Wait – did Sheldon and Paige end Young Sheldon as pals? Inside the divided fan debate

‘He never mentioned her once in The Big Bang Theory’

3 weeks ago

There was one character whose glaring omission from the Young Sheldon finale had everyone talking – where the hell was Paige? Paige spent the entirety of Young Sheldon as the titular genius’ rival in academia and only she could really go toe to toe with how clever Sheldon truly is. Paige not appearing again in Young Sheldon after her last appearance in series six had people asking where she was in the final episode, but more so asking on whether Sheldon and Paige ended Young Sheldon as friends – and that very question has created a lot of debate over on Reddit between fans of the show.

We have had some insight from the executive producer Steve Holland on the state of Paige and Sheldon’s friends dynamic by the end of Young Sheldon. Steve said in an interview with TV Line recently “People ask about Paige all the time, and she was only in nine episodes of Young Sheldon. 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. The downside of Mckenna being incredible is that Mckenna is a movie star and that makes Mckenna very difficult to get.

“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. 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.”

But what are Reddit fans saying about it all?

‘He didn’t think about her at all’

A widely shared stance on it from fans on the Young Sheldon Reddit is that Sheldon didn’t consider Paige a friend by the end because he didn’t think about her at all. One fan quite accurately wrote “Sheldon didn’t learn how to be a friend until he was an adult. There were 12 seasons of television about how he learned to be a friend and value those he had. So, no, probably not.”

Another argument was the he did learn to make friends on Young Sheldon, but Sheldon’s sudden and tragic loss of his father kind of undid all that.

Paige was never mentioned on The Big Bang Theory

A lot of the debate is centred around how if the two were friends, Sheldon might have mentioned her in the massive series in his adult life at least once. Obviously TBBT was made first, so the creators could hardly add her in hindsight – but it’s a bit of a plot hole if he was friends with her by the end.

‘He definitely cared for her’

A lot of the sentiment for a fonder relationship between the two seems to sit around Sheldon being fond of Paige and even respecting her, rather than the two having a friendship.

In the frat episode, Sheldon refers to Paige as his friend

A lot of naysayers to this point make the claim that a lot of people use the word ‘friend’ loosely – although knowing what we know about Sheldon Cooper is he one of those people? Probably not.

So what’s the conclusion?

To kind of close that debate off, Steve Holland continued to TV Line saying: “I know there are some dark theories about what happened to Paige and why Sheldon doesn’t mention her [on Big Bang]. 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 six 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.”

Well, there we are!

Young Sheldon is available on Netflix now – For more on whether he and Paige ended as friends and for all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.