jordan (Georgie), Emily Osment (Mandy), Rachel Bay Jones (Audrey) and Will Sasso (Jim), Zoe Perry (Mary), Raegan Revord (Missy), Matt Hobby (Pastor Jeff), Craig T. Nelson (Dale) and Annie Potts (Meemaw) have all made guest appearances.
New episodes of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage air Thursdays at 8/7c on CBS (and stream next day on Paramount+). Revisit our May 2024 interview about George Sr.’s death with Lance Barber and Zoe Perry below, then hit the comments and let us know if you’re looking forward to Barber’s return.
