Young Sheldon’s finale brought Jim Parsons back as adult Sheldon, reluctant to attend his own son’s hockey game. Annie Potts, who played his grandmother Meemaw for 7 seasons, says that ending left her wishing the show had stopped before the flash-forward with Sheldon and Amy, played by Mayim Bialik.
Potts revisits the ending in Jessica Radloff’s oral history, Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw’s-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy, published Oct. 20, 2026. Her preferred stopping point was young Sheldon arriving for his baptism in a scuba suit.
Of the adult Sheldon scene, she said: “That gave me a stomachache. It was like, ‘Who crashed our party?! Who invited you?’”
The finale, “Memoir,” aired May 16, 2024. When Amy asks about their son’s hockey game, Sheldon says: “Children on skates hitting a rubber puck with a stick. Why would I want to see that?” Potts felt the adult version of the character remained “unchanged and unrepentant.”
Co-showrunner Steve Holland described the scene as a chance for Sheldon to recognize what his own parents had given him. Sheldon “had kids that he didn’t understand, and while his parents didn’t understand him, they were always there for him,” Holland said. He added that “it takes Amy to point that out to him.”
Parsons had a different assessment of returning to the role. He called filming the scene “Very weird. Also very beautiful” and “the nicest little coda.”
