Connecting the Dots: Young Sheldon Finally Justified Mary's Awful TBBT Behavior
Mary Cooper, Sheldon's mom was a recurring character in The Big Bang Theory.
She regularly visited Sheldon in Pasadena, California, especially when he was having some difficulties in earlier seasons.
And in later seasons, he returned home in Texas from time to time to check up on her.
And while in her appearances in The Big Bang Theory Mary was, overall, a much nicer person that she appeared throughout Young Sheldon, she was relentless in vilifying her late husband, George and contributed heavily to giving the Cooper patriarch a bad name.
However, Young Sheldon repeatedly demonstrated that George was a much, much better man than Mary would have us believe in TBBT.
This created a controversy. Are we just having a good old plot hole here, or are we supposed to see that Mary was not a credible witness?
And the latter compounds the fact that the Cooper mom is a highly flawed person in the prequel – judgmental and self-centered.
It almost appears as if Mary ragged on George in TBBT primarily to avoid responsibility for her own mistakes in their marriage.
However, recent developments in Young Sheldon build up towards an even which is likely to at very least explain Mary's behavior in TBBT, even if not completely excusing it.
Recently, George and Mary had a big argument, and the Teen Angst and a Smart-Boy Walk of Shame episode deals with its aftermath.
During their heartbreaking conversation, both have admitted their attraction to other people, George to Brenda and Mary to Pastor Rob, and promised each other that they won't act on it.
However, it is more or less a foregone conclusion at this point that despite the promises George would, in fact, cheat, before his subsequent death.
So, no wonder that Mary would feel so betrayed in the future, to the point of that totally skewing her memories of George.
It is one thing to find out that your husband is having an affair, when the marriage was on life support anyway, and you only kept the pretense for the sake of children.
And it is a whole different matter if he's caught after you attempt to revive your romance, and he looks you in the eye and promises that he won't do it.