My Thoughts - Young Sheldon: College Dropouts and the Medford Miracle (1/5/2023)

Synopsis: Sheldon (Iain Armitage) finds a private investor for his computer database idea but, in order to receive the funding, he must drop out of college. George's (Lance Barber) football team starts a winning streak, but Pastor Rob (Dan Byrd) receives all the credit.

My Thoughts:

The Sheldon storyline was more intriguing than I expected. I was actually kind of surprised Sheldon was so willing to sacrifice his college education for his project. I know the database means a lot to him, but this is the first time I've seen the character not put education first.

It did however make me once again question why he was so opposed to letting the university fund it. He makes it sound like he would have had to give up control, but I never got that impression during the last episode, which made it seem like the only issue was who would receive the lion's share of the profits. If anything, the college would have been more supportive of him remaining enrolled and working around his class schedule than a private investor and certainly wasn't turned off by his age.

It was good seeing Dr. Sturgis (Wallace Shawn) again. He isn't featured nearly as much in this series as he used to be, and I was starting to wonder what happened to him. It was also nice to see someone who was willing to help Sheldon with his project with no obvious agenda.

Speaking of which, what was Mary's (Zoe Perry) agenda? She wasn't wrong about him staying in school but also didn't seem nearly as supportive of his database idea as she originally indicated. Mary even practically sabotaged him by belittling him while he was on the phone with a possible investor (though, to be fair, he probably should have told her he was making that call).

I liked the drama with George's win streak. The part about the team believing prayer was helping them more than their hard work was an interesting twist in itself. George's history with Pastor Rob only added to it and it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Missy (Raegan Revord) doesn't get enough screen time. I know this show is centered around Sheldon, but I think she has the funniest scenes in the series and this episode wasn't an exception. She might be the only high schooler in television history to lose a boyfriend to her grandmother (Annie Potts) and that part at the end, where she breaks up with him only to have him remind her his mom isn't going to pick him up until 7 was a great way to end the episode.

Final Opinion: It was an interesting episode with a pair of intriguing storylines and some very funny scenes involving Missy. I enjoyed watching it.

My Grade: A