Two And A Half Men
Redundant in the later seasons, yet still a good watch
By Dustin Marino
(Contains Spoilers)
Two And A Half Men is a television sitcom about a father and son (Alan and Jake) who moves in with is brother (Charlie), after Alan’s wife kicks him out of the house. All 12 seasons of Two and A Half Men can be watched on Peacock streaming service.
While the series starts strong, the later episodes put quantity over quality. Here’s my review of the series.
Great characters
The genius of this series is in the characters. Charlie has commitment issues and cannot stay with one woman. Alan is the opposite whereas he cannot get one woman to stay with him. Alan’s son is influenced by Charlie’s poor behavior. And Jake is not so smart.
The show also bring a good group of supporting characters. Rose is Charlie’s stalker. Berta is Charlie’s housekeeper and is provocative and sarcastic. Judith is Alan’s ex-wife and she cares for her son Jake but can be really mean especially to Alan. Evelyn is Charlie and Alan’s mother. The men fear her and often refer to her as a demon. Other great characters include Lyndsey, Eldridge, Herb, Walden and more. Each character brings out their own unique personality that is sure to make the viewer laugh or yell at them through the television screen.
The writing can be brilliant. The stories will keep you guessing as to what will happen next. The character, Charlie, wants to change as a person but is conflicted by his impulsive nature. This causes the viewer to constantly guess as to whenever Charlie will ever truly change.
D r a g g e d O u t
Unfortunately as the show gets into later seasons, the show becomes dragged out and loses the charm it had in previous seasons. The creators were trying to get out the last drop of toothpaste out but the toothpaste tube was empty.
There was nothing else to tell in the story. The show goes from amazing character development to the characters becoming walking globs of nothingness.
There is a joke in one episode where Jake mispronounces “redundant” as “redemdant.” In the later years of the show, the show becomes “redemdant.” The viewer hears the same old story they heard a thousand times. The characters lose their depth and doesn’t develop from their experiences as they once did. Someone needed to tell the creators “quality over quantity.”
The Sheen Situation
Charlie Sheen, the actor who played Charlie Harper was fired after Season 8 after he made public comments about the shows director, Chuck Lorre that was not so nice. After this, Charlie Harper had to be written out of the series. They did it in the worst way possible. They decided to kill off Charlie Harper at such a crucial point in the series. They didn’t even take the character death seriously. Every single other character were simply making jokes the entire time of the funeral and they didn’t give the character a proper send off. The audience was expecting Charlie Harper to change to go from a womanizer to actually settling down and starting a family.
If they truly could not make things work with Sheen, they could have instead had Harper get married to Rose off screen and move to Paris for good. Given Rose’s character, Rose could have still been in the show 100%. She was a stalker and certainly would have her ways of getting to Paris to Malibu, California very quickly.
Nice To Meet You Walden Schmidt!
After Sheen left the series needed to keep its name Two and A Half Men so they had Ashton Kutcher step in to play Walden Schmidt. This episode was titled “Nice To Meet You Walden Schmidt!” And it was certainly nice to meet Walden… at first.
This is not a bash on Kutcher. He did his best in what was an impossible situation. Walden Schmidt is a tech billionaire who Alan moves in with after Charlie’s death. Of first the Walden Schmidt character looked promising but as time went on his character got too serious and too bland. This is not a bash on Kutcher as Walden is not the only character who got bland but the show certainly didn’t take his character in the direction they should have. At first Walden was a childish, over emotional, depressed billionaire. In the end, he was just a billionaire. There were no defining characteristics to make the Schmidt character fun and interesting.
Walden at first could not get over the fact that his wife left him for being too childish and almost killed himself and did all he could to win her back in the most childish ways possible. Seeing his constant childish antics was funny and gave hope to what was thought to be an impossible situation to overcome. But then they decided to get rid of all the things that made Walden a great character. His character became serious and lost all the fun characteristics he started with.
What Ever Happened To (Place Character Here!)
As the series progressed some favorite characters were not in the show as often. What ever happened to Judith, Alan’s ex wife? She was not in nearly as many episodes later on. Same with Herb and Rose. Not seeing these characters as often really allowed the show to take a dive.
Um… The Series Finale…
Yeah… the series finale was not good to say the least. When one sees a series finale they expect to see where all the characters end up, loose ends to be tied, and to have a heartfelt moment between everyone. Two and A Half Men decided they would do something completely different. They instead decided to dedicate the entire episode to bashing fired Two and A Half Men star Charlie Sheen.
They excited fans by leading them to believe that Charlie Sheen would make a return. They titled the episode “Of Course He’s Dead” leading everyone to believe that Charlie Harper would be revived. Perhaps he faked his own death somehow. It turns out in fact Charlie Harper was still alive, but instead of bringing Charlie Sheen back to play him again, they used a body double and crushed him him a piano and the show ends.
Though it is no secret that Charlie Sheen did not get along with some of the others in Two And A Half Men and publicly said some not so nice things about some of them, ending the series bashing him was uncalled for and not what makes for a good story. Also Charlie Sheen was struggling with drug addiction at the time he made these comments so he likely didn’t mean them and just needed assistance getting off the drugs. Regardless of whether one thinks Charlie Sheen should be forgiven, two wrongs don’t make a right and dedicating the final episode bashing his character was not the ending fans asked for. At the end I was expecting to finally see the Rose and Charlie wedding, for Alan to finally move out and make a lot of money on his own. Alan would marry Lyndsey. Judith and Evelyn would be nice to Alan and Charlie for once. We would finally get answers as to whenever Judith’s baby from Season 6 was the kid of Herb or Alan’s. Alan and Charlie would also be nice to each other for once. Of course none of this happened. The one part of the episode that was good were the fourth wall jokes that did not involve bashing Sheen. At one point someone says “Did you really make all that money making jokes?” Every character turns to the camera. If they truly could not rebuild bridges with Sheen, they could have had revived Charlie Harper the character and have him text something heartfelt and nice for the final episode. This way the character would not need to appear on screen. “The fact that everyone thought I was dead proved to me that you have limited time in this planet…” He would then go on to say nice things about the characters including the ones he once made fun of or didn’t get along with — Alan, Rose, Berta, Evelyn and even his ex sister in law Judith. He would then get married to Rose off screen. If they didn’t kill him off in Season 9 and instead went with the idea stated previously they already would have the marrying Rose part complete and all that be left would be the heartfelt text. In return, every character would say something nice about Charlie Harper as well. Everyone character would be nice to each other for once, loose ends would be tied up, and we would see where all the characters ended up.
The bottom line? An overall rating of 3 out of 5 stars. Here’s why…
Although the show becomes redundant in its later seasons, it is still a good watch. The characters will make the viewers laugh and keep the viewers on the edge of their seat wondering what will happen next.
Dustin Marino is an interactive multimedia student at TCNJ. He studies storytelling, video, animation and game design.
