Young Sheldon boss Steve Holland has explained the shock death twist ahead of the show’s finale.

The CBS sitcom and…and the latest episode featured the tragic death of Sheldon Cooper’s father, George Sr.

During the third-to-last instalment of the show, George died of a heart attack while at work, and Tom and Wayne had to tell Mary that her husband had passed away.

Fans of the big bang theory were already aware that Sheldon’s father died when he was 14, and earlier this year it was…during the final season.

But the timing of his death was still a shock to fans, and co-showrunner Holland explained to tvline why they chose this moment to air the emotional scenes.

“We already knew that we never wanted to see it on camera,” he said, “but to deal with the death was always important to us coming to the end of the show. It was a question of when we do it. There was some talk that maybe it would have been the finale. He would have died, we would have the funeral, and that would have been the last episode.”

Series co-creator Chuck Lorre decided that George’s death should come earlier in the season, saying: “The show has been such a positive family show. Let’s not leave the audience wallowing in grief. Let’s give them a little bit of road out of that.”

Explaining the decision, Holland continued: “At least some part of our audience expects it, or knows that it is going to happen. Maybe they don’t know that it’s going to be [featured] on the show, but they know that it’s coming.

“We thought, ‘Is there a way to do it and still catch people off guard?’ So the thought of doing it not even in the penultimate, but in the antepenultimate episode, might be a way we can still catch them off guard.

“George’s death was a huge part of Sheldon’s growth as a person. To deal with that death was important to Sheldon as a character, especially as he’s about to go off to Caltech.”

Young Sheldon airs on CBS in the US and E4 in the UK, while you can buy The Big Bang Theory complete …