Two Day Magazine

By: Mia Bencivenga

The camera pans around the room.  The audience sees a casket, and the clothes of the dearly departed on display.  Clearly, we are witnessing the funeral of Charlie Harper, the former protagonist of Two and a Half Men, and possibly, we are at the funeral of the show, itself.  

Both the characters and the actors themselves must be wondering the same thing--can we go on without Charlie?  Is it possible to start anew in the wake of such a domineering personality?

Such a somber occasion can only be lightened by a few well-placed jokes about herpes and genital warts via Charlie’s ex-girlfriends.  They aren’t at the funeral to mourn, exactly, considering that the large array of diseases Charlie bestowed upon them before he met his untimely demise.  Some of them are even disappointed by the fact that they will not get the chance to spit on the corpse of the recently departed.

Quip pro quo, Chuck Lorre, quip pro quo.  

But don’t worry, Mr. Lorre made sure that the character of Charlie Harper didn’t suffer, he simply imploded like a “balloon full of meat,” while being presumably pushed in front of an oncoming train by his deranged widow in Paris.  This causes Charlie’s nephew, Jake, to remark about how hungry he is.  

And so begins a new season of Two and a Half Men.

If you are not a regular viewer of Two and a Half Men, please allow me to bring you up to speed.  The show exists in some weird alternate universe (as most sitcoms do) where characters do and say things that, in real life, would make them social pariahs/and or cause them to be arrested.  These characters are also extremely emotionally detached to a point where it appears that everyone in Malibu, California, is a card carrying sociopath.  Instead of portraying real people, the characters main functions are to serve as a vessel through which specific jokes are told, and nothing more.

For instance, Charlie’s mother, Evelyn, during the eulogy, stands up to hush Charlie’s scorned (and venereal disease afflicted) ex-girlfriends, only to advertise the fact that his house is gorgeous and has a great ocean front view.  She is also the realtor of the house and thereby stands  to gain commission.  

Hi-larious.

Actually, despite my sarcastic predisposition, Two and a Half Men is one of the only consistently funny shows on television.  Sure, it lacks a soul, but the show makes no claims to be wholesome family friend entertainment.   It’s crude to a fault, (fart jokes galore!) vaguely sexist, (female characters and discarded and reused more often than a pair of socks) profoundly ridiculous, (at the rate he was going, I’m surprised Charlie Harper lasted past the second season) and utterly unapologetic about it.  They know what the schtick is, and they well um, schtick to it!  Har har!

Alas, and here I am judging other people’s comedic abilities.  

If you recall, all is not lost in the world of Two and a Half Men.  For there is a knight in shining armor, who will rescue the show like a damsel in distress, woo her, take her back to his castle, and make her his bride, thus supporting her for the rest of her days.  

This man, of course, is a bearded, stringy haired version of Ashton Kutcher, playing the role of Walden Schmidt, the most unfortunately named character in the entire show.  Because if there was ever a name for an attractive, frequently nude billionaire and heir to Charlie Sheen’s throne of debauchery, it would be a man named Walden Schmidt.

But fear not!  Walden Schmidt is nothing like Charlie Sheen’s character.  Why, we meet him in his darkest of hours, after being dumped by his wife, he apparently attempts to drown himself in the ocean, only to cop out because the water was “cold.”  Charlie would never do something like that, why, it seems like this Walden character is wholly different!  In addition, Walden is young!  Attractive!  And stumbles into threesomes instead of plotting them himself!  He’s fresh!  He’s new!  

He’s…kind of, well, meh.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, the episode wasn’t terrible; in fact, parts of it were chuckle-worthy.    

But make no mistake, Two and a Half Men was Charlie Sheen’s show.  He was the center around which the plot spun.  And now that he’s not there, you miss him.  The sets seem empty and the story feels lifeless without him.  And the chemistry between Jon Cryer and Ashton Kutcher simply doesn’t exist.  You could actually buy the idea that Alan and Charlie were brothers, you could feel their tension, their sibling rivalry.  It made for solid comedy and constantly new story lines.  But all that Alan and Walden have in common is the fact that they’ve both been left by their wives.  Other than that, the tall, handsome, rich Ashton doesn’t really mesh that well with the skittish, broke, tired Alan.

Now, that spark that kept the show alive and relevant is gone.  

So will the show survive without Charlie?   In defense of the show, I’ll decline from saying that they’re totally screwed.  After all, the season just started.  Who knows?  They might fall into a really nice groove.  This could prove to be televised brilliance.   Or it could prove to be a testament of when good shows are milked so dry that their utters turn to dust on national television.

I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from watching this unfold.  Sometimes, it’s better end things like men, then to stick around until things eventually dissolve into “meh.”

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Mia wants to know, did you find Two and a Half Men to be “meh”? Let her know your thoughts on Facebook.

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