Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage is off to a great start at CBS, to the point I'm already crossing my fingers there are enough episodes to extend its run through the 2025 TV schedule. There's still so much to see with this couple in their married life, including one big realization Mandy will have in the near-future, which co-creator and EP Steve Holland talked out as a future storytelling springboard.
Holland spoke to TVLine about the need to get Mandy out of the house and into a job, despite that possibly being one of the reasons this couple will break up. She still wants to show off her weather-woman skills on the local news, and the co-creator explained why she needs to continue to pursue it, saying:
It’s really important to get her out of that house and give her a drive. We’ve known that Mandy is ambitious, and that’s going to be part of the struggle. It’s frustrating for her, trying to get back out into the workplace, and trying to get back what she lost, even before [she met] Georgie. It isn’t as easy as she thought it would be.
It's not easy to get an anchor job at a news station, especially for those who are unwilling to relocate to do so. While Mandy casually hinted at that possibility, she was immediately shot down by Georgie, who noted he had to take care of his family after the passing of his father toward the end of Young Sheldon. He wants to help his mother look after his sister Missy, who is stirring up all sorts of trouble worthy of her own spinoff in my humble opinion.
For now, it seems that moving away from Medford, Texas, is out of the question, so the urge to expand the characters' world further is at play. Steve Holland noted this could mean that Mandy can either continue to stay at home, or opt for the other obvious option. As he put it:
[She'll] maybe take some jobs that she isn’t that excited about, because she wants to be working. She wants to have a career, and she wants to contribute to her family. That is definitely going to be a part of her story this season.
Mandy may not want to take just any job, but if it's between a miserably 9-to-5 and staying at home, it seems she's far more motivated to get back into the workforce. This isn't any offense to wanting to stay at home with her child, of course, but as Steve Holland mentioned, she's an ambitious person. She's not content with simply living in her parents' house with Georgie as the only source of income, as she aims to eventually move out and into a hosue of their own.
Mandy working isn't just about having ambition, either. It also gives Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage viewers a chance to see her interacting with other characters. As much as I wanted Jim and Audrey McAllister in the spinoff, I'm eager to see the younger parents also making new friends, and Steve Holland confirmed that's on the table as well.
In fact, we just shot an episode about that. She realizes that, especially when you have young kids, that ‘Oh my god, our social circle is now my parents. We’re hanging out, playing cards… like, this cannot be our lives.’ Her 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.
The age gap between Georgie and Mandy hasn't been a tremendous issue outside of when he first had to come clean about his real age in Young Sheldon. As one might guess, hanging out with 19-year-olds is different than hanging out with 30-year-olds. It may make the couple overly aware of just how much they're at different stages in their lives, and self-conscious as a result.
So far, however, things are going well and I pointed out that I loved the chemistry of Montana Jordan and Emily Osment in the premiere. It's possible we're going to see that continue to suffer as these storylines happen, and pretty soon we'll start playing the game of which episode these two eventually decide to split up.
I'll bury that curious thought in the back of my head for now, and continue to enjoy watching Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage on CBS on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. ET. Here's hoping for more quality episodes on the way, that give us some exciting new scenarios for these characters.
