"Seven Deadly Sins and a Small Carl Sagan" is an episode of Young Sheldon that first aired October 25, 2018.
Mary clashes with Sheldon's drama teacher over plans for a Halloween fundraiser for the church. Georgie falls for a rebellious teenage girl named Veronica whom Sheldon is tutoring.
Tropes
- Disproportionate Retribution: According to Sheldon's narration, because Veronica ditched him to seek salvation from God, this infuriated Georgie enough to become a devout atheist.
- Evil Is Cool: In-Universe, the main reason Mary and the drama teacher butt heads is because the drama teacher thinks this, playing Satan as a charming jokester and the Seven Deadly Sins as full-blown attractions, which earns a lot of fundraising money but means nobody is disgusted enough to seek salvation (at least until Veronica checks out the attraction).
- Fist Pump: In The Tag, Sheldon does one after one of the adults he trick-or-treats finally recognizes him as Carl Sagan and he feels vindication, "the sweetest candy of all".
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: One of the first changes Mary wants to make when she's put in charge of the Hell House attraction is to rename it the Heck House, because she considers "Hell" too strong a word to use so casually.
- Halloween Episode: The events of the episode focus on celebrating Halloween, with Sheldon trick-or-treating as Carl Sagan and Mary running a Haunted House attraction.
- Haunted House: The church's main fundraising event is a "Hell House" meant to illustrate the danger of sin in order to convince people to seek salvation. Mary wants to play the role of an angel and focus on the salvation, while the drama teacher wants to play Satan and focus on the sin.
- Hypocritical Humor: In the opening, Sheldon supports the idea of a Hell House because fear has historically been a useful recruitment tool, which Mary takes offence at. Sheldon then asks what happens if people don't follow God's rules, and Mary claims that they end up burning in Hell...because God loves them.
- It's All About Me: The reason for Mary's conflict with Gene is that Gene takes over production of the attraction entirely, being more concerned about his own reputation due to being associated with the project than Mary's goal of recruiting people for the church by showing the dangers of sin.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Each room of the Hell House is meant to contain a skit demonstrating the worst qualities of each of the seven sins, as well as one room for Mary to offer salvation to those humbled by those skits and seeking forgiveness.
- Shout-Out: Missy dresses as Cyndi Lauper for trick-or-treating, while Sheldon dresses as Carl Sagan and Billy as Superman.
- Turn to Religion: Right before bringing Georgie home with her, Veronica decides to check out the Hell House attraction and ends up so repulsed by the "Lust" scene that she seeks out Mary, playing the role of an angel, to forsake her rebellious ways and become a community activist. According to older Sheldon's narration, watching this happen spites Georgie into becoming a devout atheist.
