You can’t find a show like Two and a Half Men where characters were hammed down to the point where we didn’t even care a little about them. The show started off trying to give us stories about a dysfunctional family but eventually morphed into something of a parody of its own.
This meant that many story angles that were in place had nowhere to go, and the show ended with these plots left unresolved and with ultimately no meaning attached to them. Now that it has been four years since Two and a Half Men ended, you should refresh your memory about the show by checking out these 10 storylines that were never resolved.
Alan And Walden's Marriage
Chuck Lorre had said that Season 12 would focus on a heartfelt story about two men who become parents to an adopted child and become a family. However, fans instead got a sitcom-style marriage between Alan and Walden where their union was never taken seriously.
In fact, even before the final episode the two were shown to now be pursuing other women, with the “half man” in Louis not even present for the finale. All in all, the whole surrogate family angle never materialized, and we don’t know what the status is of these guys since their marriage was a sham and went totally ignored by the end.
Rose's "Husband"
Rose returned in the eighth season with a renewed purpose of acquiring Charlie, this time involving being “married” to a mannequin she had posing as her husband. Charlie would fall for this deception, and they were last seen going off to Europe to continue their “affair."
In the Season 9 premiere, though, Rose said during Charlie’s funeral that the two had gotten married while abroad, which raises questions as to how that would’ve happened since Charlie though Rose was already supposed to be married. The whole Manny the Mannequin story wasn’t brought up either later on.
Charlie's Status
We still can’t tell if the last scene of the show was meant to be canonical or not, since Chuck Lorre himself showed up in the last few seconds within the Two and a Half Men universe. As it happened just a few seconds prior to that, Charlie was crushed under a piano, with the obvious implication that he died.
However, as Chuck Lorre was shown to be sitting on the Two and a Half men set when this happened, it casts doubt whether this scene was part of the show. So, what exactly became of Charlie in the end?
Charlie's Issues With His Mother
This story came up at least once a season for eight years. Charlie would be shown avoiding his mother, to which she would question why he hated her; this would result in Charlie revealing some deep-seated resentment from his childhood.
And yet, the final episode showed that Charlie still held his mother in contempt for some reason, despite having made amends several times over the last few years. It also didn’t make sense why he wanted revenge on her since she never did anything to harm him. By the end, Evelyn ran away to avoid Charlie and we didn’t get to know why Charlie was so vengeful at all.
Everything About Jenny
Season 11 dabbled with bringing another “half man” on the show by giving us a female version of Charlie in the form of his previously unknown daughter. Jenny had her own storylines for this season, where she was seen carrying on her father’s promiscuous ways with women.
However, Jenny disappeared following Season 12’s premiere and only appeared briefly in the final episode. We never saw if she had any character development or any resolution to the point of her appearing on the show in the first place. You could ignore Season 11 completely and it won’t make a difference in the grand picture of things.
Alan's Ponzi Scheme
Another angle abandoned from the eighth season was the Ponzi scheme Alan had running around. He figured out his friends and family were willing to hand him money while he had them believing he was returning their money with interest, effectively making him rich while not having to pay anyone back since everyone kept re-investing.
The ending of this season had Rose blackmailing Alan she’d tattle on his secret, but the outcome of this wasn’t seen when the story shifted to Charlie’s supposed death in the beginning of season 9. There wasn’t any mention of what became of Alan’s Ponzi scheme and no one was shown asking for their money back.
Herb/Alan And Judith's Daughter
During a separation between Judith and Herb, Alan and Judith had an affair after which Judith informed that she was pregnant – the trouble was, she wasn’t sure if it was Alan’s baby or Herb’s. Judith threatened Alan should he tell Herb about their dalliance, which then put Alan in worry over watching his supposed daughter being raised by another man.
We didn’t need to worry with Alan, though, as this angle was completely dropped in season 8. There weren’t even mentions of this daughter until Season 9, after which the affair angle went unmentioned. Not only that, but Judith herself stopped appearing on the show. We didn’t get to find out whose daughter the baby was in the end.
Alan and Herb's Strange Friendship
After Judith sank her claws into Herb, the latter became what Alan used to be, which was a shell of a man whose sweetest moment would be the kiss of death. For the time being, though, Herb found solace with Alan, and the two men began something of a platonic romance.
The entire episode had them try and be together without Judith finding out, and they were shown to be miserable when not in each other’s company. However, this attachment between the two men didn’t come up later even when they came across one another at random. It was made to look as if Alan found Herb to be a weirdo whom he didn’t want to hang out with. So, what caused this change of heart?
Alan And Lyndsey's Relationship
Lyndsey ended up being Alan’s longest recurring girlfriend, and he proposed to her in the penultimate episode. The final episode only had one scene with her, where she was shown pawning off the ring Alan had given to her. This only raised questions as to whether she intended to remain engaged to him or not.
If she did pawn it off, how was she going to explain it to Alan? If she didn’t plan to return to him, then why did she get engaged to him in the first place? Alan himself was seen trying to woo back Judith earlier unsuccessfully, which didn’t make sense if he had already proposed to Lyndsey. What was their relationship by the end, then?
Every Time Charlie Tried To Redeem Himself
Before he was ousted from the show, you’d think Charlie’s overarching story was about finally becoming a man who respected women, and several episodes in a season were dedicated to showing him reflecting back on how unfairly he’d treated his former love interests.
But as we all know, nothing came out of this as Charlie was never redeemed in any sort of way. The show still did throw at us many episodes where the consequences of his actions would be set up to haunt Charlie in the future, but we didn’t get to see any resolution to these angles. In this way, all these episodes were a lost cause and had no point.