Young Sheldon EP Addresses Paige’s Absence in Final Season: ‘We Never Thought That Was an Arc That Needed More Closing Than It Got’
Young Sheldon boss Steve Holland would like to use this opportunity to address the fate of Paige Swanson (and debunk all of your tragic theories about her absence in The Big Bang Theory).
Mckenna Grace‘s character, a fellow child prodigy, was introduced early in Season 2 of the prequel series and served as Sheldon’s chief rival at East Texas Tech. Aside from Tam, who crossed over to Big Bang, she was the closest thing that Sheldon had to a friend, and remained an acquaintance for many years, eventually befriending Sheldon’s twin sister Missy.
But Paige was neither seen nor heard from during Young Sheldon’s farewell season, and she was never mentioned on Big Bang despite being introduced while the mothership was still up and running.
“People ask about Paige all the time, and she was only in [nine] episodes of Young Sheldon,” executive producer Steve Holland points out to TVLine. What’s more, only three of those episodes overlapped with Big Bang Season 12. By the time her role was expanded, “Big Bang was done, and there was no way to go, ‘Can we go back and retrofit [her] into Big Bang Theory?’
“People online respond to Paige and I think that’s because Mckenna is incredible,” Holland posits. “The downside of Mckenna being incredible is that Mckenna is a movie star” — most recently seen in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire — “and that makes Mckenna very difficult to get.”
But even if they had gotten Grace back for a final season encore, he’s not so sure that there would have been a definitive answer about her Big Bang future. She was last seen midway through Season 6, when she and Missy ran away from home.
“When we got into this season, especially with it being a shortened season, we never thought that [Paige’s storyline] was an arc that needed more closing than it got,” Holland says. “There was a parallel; she was a bit of a mirror image of Sheldon — a different way that Sheldon could have turned out — and I think we saw that play out.
“I know there are some dark theories about what happened to Paige and why Sheldon doesn’t mention her [on Big Bang],” he acknowledges. “I don’t think she’s not mentioned because she went down a dark path and is dead in Big Bang Theory. For us, it was just an interesting way to explore another kid who had a similar thing to Sheldon and the different roads that they could take. [By Season 6] she is not a huge part of Sheldon’s life; she’s more of Missy’s friend in the show than she is Sheldon’s friend. That said, it would have been great to have Mckenna back because she’s incredible, always.”
Another fan-favorite character who is never acknowledged on Big Bang is Sheldon’s childhood mentor, Dr. John Sturgis (played by Wallace Shawn). For a year, both Sheldon and Paige audited Sturgis’ physics class. Sturgis even dated Meemaw for year. Alas, “we didn’t realize how big a part of this show Sturgis was going to be,” Holland concedes. “That’s the honest answer. The in-universe answer is that Sheldon is still a little hyper-focused. It’s not that Dr. Sturgis isn’t a big part of his life, but it was three years of his life, and he has gone on to work with Stephen Hawking and other big people… but I do think Dr. Sturgis is an important [figure] in his life.”
People are so weirdly morbid. We never hear about Paige in the Big Bang Theory, and she’s not mentioned again. Must be dead. The Taxi in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme really took Will to heaven. The flying car at the end of Grease meant Sandy and/or Danny died. Why are people so obsessed with characters dying?
Regardless, it would have been nice to know what happened to Paige. Didn’t necessarily need McKenna Grace to do it either, could have just said “Paige went on to do (whatever)”, would have been fine. Personally, I’m a little disappointed they never showed why Sheldon dislikes Babylon 5, it came about during the time period covered in Young Sheldon. Though I get there was a lot going on
It’s possible that Sheldon saw Babylon 5 later in his life.
He probably saw season 1 and gave up on Sinclair without knowing the truth of what was going on both in front of and behind the scenes (especially since folks didn’t know the truth about Jeffrey O’Hare until just a decade ago.)
NGL, as a huge B5 fan, that just made me hate Sheldon.
I kind of figured that closure on Paige’s story arc couldn’t be had because of of the shortened season and Mckenna Grace’s busy schedule. It’s also too bad there wasn’t more episodes for them to fit in more about Dr. Sturgis. Even just a slight acknowledgement from Sheldon while talking to Amy would have been fine.
Would’ve been cool to see Paige pick Missy up in her mom’s car after she refused to get baptized.
My theory: how much trouble was Paige in again? perhaps she got Suburgatoried (so grounded that she was moved out of town or something)
Paige Swanson is alive and well and living in Paris.
She grew up to be Rose and went to Paris with Charlie
It would have been nice if Sheldon got to see his friend one more time, or at least a nod of what happened to her. Maybe older Sheldon could have had a line or something and said like she lives nearby and they are still friends, but they don’t talk much, and that is sheldon’s favorite kind of friend.
I never really saw a need for it from a story point of view, it was always clear Sheldon didn’t see her as a friend but more of a rival (see also Dennis Kim in TBBT). She probably saw Sheldon more as a friend than he did the other way, but purely because she struggled with the kind of attention that Sheldon thrived on and she wanted support that Sheldon wasn’t equipped to give her.
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From a comedy POV, it would have been great to see her again because other than Leslie Winkle, Shedlon almost always got his own way and wasn’t teased or made fun of by his peers nearly as much as he should have been for how he treated them.
Sheldon did support her as a friend. As much as Sheldon was capable of anyway. In the one episode, he was worried about her well being, and even went to his sister to come with him to talk to her, but by that time, she had left all ready.
She became a Ghostbuster.
I’ll always wish Meemaw and Dr. Sturgis found their way back to each other. It seemed like the show was flirting with the idea a few times, but never committed. Never liked Dale and the little he added to the show. But forever grateful that Sheldon always had Dr. Sturgis in his corner, even if TBBT didn’t get to acknowledge it.
And it was a pleasure watching the great Wallace Shawn act almost every week!
Paige was more of a friend to Missy than Sheldon. Sheldon no doubt saw her as a rival and probably a bully. Remember, she pretended to have feelings for him to trick him into kissing her. She also punched him, yes I know he deserved it, but Sheldon probably didn’t see it that way. People are also placing standards on him that I doubt they themselves adhere to. I have had childhood friends that were important to me when I was young. Both of them moved before I was 10, I haven’t mentioned them to anyone since I became an adult because that is what people do. We move on and different things that become important to us.
It would have been nice if we got an explanation as to why he didn’t mention Dr. Sturgis and Dr. Linkletter who were his early mentors. Could have been as simple as him saying that looking back he realizes that he never gave them the credit they deserved for helping to mentor him and regrets not mentioning them in his speech when he received his Nobel Prize.
Paige left science after getting her PhD at 21.
She formed a punk rock band which made her a worldwide star.
She died of an OD at 28z
An Oscar wing best picture biopic was made of her life a decade later.
Sheldon has never had a reason to watch it.
If you’re gonna have her die young, at least make it 27… unless you’re referencing a specific person and I’m not realizing…
I would have liked to see the full full season numbers instead of 14 because I feel they rushed into the end too fast and I am very upset that the show has ended
If they had more shows they would have had more time to explain everything instead of rushing it all into 14 episodes instead of the usual number of episodes for the series finale