‘Two and a Half Men’ season 12: Jon Cryer defends controversial gay marriage plot

At this point, you may have heard some of the headlines regarding what “Two and a Half Men” have up their sleeve for their twelfth and final season: They’re taking things to the altar! Specifically, they are putting Alan and Walden in a position to marry just so that the latter can adopt a child, and try to fill a hole that he is starting to feel in his life.

While at TCA, CBS head Nina Tassler came to the defense of the story idea, saying that it was done both out of a place of humor, and to actually show some of what LGBT couples go through now in the event that they want to adopt. Now, Jon Cryer himself as done the same. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the show’s longtime cast member made it clear that the intention is not to trivialize the subject matter, though he also still remembers what show he is a part of here:

“Obviously we’ve cheapened plenty of things over the decade that we’ve been on the air … But that is something we’re not intending to do. We’ll see where it goes. I’d love to say, ‘It’s Two and a Half Men, you know, we’re going to do it tastefully.’ But that’s a tough phrase coming out of my mouth.

“The fact that it’s legal in California — we are going to touch on the fact that it’s not legal elsewhere, and we are going to discuss the fact that part of what we’re trying to do is something that hasn’t been done before: two heterosexual guys getting together because they want to raise a child together. They are doing this for the right reason, but they’re taking advantage of something that was obviously fought for very hard by the LGBT community. I felt like comedically, it was a fun idea. Obviously we don’t want to cheapen the struggle that people have been going through.”

Meanwhile, show creator Chuck Lorre echoed most of these comments, but also promised that the show cannot go out with dignity mostly because they never really had any to begin with.

You are going to be waiting for a while for the new season to premiere thanks in part to CBS’ Thursday Night Football, so you will have a while to think about this storyline. If you want some further updates via email on everything we cover at CarterMatt, sign up for our newsletter today.

Photo: CBS