Two and a Half Men had its rocky moments both on and offscreen. From Alan's alimony to Charlie's ghost, we look at the sitcom's biggest plotholes.
It’s a shame that the recent generation views Two and a Half Men as a ridiculous show that had cheap humor and no level of wit, because it had started off on a pretty good foot and was on its way to becoming a respected series.
Due to all the controversies surrounding it, the show’s name has been sullied, although even if you consider its heyday, Two and a Half Men had a lot of inconsistencies. With the show not caring much about continuity or much of anything by its end, here are 10 things we’ve found that about Two and a Half Men that don’t make sense.
Alan's Alimony
Due to Charlie messing things up with Alan’s lawyer, she ended up handing Judith a freakishly generous alimony that effectively made Alan something of a poverty stricken guy. Up until Judith got married to Herb, Alan had to pay her a ridiculous amount of $4000 a month!
Clearly, Alan wasn’t making enough money to support himself, what with his business hardly having any customers and him living with his brother, which should have made it an easy case to file a motion to the court to have the alimony reduced.
Alan Trying To Win Judith Back
Twice during the course of the series we saw Alan wanting Judith back, despite the fact that Judith had openly confessed she hated Alan and had made his life miserable. On the first occasion, he may have even impregnated her when she was separated from Herb.
Bizarrely, Alan tried to get her back in the series finale, where he called her the love of his life and the one he rang up when he believed Charlie was going to kill him. At this time, Alan was engaged to Lyndsey, making it nonsensical why he would call Judith.
Charlie's "Ghost"
After Charlie Sheen was fired, Chuck Lorre tried pretty much everything to belittle him on Two and a Half Men, one of which involved making Charlie Harper an older woman in hell. Here, Charlie’s spirit supposedly visited Alan to impart advice, and even proved himself to be Charlie and not Alan’s imagination.
Cut to the finale, and we had the actual Charlie Harper show up, making this ghost something that doesn’t make any sense. Alan didn’t even think about how he had met Charlie’s ghost, which should logically make the entire ghost storyline non-canonical.
Fourth Wall Breaks
On occasion, it’s actually pretty funny to see someone from a TV show break the fourth wall and talk to us, but Two and a Half Men made this a running habit.
Usually, when characters do break the fourth wall, they are well aware of it (Deadpool, for example), but Two and a Half Men seemed to feature this for no apparent reason other than to get a cheap laugh. Why would the characters know they’re in a show then not mention it the next second?
Alan And Walden's Marriage
Like the final season of How I Met Your Mother was useless in that it was based around Barney and Robin’s wedding, only for them to get divorced in the finale, Two and a Half Men pulled a similar move.
The plot to the season was Walden and Alan getting married so they could adopt a child; this didn’t matter in the slightest come the finale. We didn’t even see their adopted son in this episode, and their marriage was dissolved in the preceding episode. Summing up, the whole of Season 12 was there for no reason.
Chuck Lorre's Scene
All right, maybe you could explain why the fourth wall breaks sometimes, but there can be no explanation as to how Chuck Lorre was present during the scene the piano fell on Charlie. The piano had crushed him because it had been strapped to a helicopter, which at least justifies the scene, but what the heck was Chuck doing there?
There was no attempt made to hide the set either, as you could clearly see the production lights when Chuck was crushed under another piano. If the show had ended and then Chuck came up, it would’ve been understandable, but are we to believe there was no fourth wall at all here?
Same Actresses Showing Up
A lot of the actors seemed to be interchangeable when they weren’t playing important characters, and since the show had a huge abundance of Charlie’s one-time conquests, we saw the same actresses show up more than once.
However, this doesn’t help continuity in the slightest when the same actress was used for both a minor role and for a prominent one. For instance, Jennifer Taylor, the actress playing Chelsea, was seen two times having the same role of Charlie’s hook-up, only for her to then become the love of his life as a different character the third time around.
Keeping The Series' Name Even Though It Didn't Apply Anymore
By Season 9, Jake’s appearances became more and more infrequent, to the point that he would only be there for a scene or two. It was here that the show clearly had lost its last part of the title.
After Season 10, Jake’s replacement wasn’t a boy nor even a male, as we saw Jenny take the role as the tritagonist. By Season 12, Jenny was disposed of too, and since Louis was never treated as an important character, it was really just Two Sad Men when all was said and done.
Charlie's Failed Character Developments
From the first season to the eighth, Charlie’s storylines always went through the same formula: he would mess around with women, then find one he fell in love with, only to then dump her because he liked messing around too much.
This would have all been okay had there been an endgame to it, such as Charlie finally developing as a person and realizing he was doing the wrong thing, but this wasn’t the case. In the end, Charlie remained exactly the same, and died with no point to all the storylines where he had repented his previous actions.
Charlie Wanting Revenge On Walden
There was clearly no love lost between Ashton Kutcher and Charlie Sheen, both of whom passionately disliked the other. However, Walden didn’t steal Charlie’s spot in-universe, and legally bought Charlie’s house because it was believed Charlie was dead.
And yet, Charlie was out to get Walden in the finale, and even had figurines cut out to threaten him. We’re still wondering why Charlie would want revenge in the first place, if Walden never met him or did anything to warrant such antagonism. If anything, Charlie and Walden would've gotten along great because they were both tired of Alan mooching off them.
