Missy Cooper is the youngest sibling in the Cooper family and the only sister. “Missy” is actually a nickname for Melissa.
She was played by Raegan Revord in Young Sheldon and by Courtney Henggeler in The Big Bang Theory, TBBT.
Raegan Revord is now 16 and is working on her YA debut, called Rules for Fake Girlfriends; it is set to be out in fall, 2025, published by Wednesday Books. Courtney Henggeler is still acting in Cobra Kai, starring as Daniel LaRusso’s wife, Amanda.
Personality & Behaviour
Sassy and mischievous - this is one of her most defining qualities. She likes to tease her brother. We see her do this a lot when in the initial seasons. She makes fun of his nerdiness and uptightness.
Emotionally intuitive - we do see her compassionate side growing throughout the series; she is caring and protective towards her family and friends, for example, Paige. In Season 5 when Paige asks Sheldon if she can stay in his dorm room, he goes home and asks Missy for advice about the situation. Hearing about this, Missy is concerned about Paige and tells Mom about it, making the mature decision that Sheldon couldn’t make.
Missy also cares a lot about Sheldon and is willing to help him when he needs it.
The polar opposite of Sheldon - she’s social, laid-back and easygoing.
Not afraid to chase her dreams - we see this when in Season 3, when she pursues an interest in baseball. Even though the cards were stacked against her, she continued to do what she loved.
Helpful and responsible - in Season 5, Season 6 and Season 7, we see Missy help out her family and take charge when she needed to. In Season 7, she kept the house running and in Season 6 she got a job at the comic book store to keep her family afloat. She didn’t know a thing about comic books but was willing to learn because she knew that she needed to.
A typical teenage girl - unlike Sheldon, she is more like people her age. Especially as she grows older, we see her starting to develop crushes on boys, obsess over them, date them, break up with them, cry in bed - the typical life of a young teenager. We also see her develop an interest in fashion from the start of the sitcom. Unfortunately, we only get a peek into her school life but from the information provided, we can tell that she loves socialising, is very extroverted and blends in with the people around her.
Intelligent and resourceful - Sheldon is generally shown as the smart one in the Cooper family, but we can see that outside of academics he is pretty much dumb. This is when Missy’s intellect shines. We’ve seen her come up with clever, creative and cute solutions to problems. In one of the episodes, she starts her own candy floss business, which she unfortunately had to pull the breaks on because of an ant infestation. However, it was clever whilst it lasted.
Missy’s Growth Throughout the Show:
Missy is one of my favourite characters in Young Sheldon because of her significant growth. As much as we like her at the start of the sitcom, she is so much more lovable towards the end.
We see her tackle problems that she’s never been tasked with before and develop her inner strength as she faces them.
We also see her become more open throughout the series: she is willing to ask intellectual questions and often comes up with witty and creative solutions to some of Sheldon’s problems; she explores different interests too, one of them being baseball. This was not considered something that a typical teen girl would do back then, but Missy loved it and wanted to be able to play it. She didn’t see how being a girl made a difference. When her father asks her if she wants to play any other sports, she tells him that she has her heart set on baseball and when he says that she’ll be the only girl, she shrugs and says, “I don’t care.”
In the last three seasons, we see two sides of her. In Season 7, she lies to her dad about having a boyfriend, which is irresponsible. But in the same season and probably the same episode too, she becomes the mom of the house and runs it by herself, which shows responsibility.
In the same episode(s), when people start to take advantage of her doing this, she makes them pay by creating the chore chart. This shows that she is asserting herself and setting boundaries.
Key Parts of Her Life (Including TBBT)
Growth as a young girl - throughout the Young Sheldon sitcom, we see her navigating love and family whilst also tackling the chaos of adolescence.
Baseball - this starts out as a way to impress a boy (in Season 3 of Young Sheldon) but eventually grows into something that Missy is competent at and passionate about.
Stealing her dad’s car and running away from home - this occurs in Season 6.
Becoming a waitress at Fuddrucker’s - mentioned in the first episode of TBBT
Marriage and family - in the Season 7 episode of TBBT, The Cooper Extraction, Sheldon goes to Texas to help (well, he doesn’t really help) handle Missy’s homebirth.
Problems That She Had to Face:
A conflicted relationship with her family - this is probably because of Sheldon getting the most attention. It doesn’t affect Georgie much because he’s probably making out with the next hot girl on the street and doesn’t want it, but it affects Missy. She has a distant relationship with her mother, Mary Cooper, because of this and grows closer to her father instead.
In a Season 2 episode, “A Research Study and Czechoslovakian Wedding Parties”, Missy and Sheldon are both used for a university study, and Mary is afraid that this will make Missy feel inadequate. Instead, during an interview, Missy talks about the issue of her family not paying much attention to her. As a side note, in the same episode, we also see how dumb Sheldon can be and how bright and attention Missy can be.
Since she was never paid much attention to, she was easy to forget about. We see this in Season 6 when she was the only one who didn’t know about Mandy, and in addition to this, having to walk home because her parents had gone to the hospital and forgot to tell her. This is the event that pushes her over the edge and leads her to run away. When she is found by her parents, Sheldon describes this phase as being “Missy’s difficult period”, when she tackles feelings of neglect, sadness, anger and just not knowing what to feel. She balances this all of this weight on top of her school and family life.
Facing problems as a young teen - this is one of her key events too. Throughout the sitcom, we see her slipping into adolescence and navigating school and family.
Being Sheldon’s twin - Sheldon was obviously way beyond a child prodigy, whereas Missy was just a regular girl. And we can see that this significant difference between them plays a huge role in Missy’s life. For example, when Sheldon graduates from high school and she graduates from elementary school, her feelings are palpable.
Having to overcome hurdles playing baseball as a girl - this was the 1990s, and even though Missy loved baseball and was exceptionally good at it, she was underestimated and overlooked because she was a girl and to exacerbate the situation, ridiculed by people she thought were her friends.
We heard her being called ''Melissa Cooper'' for the first time in season 2 not season 4.