Young Sheldon season 6's latest trailer sees Mary question her faith, leading to the question of whether this trait is a blessing or a curse.

The Young Sheldon season 6 trailer promises lots of hi-jinks, but the sitcom’s latest promo also asks a pretty big existential question about one of the show’s main characters. Mary Cooper is a complex character, to say the least. In The Big Bang Theory (where she was played by sitcom stalwart Laurie Metcalf), Mary is a devoutly religious, snarky woman whose obstinacy goes some way to explaining Sheldon’s intensity.

However, much like Meemaw’s wilder Young Sheldon iteration is nothing like her Big Bang Theory self, Mary is a very different beast in the spinoff series. She is still highly religious, but she is also much more highly strung, neurotic, controlling, and, at times, outright mean. While the intervening years might go a way to explaining Mary loosening up by the time The Big Bang Theory takes place, Young Sheldon’s season 6 trailer offered another potential avenue of exploration for the character.

Related: What Young Sheldon Is Missing From The Big Bang Theory’s Formula

Young Sheldon’s season 6 trailer teases the idea the Cooper matriarch may be questioning her religious beliefs - or at least the extent of them - when Mary, while praying, wishes that God would pick on someone else for a change. This would definitely bring about some character change, as many of Mary’s worst moments in both The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon are rooted in her obsession with religion and perceived piety. However, she also gains a lot of internal strength and morality from this same faith, which means that Mary losing her faith or question the way she expresses it may not free her from her neuroses, and could instead leave her despondent if she were still faced with the many challenges that the Cooper clan pose.

Mary’s staunch beliefs being a fundamental element of her character is generally approached in a lighthearted manner during the show, as something that has often led Young Sheldon’s otherwise divided Cooper family to roll their eyes at her. This said, as proven by Georgie’s Young Sheldon season 6 story, Mary’s faith can also have more serious, impactful consequences. Her failure to see George impregnating Mandy as more than an embarrassment for her family’s standing at church led her son to dismiss her as a source of support and turn to Meemaw, an authentically sad moment that fed into his Big Bang Theory counterpart’s belief that Sheldon was always Mary’s favorite child.

However, on the other hand, faith may also be the only thing keeping Mary from giving up on the family in Young Sheldon season 6. As such, it’s not as simple as saying that Mary must forget about religion or even the politics of her local church for her family’s sake. Admittedly, Mary’s concern over the perception of her fellow church members will make the Young Sheldon season 6 Georgie story harder as she doubles down on her desire to return to the congregation and continues to prioritize this over her son's well-being. But, as evidenced by her Big Bang Theory iteration’s reliance on the Bible, the Young Sheldon version of Mary ends up using her faith to make it through losses like her husband’s untimely death, showing it can also be a positive force in the Cooper family's life - creating a complicated dynamic that the Young Sheldon season 6 trailer may have alluded to exploring through its Mary storyline.

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.