Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage picks up where Young Sheldon left off — but how will the couple’s controversial age difference play a role on the show?
Viewers originally met Georgie (Montana Jordan) and Mandy (Emily Osment) on The Big Bang Theory prequel series, which aired from 2017 to 2024. After Sheldon’s (Iain Armitage) older brother grew up on screen, Young Sheldon paved the way for a spinoff by introducing his love interest, Mandy.
Georgie and Mandy’s story wasn’t the meet-cute some of Us might have expected. When they crossed paths in season 5, Georgie was 17 but lied that he was 21, while 29-year-old Mandy pretended to be 25. The truth came out eventually, but by then Georgie and Mandy realized they were expecting their first child.
Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage picked up as Mandy reconnected with her estranged mother, Audrey (Rachel Bay Jones), and father, Jim (Will Sasso). Mandy and Georgie — and baby Cece — subsequently moved in with her parents, which allowed their age gap to be consistently referred to on the show.
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“Credit where credit is due. He’s a kid. If anything, she ruined his life,” Jim said during the pilot episode of Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage, while Audrey later added, “You married a child, Amanda. You cannot expect him to understand anything.”
According to Jones, the show will continue to make an effort to point out how Georgie and Mandy’s relationship faces challenges due to their age difference.
“It is interesting because [Mandy’s mother] Audrey is [like] a lot of audience members. A lot of fans are like, ‘What the hell? He’s 10 years younger than she is. This is wrong,’” Jones exclusively told Us Weekly in October 2024. “Audrey is the one who agrees that this is wrong and this should not be happening.”
The actress, however, was still rooting for Georgie and Mandy to make it even though the show’s title hinted at a different outcome.
“I really hope Audrey doesn’t break them up. We’re all hoping that Georgie and Mandy will have a second marriage and a third marriage and that it will always be with each other,” she continued. “Because you can see the relationship is so good. It’s so delicious what they’ve written, the actors are so good together and you really can see the love and the friendship. It’s a really nice relationship to watch develop. What’s so great that they’ve done is write these real scenarios when it comes to marriage. So it’ll be fun to see how they explore all of that in the future.”
Keep scrolling to see how other cast members from the show discussed the controversial age gap at the center of Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage:
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Allowing the Age Difference to Affect the Story
Cocreator Steven Molaro was asked about Georgie and Mandy’s age difference during an interview with USA Today in October 2024 and replied, “There’s a baby [and] there’s an age gap. It’s realistic for them to work on this and fail here and there.”
Meanwhile, cocreator Steve Holland teased how the show would continue to integrate the age gap into future plotlines, telling TV Line, “In fact, we just shot an episode about that … [Mandy’s] drive to have a bigger friend group is also complicated by the fact that her friends are her age, and Georgie friends are his age, and there’s not a lot of overlap.”
Osment, meanwhile, was hopeful that Georgie and Mandy could make it work despite the odds.
“I’ve always envisioned that Mandy and Georgie would be their first husband and wife and their second husband and wife. That’s my dream,” she shared. “At some point, it will break them. But they love each other and could come back together. I can’t wait to see how this plays out.”
Offering a Voice to the Audience
“[Audrey] has got a successful intelligent adult daughter and [Mandy] just married a kid and had a baby with him. There’s a lot of Audrey that can say what the audience might be wanting to say sometimes,” Jones teased to Us. “It will be fun for us to watch how this marriage wins Audrey over. [It will happen] as the marriage wins the fans over.”
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Pushing the Characters to Develop
Meanwhile, Jordan explained to Us why the conversation around Georgie’s age has benefited his character.
“It gives Georgie somewhere to go,” he noted in October 2024. “In this new show, Georgie finally gets to show that he’s not just this dumb kid. He actually does have a brain on him. And on Young Sheldon I’m sure he got overlooked a lot. Maybe him being the tire king is his way of showing and proving people that he is not this dumb kid [but a mature adult]. He actually has some brains on him.”
