‘Two and a Half Men’ season 11 finale review: A reset for season 12

“Two and a Half Men” is a paradox of a show, in that it changes and is also afraid of change at the same time. Basically, the show finds a way to alter the formula when it is backed into a corner, but the rest of the time chooses mostly to stand pat.

After watching the season 11 finale, it is pretty clear that the show decided in this instance to try and stand pat rather than actually change the dynamic of the series in any way. Alan and Walden are still living together in the latter’s Malibu beach house, and they are both seemingly single after Gretchen decided to run off with her ex-husband (played by Brad Paisley, Kimberly Williams-Paisley’s real-life husband). The entire end to the Alan / Gretchen / Lyndsey / Larry story was expected, since there was no way that the producers wanted you to actually think that this was the long-term plan. Instead, we had Lyndsey going completely insane as she couldn’t stand the sight of Alan marrying another woman.

In the end, we still see her and Alan being the couple that gets together, but probably not until the end of the series (which really should be next year). Meanwhile, we don’t have any clue what is going on with Walden. There are times that he thought that he was best with Kate, but he has had many relationships that all ended for no good reason. This is, in the end, much better than Jenny’s story right now. If you aren’t going to bother giving Amber Tamblyn anything interesting to do, why even have her on the show? The writers’ complete lack of understanding of what to do with her is a problem.

In the end, this was a very bizarre, silly end to a silly season. We will admit to laughing quite a bit, but let’s be honest when we say here that we all saw this coming miles away.  A more interesting move would have actually been to force Alan into moving out and living with Gretchen, only to see what comes from that. Grade: B-.

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Photo: CBS