Young Sheldon Finale Subtly Gave a Disheartening Update About TBBT’s Penny

Young Sheldon came to its definite end around two weeks ago, giving viewers a double finale featuring both versions of the titular character.

While Sheldon Cooper’s younger version was shown saying goodbye to his teen years and stepping into adult life, his more mature self, portrayed by The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons, also proved that he’d been in a much better position in life ever since the original show left all the characters back in 2019.

Though it surely was a great satisfaction for The Big Bang Theory’s fans to see adult Sheldon with such a big update, another major character from the original series doesn’t appear to be that happy.

In Young Sheldon’s finale, Jim Parsons’ Sheldon appears alongside his wife Amy Farrah Fowler with whom he still lives happily in the Los Angeles suburbs and has two kids. During the heartwarming scene that shows the characters discussing their family matters, it’s revealed that Amy and Sheldon’s daughter has recently expressed her interest in taking acting classes, to which Sheldon comments that they shouldn’t have let Penny babysit their daughter.

The Big Bang Theory’s Penny, who’s been in the show since the first season, is mostly known for her long-standing dream to become an actress, her personal goal that eventually forced her to move from Nebraska to Los Angeles where she meets her future husband Leonard.

By the end of the original show, Penny gives up on her dream that resulted only in some low-budget worthless commercials and instead starts a brand new career as a pharmaceutical sales rep which eventually allows her to earn more than Leonard. While Penny’s job shift doesn’t appear to be that bad after all, it’s still pretty clear that she’s passionate about acting years after she wasn’t able to make her biggest dream come true.

In Young Sheldon’s final episode Sheldon mentions that Penny somehow instilled the same interest in the acting career in his and Amy’s unnamed daughter, though obviously years have passed between Penny’s decision to leave her dream behind and the birth of Amy and Sheldon’s daughter.

It thus seems clear that Penny has never really left it all behind, to this day thinking about whether she would still have a chance to come back to something she really wanted to do in her life.

Unlike many other characters in The Big Bang Theory, Penny has always been stoic enough to tolerate all the mean jokes about her failed acting career and to grasp any minor career opportunity during all those years that passed in the original series.