Sad news from Hollywood: *Young Sheldon* actor passes away suddenly at 71 hue01

The McAllisters and Coopers have quite a bit of unfinished business heading into season 3 of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.

The season 2 finale of the hit CBS sitcom left the families in various states of upheaval: Mary (Zoe Perry) stunned her son Georgie (Montana Jordan) by pursuing a romance with his nemesis, Fred Fagenbacher (Matt Letscher), prompting him to issue a major ultimatum: end things, or stop seeing his daughter, CeCe.

Elsewhere, Connor (Dougie Baldwin) finally ventured out on his own for the first time, only to end up getting arrested. And while Georgie and Mandy (Emily Osment) ended the season seemingly united, the title of the Young Sheldon spinoff continues to hang over their relationship.

Showrunner Steve Holland tells Entertainment Weekly that the couple has grown stronger in many ways since first meeting, but season 3 will further explore what happens when their dreams pull them in different directions.

“They’re both really similar, but those ambitions aren’t always gonna be in alignment,” Holland tells EW. “Those ambitions can butt heads against each other sometimes, because in some relationships, you have to make decisions and both people can’t always get what they want. And so how do you make those decisions?”

Georgie & Mandy, he says, has always been about a couple who “stumbled into” a marriage, which ultimately causes “lots of problems.”

“I mean, there’s the age gap, and there’s having a kid before they were barely in a relationship together, and there’s living with their parents,” he lists, just to name a few.

Holland spoke to EW about the choppy waters ahead for Georgie and Mandy, what’s next for Mary and Fagenbacher’s romance, whether fans could see more Young Sheldon faces in season 3, and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start with Mary and Fagenbacher’s budding relationship. Going into season 3, putting everyone else’s objections aside, how do the two of them actually feel about each other? 

STEVE HOLLAND: I think we tried to walk a line in the [season 2] finale where Georgie can believe this is one of Fegenbacher’s plots to throw him off, and Mary can believe that he’s really sincere about wanting to change his life. And there’s nothing in the finale that indicates he’s anything but sincere. It’s Georgie still coming into season 3 with these suspicions and feeling like his mom is being played. And I think his mom, like she said in the finale, is not some naive church girl. She’s lived a life. She’s a grown-up. People are not giving her as much credit as she deserves for being able to make these decisions in her own life.

Why was Fagenbacher the right person to pair with Mary after the death of her husband, George Sr.?

It’s the messiest version! And it seemed like an interesting journey: This guy who’s been the villain, seeing if we can take him and add different layers to him and put him in this relationship. It just felt believable.

Does the family’s resistance about them dating continue to be an obstacle for Mary and Fagenbacher in season 3? 

Definitely. We pick up in season 3 right where we left off. No one is obviously happy about this. No one is less happy about it than Georgie. But I think Mary is also a very stubborn character, like Sheldon could be. To give her an ultimatum is the wrong way to go about getting this woman to do what you want. It just makes her dig her heels in harder. She’s been a wife and a mother. She’s gone through this huge thing of grief, and maybe this is the first time that she’s actually made a decision without thinking about the consequences for anyone else, but just because it’s something that she wants.

Georgie’s ultimatum about taking away Mary’s access to her granddaughter — is that real or an empty threat?

No, he means it, and you’re gonna see him try to see that through.

Will Mandy still find herself in the middle of all this?

Yeah. And her family has different takes on it. For the first time, [her mom], Audrey [Rachel Bay Jones], is on Georgie’s side. Audrey thinks this is ridiculous.

This is, of course, called Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage. But after season 2, they seem to be in a great spot. Will season 3 show any internal challenges in their relationship that could hint toward trouble in paradise? 

To me, and to the writers, this is a story about this couple who you want to root for. You want them to be together. Hopefully you like them as a couple. And there is a sword hanging over their head that we know at some point in the future, it maybe doesn’t work out. Now, maybe it doesn’t work out, and they remarry. I don’t know the answer to that. We also don’t know how long this marriage lasts before it falls apart or what the cause of it falling apart will be. But I think those frictions in their marriage, those frayed strands of their relationship, are there, and something that we’re definitely gonna poke at this season.

They have that 11-year age gap; will that continue to be an issue? 

I actually feel like the age gap starts to become less of a thing. Like, it was embarrassing when she was married to a teenager. [Laughs] But Georgie is not a teenager anymore; he’s old enough to drink. They do come from slightly different generations, but I feel like the age gap thing starts to fade away.

Will the show ever explore what their lives would have been had Mandy not gotten pregnant?

Yeah. If it hadn’t been for the pregnancy, I think [Mandy] never would’ve spoken to [Georgie] again. So it’s this interesting thing to sprinkle into the relationship. It’s the reason they stayed together or stayed in touch. And it’s also the reason they fell in love.

Georgie is thriving at his tire business, but what will Mandy’s career trajectory look like in season 3? 

I think Mandy, in her way, is equally as ambitious as Georgie. I mean, Georgie’s 21, he’s got nothing but time. She 32. She needs to start making things happen, and I think she’s starting to. She sees herself as being able to do more than just do the weather on a local station. I think part of her drive this season will be to prove to her boss that she can do more than just be the bubbly weather girl.

Let’s talk about Connor, who ends the season on the road, which is a huge step forward for him. But then we discover he’s calling home from jail. How is he going to get himself out of that situation? 

He turns to Georgie for help, and to help him keep it a secret from his parents, which also creates some tension in the family, because Georgie has this big [secret] that he knows.

How much of the season will be about Connor figuring out how much he can function independently?

We’re not that deep into the season yet, but we want to use [his arrest] as a catalyst [for] a little bit of growth for Connor. He did this thing, and it didn’t go great, but he survived it. And maybe the lesson is that it wasn’t the end of the world.

What can you tease about his future with his on-and-off girlfriend, Chloe (Kara Arena)? 

I think for Connor, who hasn’t had a long-term relationship, he’s happy to have one. And he and Chloe have chemistry. They enjoy playing music together. [His arrest] complicates things because once his parents become aware of what happened, some of that blame gets shifted to Chloe.

I do have to ask the Young Sheldon question. Are there any more familiar faces that we haven’t seen on Georgie & Mandy yet that you’re hoping to bring back?

Look, we love getting that cast back. One of the great things about getting to do this show is we inherited this world of supporting characters. So if we can figure out how to use them in a story, great. I would love to have Ed Begley Jr. or Wally Sean back. It’s tricky because they weren’t really in Georgie’s world, they were in Sheldon’s world, but I love them so much as people that sometimes you’re like, “Is there a world? Could we bring them back?”

And obviously, Ian [Armitage] has not been back on the show yet. I’m still in touch with him. We talk about it pretty often. I think he is trying to give himself a little distance from it, but I think at some point he’ll come back. There’s a ton of love there between us, the cast, and Ian. It would be fun to spend a week with Ian again.

How would you describe the overall emotional arc of season 3?

That’s a good question because we don’t plan the whole season out as an arc. So it’s hard for me to step back and look at it in that way. But I think the core of the show is always, to me, this family and real family struggles. I feel like if we can ground this show in a way that people watching it can understand these characters and what they’re going through, and can find ways to tell those stories that feel real and grounded but specific to these characters, then that’s always our guiding principle. And also just the growing pains of this relationship. I mean, like you said, it’s Georgie and Mandy’s first marriage.