Big Bang Recap: Did Young Sheldon Crossover Live Up to the Hype?

The Big Bang Theory‘s Sheldon is still down in the dumps about his disproven theory — and the only person who can lift his spirits… is his Younger self?

In the much-hyped crossover with prequel spinoff Young Sheldon, Amy plays for her husband an emergency pep talk he recorded for himself when he was just a kid. “I was saving it for the day they stopped making Star Wars movies,” Sheldon explains, but “I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.” The astrophysicist then tells his wife that the idea came about after he saw 1989’s Back to the Future II, in which Marty McFly got a glimpse of his future self. “That got me thinking, the day may come where I needed my help… just like they did what that movie,” he says. “It was not great.”

And so, Amy presses play and Young Sheldon (Iain Armitage) appears before them. In the video, the 9-year-old brainiac sits in his childhood bedroom and speaks directly to his adult self. “If you’re watching this, I assume something bad has happened,” he says. “Something unfortunate and unforeseen.” But just when he’s about to tell Adult Sheldon exactly what he needs to hear, a Mumford High School football game starts playing. Turns out George Sr. accidentally taped over the rest of Sheldon’s pep talk.

Unsure where to turn next, Leonard and Penny call Beverly (Christine Baranski), who suggests that Sheldon is in mourning, and it may help to throw a proper funeral for Sheldon and Amy’s asymmetry paper. After that culminates in a small bathroom fire, Amy goes back to the drawing board. She sits down to watch the rest of the videotape in hopes that the rest of Sheldon’s pep talk will turn up after footage of the football game. Instead, she and Sheldon stumble upon footage of George Sr. (Lance Barber) giving Georgie (Montana Jordan) and the rest of the football team a very different kind of pep talk amidst a soul-crushing game. He tells them that losing doesn’t make you a loser, and that you “learn as much about who you are and what you’re made of from failing as you do from success.” And with that advice, Sheldon comes to an important realization.

“I’ve been acting like the game is over, but it’s only halftime,” he says. “There’s a lot more physics to play.”

Amy then points out that Sheldon and his father are much more alike than they thought. “From one viewpoint, you and your fathers’ lives are asymmetrical, but from another vantage point, they’re symmetrical,” she says. This in turn leads to a major breakthrough: Even if the Russian paper that disproved Sheldon and Amy’s supersymmetry theory was right, it was only right from one perspective. In other words, their theory may still prove sound. And so, Sheldon and Amy get right to work on revising their paper — but not before Sheldon turns back to the TV and says, “Thanks Dad.”

What did you think of the Big Bang/Young Sheldon crossover? Grade it via the following poll, then hit the comments with your reactions!

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