One of the worst sitcom finales of all time has a 3.8 rating on IMDb and still disappoints me 9 years later

The series finale of Two and a half people is one of the worst endings in television history – and I’m still bitter about it almost a decade later. When it premiered in 2003, Two and a half people was the story of carefree bachelor Charlie Harper, played by Charlie Sheen, whose life is turned upside down when his dorky brother Alan (John Cryer) is kicked out by his wife and moves into his guest room. As he grows closer to Alan and his 10-year-old son Jake (Angus T. Jones), Charlie gradually becomes a caring family man.

By the time it finally ended its run after 12 seasons and 262 episodes, Two and a half people was a very different show. Jake has grown up and moved on, and Charlie was brutally killed after a disagreement between Sheen and series creator Chuck Lorre. Ashton Kutcher took over as the series lead, playing a tech billionaire named Walden Schmidt who bought the house after Charlie’s death and, inexplicably, still let Alan live there. After Kutcher led the cast for four years, the show ended with one of the worst series finales of all time — a resolution I still struggle with even now.

Two and a Half Men had one of the worst endings of a sitcom

Charlie is brought back from the dead for a baffling revenge storyline

On February 19, 2015, Two and a half people Ended its run with a two-part series finale: season 12, episodes 15 and 16, “Of course he’s dead.” The episode begins with Alan learning that Charlie has $2.5 million in unclaimed music royalties that Alan can claim if he provides Charlie’s death certificate. However, when he and Walden do some digging, they are surprised to find that there is no death certificate. As it turns out, Charlie’s stalker Rose faces his death and she has kept him in a well in her basement, a la Buffalo Bill, for the last four years.

Charlie escapes from the well and starts sending threatening messages to Alan and their mother Evelyn, vowing revenge against them. It is unclear why he wants revenge; Despite his constant bickering, it was always clear that, deep down, Charlie loved his brother and his mom. If he deserved revenge against anyone, it was Rose, but she wasn’t targeted by any of his revenge threats. Two and a half people Fans have spent years watching Charlie soften his edges and become a loving family guy, and in one fell swoop, this finale turned him into a vindictive monster.

The Two and a half people Finale is much darker and more mean-spirited than the average sitcom finale. The Friends, Sheets creekAnd Parks and Recreation Finales are dedicated to closing the chapter of the characters’ lives and leaving them all in a good place. The latest episode of The office is a celebration of the show’s past and how far all the characters have come. Lorre’s next hit sitcom, The Big Bang TheoryEnds with Sheldon receiving the Nobel Prize and using his speech to thank all his friends.

Most sitcom finales are a love letter to their fans, but these Two and a half people Finale felt more like an insult. Seinfeld Has a cynical ending, but not at the expense of the established characterization of the lead characters. That ending suits the tone and attitude of the rest of the series. Two and a half people Started with a heavy dose of sentimentality – I found Charlie’s early scenes with Jake particularly affecting – however In the finale, there is not an iota of that sentimentality left.

Why Two and a Half Men’s series finale was so weird

There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes drama wrapped up in the Two and a Half Men finale

The strangest of these Two and a half people Finale can be attributed to some behind-the-scenes drama. Around the eighth season of the show, There was a bitter falling out between Shane and Laura. The season order was cut short and Sheen was fired and replaced by Kutcher. like Two and a half people Continued with a new lead, the feud between Shin and Lore continued. Shin’s next sitcom, Anger Managementopened with a fourth-wall-breaking sequence of Sheen directly addressing his disagreement with Lorre. When it was time to wrap up Two and a half peopleLorre reopened the old wounds.

The finale is full of meta references to Sheen’s firingAnd it seems to have only brought the fictional Charlie back to life to settle a score with the actor. The finale ends with a Charlie locale walking up to the front door of the house, ringing the doorbell, and a piano dropped on his head. The camera pulls back to show Lorre in a director’s chair. He turns to the camera and mockingly quotes Sheen’s duck – “Win!– Before another piano is dropped on his head.

In this case, the Two and a half people Finale isn’t interested in concluding a 12-year story or giving long-time fans closure on their favorite characters — it’s all about Lorre getting back into shape. As one of the long-time fans who loved the Harpers and wanted closure, I was pretty outraged. I loved Charlie Harper as a character in the early years of the show, so it felt like an insult to see him killed off in such an obviously vindictive way (and for the second time at that).

Charlie Sheen and Chuck Lorre have been working things out ever since

Sheen & Lorre buried the hatchet and worked together again

Following their very public falling-out behind the scenes of Two and a half peopleSheen and Lorre have since patched things up and worked together again. Sheen appears in Lorre’s new comedy series on Max, Bucky. Bucky Sebastian Maniscalco stars as a sports betting bookie in LA, and Sheen plays a fictionalized version of himself as a celebrity gambler.

Lorre reached out to Sheen about the appearance on the show and the two managed to make amends. (via Variety), so their feud seems to be water under the bridge. However, this arguably only makes the Two and a half people Finale even more disappointing for fans like me. The fact that such reconciliation is always possible highlights the vindictiveness, so it seems as if the hatchet had been buried earlier, we could have a different ending to the story.

Two and a Half Men’s weird finale makes a rewatch difficult

A Two and a Half Men rewatch comes with a lot of baggage

The confounding series finale makes Two and a half people A hard show to revive. Whereas shows how Seinfeld And The office Hold up to countless repeat viewings, Two and a half people is much more disjointed. As far as I’m concerned, those early seasons will never get old. But Once Charlie is written out of the series, things change dramatically.

Walden’s arrival turns Two and a half people In a completely different show, Jake’s role is massively reduced, and the overarching story builds to the training wreck of a finale. This means that, emotionally, Two and a half people is a much more testing effort than most beloved sitcoms, because the payoff is so underwhelming. Whatever the strengths of early seasons, the final episodes remain as crushing as Chuck Lorre’s piano.

Source: Variety