Meet Louis, the Cheez-It loving, drawing extraordinaire, and our new ‘half man’. In “Oontz Oontz Oontz,” Walden and Alan became foster parents to a timid young boy with a face good enough for commercials, but the last thing Alan would want is a six year-old making more money than him.
After almost adopting a newborn in last week’s 250th episode, only for the birth mother to rescind on her offer, Ms. McMartin suggested that Walden and Alan adopt an older child. In came Louis, an adorable nugget who has been passed around from foster home to foster home for no explicable reason. And though it took some getting used to, he eventually felt right at home with his new daddy, Walden, and his new mommy, Alan.
The introduction of a new series regular this late in the game is almost never a good idea, but I’m not opposed to the casting of Edan Alexander, or “Two and a Half Men” coming full circle. There was a sweetness to the Chuck Lorre comedy when its original ‘half man’, Angus T. Jones, was still young and naive; in particular, the pilot for “Men” promised an off-beat family sitcom. As the years went by, and Jones grew up, the show became one big sex farce, which was fine, but not the show it once was. For it to go out trying to replicate the atmosphere of its earliest years is not such a bad idea.
There have been plenty of fan theories regarding how “Two and a Half Men” will end, including the idea that these last four seasons getting to know Walden Schmidt will have been a dream, with some highly unlikely cameo by Charlie Sheen before the show’s closing credits.
That would only do the show “Two and a Half Men” has become an incredible disservice.
“Men” is an entirely different show than the show Sheen left, and though its writing hasn’t always been as strong, the writers, and his portrayer, Ashton Kutcher, have made Walden a gentler, more likable protagonist. His luck with women hasn’t never measured up to Charlie’s, but unlike our former central character, Walden has shown great maturity since its ninth season introduction. Watching as he tackles fatherhood, having never had a father of his own, gives the writers plenty of potential stories to tell as the show winds down in its 12th year. A sitcom as weirdly controversial as this one could be doing a whole lot worse.