What Happened to Ricky in ‘Young Sheldon’? The Episode Fans Still Argue Over
A side character in Young Sheldon’s season 2 became the reason for Sheldon’s major character improvement, though the show’s fans are still divided over this years later.
Jim Parsons’ Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory was pretty annoying for many fans, but the character’s younger version in Young Sheldon somehow turned out even worse.
Though some still found Iain Armitage’s Sheldon adorable in his own way, the character’s indifference towards others kept quite many fans on the edge of giving up the series and eventually culminated in the second season’s episode 12 titled “A Tummy Ache and a Whale of a Metaphor”.
There, Sheldon is forced to go and see a doctor as he suffers a tummy ache, later being assigned a room where a boy named Ricky was staying.
Eventually, things turn out in the best way for both, with Sheldon going home soon and Ricky recovering after his surgery, but the episode still left a bittersweet feeling among those who hoped to see Sheldon’s faster character development.
What Exactly Happened to Ricky in ‘Young Sheldon’ Season 2?
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In the episode, Ricky is brought to the hospital after he faints during a soccer game. Later, doctors discover a hole in his heart, which leaves him no other option but to undergo a surgery.
As Sheldon leaves the hospital to go back home, it’s revealed that Ricky is recovering after the procedure, suggesting that the surgery was successful and both he and his parents had no reason to worry about it anymore.
At some point, Ricky also manages to meet the Cooper family that invites him to dinner sometime after he’s released from the hospital, though the character never comes back after that episode.
Despite this, Sheldon leaves Ricky an Iron Man comic book at the nurse’s station before leaving the hospital, which became one of the show’s rare moments that witnessed Sheldon sympathizing with anyone else.
‘Young Sheldon’ Hospital Episode Had Fans Clashing
Even though the series’ fans should have got used to Sheldon’s eccentric and sometimes arrogant behaviour that has always been there since The Big Bang Theory’s times, some still got disappointed by the fact that the character remained rude to everyone with no reason at all.
“Although Sheldon can be so demanding and rude along the series, I hate how he doesn’t even say thank you to the nurses around him and is continually impolite”, Redditor wonderheart_bear complained in a thread.
“He was so rude to his roommate at first who was having heart surgery, and at the end of the episode when he got home he didn’t even want to go visit him so that shows he wasn’t really a genuine friend and was only nice after the nurse told him that was the way it was going to be”, another user agreed, making a reference to Ricky.
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Others, however, were a bit more condescending while taking into account Sheldon’s own health condition.
“Sheldon being sick in the hospital at about the age of 9 or 10 is the one time that I can truly excuse him for not being particularly polite. He was uncomfortable and just wanted to go home. He gets a pass there”, MajorZombie7204 said.
“Sheldon did learn a little. He was able to feel bad for his roommate and left him some comic books. For Sheldon that is a major breakthrough”, LQjones suggested.
