‘Two and a Half Men’ season 11, episode 21 review: Alan’s world starts to crumble

Let Thursday night’s “Two and a Half Men” episode serve as evidence that if you create a fake name for yourself in order to get the woman you love to leave her man and get back to you, bad things are going to happen eventually … especially if you fall in love with someone else during the process.

Now that Gretchen knows everything about “Jeff Strongman,” she also realizes just how messed up it is that he wants to clear everything with Lyndsey before making decisions about whether or not to tell Larry the truth. Finally, we’re getting to what could be the end of this relationship. The irony here is that Gretchen has been on paper far more perfect for Alan than Lyndsey … but we still feel like the latter is more likely to be his endgame. She still has feelings for him, and the only thing that is likely keeping them apart right now is his overall lack of ambition.

The story for Walden was random, but entertaining in its own right as we saw him show his attachment to an old car of all things. This finally gave Jenny something to do, and put Clark to reasonably good use, as well. These characters are all fairly one-note and ridiculous, but here is something interesting to think about. For about half of this episode, we had three major characters take center stage who were not even a part of the show a few years ago. While Clark Duke may not be a series regular, we do wonder if that promotion is coming for season 12.

This episode was overall pretty important for the show, but also reasonably funny. At least we’re getting set up for a finale that may actually feel like a finale for a change. The show doesn’t always have that. Grade: B-.

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Photo: CBS