There was one member of the Cooper clan that was noticeably absent – Meemaw was M.I.A. on Sheldon's big day!
Sheldon and Amy are now husband and wife – and no, this is not a "Bazinga!"
The highly anticipated Big Bang Theory wedding finally took place on Thursday's season 11 finale, and we were overwhelmed by Shamy's heart-warming vows and the star-studded guest list.
But there was one member of the Cooper clan that was noticeably absent – Meemaw was M.I.A. on Sheldon's big day! To get the inside scoop on why June Squibb was not there to reprise her role as Meemaw or watch her "moonpie" get married, ET called up Big Bang Theory showrunner Steve Holland and we're bringing you the exclusive answer!
ET: We missed Meemaw at the wedding! Was June Squibb not available for the episode to reprise her role as The Big Bang Theory's version of Meemaw?
Steve Holland: We had talked about including Meemaw because it seemed like Meemaw would need to be at the wedding, but first of all, we had so many characters [in this finale,] so we kind of had to pick and choose who could be at the wedding and who would have something else to do. Also, with Young Sheldon coming on right after and with Annie Potts playing Meemaw on there and creating such a big character, it just felt like it was hard to see the two of them back to back. Like, it felt like not they're not the same person.
Did you debate having a line in the episode explaining where Meemaw was?
We actually did and we actually recorded a phone message from Meemaw to Sheldon. Unfortunately, the episode was so long that we had to start making cuts, so I think they're going to post it online. All the moments that didn’t make it into the show, are going to be posted online – and Meemaw's phone call is one of them. It was hard to lose those moments, but it was one of those things where when we talked about what needed to stay in the episode, and a 30-second phone call wasn't quite pushing things forward for us. It was such a nice moment and I knew that we were going to get asked by fans why she wasn't there, but we had the answer, we just couldn't squeeze it in.
We loved that Amy wore the tiara that Sheldon gave her way back in season five. Was it always the plan to have Amy wear it on her wedding day?
Absolutely. Undoubtedly. Yeah, we even talked about it when we were doing the episode a few weeks ago where she first finds the wedding dress and Sheldon sees her in it and she tries it on. There was a question of, "Should she be wearing the tiara here?" And we were like, "No, we should save it. We don’t want to see her in the full thing with the tiara until the wedding." There was no doubt that she was going to have to wear the tiara.
Can you talk about how you approached the vows in the writers' room knowing that it was going to be such a huge and impactful moment for this couple?
We talked about it a lot ahead of time and when we were writing the vows and we wrote Amy's – which I loved, but were also sort of long. When we got to Sheldon's we thought it seemed more impactful that maybe he's just a loss for words and he can't get out this big speech. In contrast to hers, it seemed that simplicity might be the most effective from him. Jim played that moment so well when he just takes a beat and stares at her like he's lost for words before he says that he's "overwhelmed" by her. I get choked up every time I saw him do that.
Looking ahead to season 12 what are the chances that the new season could kick off at Sheldon and Amy's reception?
Honestly, we're just so revealed in the fact that we made it through season 11 so we haven't spent a lot of time talking about season 12. For now, there are a few discussions of where we should start, but we could start at the reception, we could start at the honeymoon, we have lots of fun opportunities.
There are so many fans out there who are wondering if The Big Bang Theory is going to end. Could season 12 be the last season?
I have the easiest answer to this question which is I don’t know any more than you do and I really don’t. That decision will be made by people other than me, so I can just approach season 12 – until I hear differently – as if it's just another season. Although, I'm sure we'll know well before the end whether we're writing a season or a series finale. But yeah, I imagine we'll both know around the same time.
If season 12 does happen to be the last season, what is something that you hope to accomplish with this potentially final season of The Big Bang Theory?
I mean, it's interesting – we've talked about it a lot every season before. We knew we were picked up for two [seasons] this time, but like in seasons' past, we'd always talked about where we wanted to leave these characters and it's sort of evolved over the years. There were times when we would say, "Leonard and Penny getting married – that could be the end of it." or, "Sheldon and Amy having sex for the first time – that could be it." There were all of these moment that then became milestone as we just kept moving forward, so it's always an ongoing discussion and I don’t want to say specifics because I don’t know if we'll do them or not, but everyone has very sort of strong opinions about where they'd like these characters to end up.
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