History Series / TwoAndAHalfMen

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Alan is the kind of guy who has spent his whole life living by an arbitrary morality, and is now mad that he hasn't reaped the rewards he thinks he deserves for it. Yes, [[ButtMonkey life hasn't treated him all that well]], but a lot of that is because Alan is a spineless doormat; he is incredibly resentful against his brother, who lived in hedonistic revelry that Alan secretly wanted himself, but never allowed himself to go for because he thought that the universe would automatically reward him for his passive aggressive nice guy act. In the last few seasons of the show, however, he seems to have realized this, and consequently has relinquished all pretenses of being a NiceGuy.

%%* GettingCrapPastThe Radar: There's a radar? (No radar = no trope)%%

* OneHourWorkWeek: Walden is the head of a billion-dollar company, yet he seems to have tons of free time to hang out with Alan and is hardly ever shown working.( Actually, Walden SOLD his company for a billion dollars. He then is part of a start up and spends much more time working on it).

* OneHourWorkWeek: Walden is the head of a billion-dollar company, yet he seems to have tons of free time to hang out with Alan and is hardly ever shown working.

* DotingGrandparent: Hilariously averted with Evelyn to Jake.

* MistakenForGay: Charlie and Alan on several occasions. Neither of them ever seems to want to point out that they're brothers.

Ladies' man Charlie Harper (Creator/CharlieSheen) is living the good life as a successful jingle writer in a seaside mansion in Los Angeles. That is, until his unlucky brother Alan (Creator/JonCryer), who was thrown out by his ex-wife, moves in, bringing his ten-year-old son Jake (Creator/AngusTJones). Now, not only does he have to cope with Rose (Creator/MelanieLynskey), the stalker who lives next door, Evelyn (Creator/HollandTaylor), his conniving and guilt-tripping mother, and Berta (Creator/ConchataFerrell), his sarcastic housekeeper, but also Alan's various neuroses and Jake completely lacking any sort of tact or personal hygiene. Unfortunately, however, Charlie's womanizing nature eventually catches up with him in 2011 when he [[McLeaned catches a train the hard way]]. Enter suicidal billionaire Walden Schmidt (Creator/AshtonKutcher) as the new owner of Charlie's home. After quickly becoming friends with Alan, he continues to let him and Jake live with him while they get over the loss of Charlie.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Charlie; see McLeaned.
** [[spoiler: Then AGAIN with a piano in the series finale. And Chuck Lorre!]]

* ButtMonkey: Alan, in the extreme. His poor luck is a running joke present in nearly every episode, brought along by either Alan's poor judgment and lack of worldliness, or one of his relatives (almost always Charlie). This is most likely because every single person Alan seems to meet is a {{Jerkass}} or gold digger, he gets women scorned constantly (although Charlie actually DIED from this), Taken UpToEleven in "Frodo's Headshots", where Alan finds out that Jake got his girlfriend pregnant, learned that Walden and Lyndsey had started dating while he was in the mental health clinic (and was told to move out as a result of this), received an IRS audit, failed at a suicide attempt when his car blew out, was molested by a male truck driver, abandoned by his mother out in the rain, had his stuff moved into a storage facility, and shot to death by Herb when it was found out that Alan was the father of Jake's baby sister, Milly. Although it was revealed after this last event that the entire setup was AllJustADream.

* TheThingThatWouldNotLeave: Alan. You could practically name this trope after him. It's UpToEleven in Season 9 and onwards.

The show aired on Creator/{{CBS}} from September 22, 2003 to February 19, 2015. Season eight was cut short after lead actor Creator/CharlieSheen was fired due to his self-destructive breakdown in 2011, one effect of which was a public feud with series creator Creator/ChuckLorre. The show continued with Creator/AshtonKutcher as Walden in the lead role. In the eleventh season, Angus T. Jones (who plays Jake) had his part changed to a recurring role due to college commitments, but did not appear onscreen again until his cameo in the series finale two years later.

** Evelyn Harper is in the habit of lying about her age, even going so far as to try to get her uncooperative grandson Jake to lie about HIS age so she can maintain the charade. She gets very angry when one of Allan's girlfriends tries to throw a surprise party for him because revealing his age would prove her deception.
** A rare male example is her son Charlie, who will constantly pretend to still be in his early thirties/late twenties. Amusingly this is such second nature to him, Charlie will even try it on Allan.
--->'''Allan:''' Why do you do that? I'm your brother, I know how old you are.

** In "People who Love Peepholes", Alan says that "when I was in high school, I was dating a poster of Creator/MollyRingwald". Before ''Two and a Half Men'', Creator/JonCryer was most famous for ''Film/PrettyInPink'', where his character, Duckie is hopelessly in love with Ringwald's.
*** In the season 12 premiere, Alan dresses as Duckie for Halloween.

** In "You ''Do'' Know What the Lollipop Is For", Walden comes down the stairs, and then is taken aback when he can't remember why he came downstairs. Alan suggests "Maybe too much (imitates inhaling a joint) oh hey, dude, where's my car?" Ashton Kutcher starred in the 2000 stoner comedy ''Film/DudeWheresMyCar''.

* BackForTheFinale: Jake stops by for a fourth wall-breaking scene.

* MoralDissonance: Charlie can be pretty abusive to Alan to the point of being like a sadistic abuser in a relationship and yet all the other characters act as if Alan has done something to deserve it. No one ever seems to bring up that Charlie could've gotten rid of Alan if he didn't sleep with his divorce lawyer and made him pay Judith ridiculous amounts of alimony for petty vengeance.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Two_and_a_Half_Men_6675.jpg]]

** Judith actually was supposed to turn out to be a lesbian originally... until someone pointed out that ''Series/{{Friends}}'' had already used the "woman turns out to be a lesbian and throws out her husband" plot in its own pilot episode nearly a decade earlier (Ross' first ex). As a result, the remaining first season episodes instead had her just pretending to be gay so that Alan wouldn't contest the divorce.

** Judith herself isn't the best mom, or human being, ever. Considering how both Charlie and Alan seem to suffer from a FreudianExcuse and possibly Oedipus Complex, one can easily deduce Judith is not much better than Evelyn. Seeing strange men in front of her underage son? Check. Verbally abusing him and his father? Check. GoldDigger and {{Hypocrite}}? Check, Check, Check.

*** To be fair he tried to be a decent parent in the earlier seasons (when Jake was younger) but between Charlie's hedonistic lifestyle, Judith's emotional and financial abuse, Jake himself growing into more of an irresponsible moron, you can see that Alan may be just jaded and doesn't really care too much anymore (sometimes {{truth in television}}, sadly).

->''"Jake, it takes more than sex to make a man happy...you also need money."''
-->-- '''Charlie Harper''', "Can You Eat Human Flesh with Wooden Teeth?"

Ladies' man Charlie Harper (Creator/CharlieSheen) is living the good life as a successful jingle writer in a seaside mansion in Los Angeles. That is, until his nerdy brother Alan (Creator/JonCryer), who was thrown out by his ex-wife, moves in, bringing his ten-year-old son Jake (Creator/AngusTJones). Now, not only does he have to cope with Rose (Creator/MelanieLynskey), the stalker who lives next door, Evelyn (Creator/HollandTaylor), his conniving and guilt-tripping mother, and Berta (Creator/ConchataFerrell), his sarcastic housekeeper, but also Alan's various neuroses and Jake's complete lack of any sort of tact or personal hygiene. Sadly, however, Charlie's womanizing nature eventually catches up with him in 2011 when he [[McLeaned catches a train the hard way]]. Enter suicidal billionaire Walden Schmidt (Creator/AshtonKutcher) as the new owner of Charlie's home. After quickly becoming friends with Alan, he continues to let him and Jake live with him while they get over the loss of Charlie.

** With Creator/CharlieSheen gone, the story of the decidedly-odd LoveTriangle of Charlie, crazy Rose, and "Manny Quinn" will never be resolved. Well, the Charlie/Rose/Manny issue has been somewhat resolved due to [[BusCrash Charlie being dead]].

** In "People who Love Peepholes", Alan says that "when I was was in high school, I was dating a poster of Creator/MollyRingwald". Before ''Two and a Half Men'', Creator/JonCryer was most famous for ''Film/PrettyInPink'', where his character, Duckie is hopelessly in love with Ringwald's.

---->'''Vivian:''' So what's your deal Walden? You're a good looking guy, rich, Malibu beach house... I bet you only date hot actresses.

* ArmouredClosetGay: Chelsea's father seems to be just as racist and homophobe as his wife, before it's revealed he's had feeling for his old war buddy for years.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: In "Does This Smell Funny to You?", Norman jabs Alan, and later Charlie, in the diaphragm with his cane, yet neither is effected in the slightest. A jab to the diaphragm would empty the lungs and leave them gasping for air and unable to talk for several minutes.

* BilingualBonus: The Chinese-character tatoos on [[{{Goth}} Isabella's]] right arm mean "true love."

* ButtMonkey: Alan, in the extreme. His poor luck is a running joke present in nearly every episode, brought along by either Alan's poor judgment and lack of worldliness, or one of his relatives (almost always Charlie). This is most likely because every single person Alan seems to meet is a {{Jerkass}} or golddigger, he gets woman scorned constantly (although Charlie actually DIED from this), Taken UpToEleven in "Frodo's Headshots", where Alan finds out that Jake got his girlfriend pregnant, learned that Walden and Lyndsey had started dating while he was in the mental health clinic (and was told to move out as a result of this), received an IRS audit, failed at a suicide attempt when his car blew out, was molested by a male truck driver, abandoned by his mother out in the rain, had his stuff moved into a storage facility, and shot to death by Herb when it was found out that Alan was the father of Jake's baby sister, Milly. Although it was revealed after this last event that the entire setup was AllJustADream.

** In "Is There A Mrs Waffles?" Charlie watches Series/DharmaAndGreg (an inside joke as that was another Chuck Lorre production). Then they turn up to buy Charlie's house after he's killed.

** In the the Season 12 premiere, Alan dresses as Duckie for Halloween. He is mistaken for Ferris Bueller more than once.

* EveryoneHasStandards: Charlie found there were lines he wouldn't cross, he won't sleep with underage girls or a girl that might be his half-sister.

* ExiledToTheCouch: In "That's Why They Call It 'Ball Room'", Chelsea does this to Charlie after they have a fight, but instead of going to sleep on the couch Charlie just goes to Alan rooms and kicks him out, forcing ''Alan'' to go sleep on the couch. This of course backfires, when Chelsea goes to Charlie to apologize and amorously slips into the couch completely naked thinking Charlie is in there... which prompts her to have a NakedFreakOut once Alan clarifies it's him she snuggling into.

* FlirtyStepsiblings: Charlie and Evelyn's fiance's daughter Courtney, played by Jenny [=McCarthy=]. It was later revealed that she wasn't actually the guy's daughter too (they were both con artists) so there was a '''''ton''''' of NotBloodSiblings going on.

* HistoricalLongevityJoke: When Alan tells Charlie the husband of one of his hookups is at the door, Charlie mentions he should've told him "he was a Civil War veteran."

* HollywoodDateless: Although gnomish, nebbishy, and for all practical purposes homeless, Alan does fairly well in the tail department. Most of the failures in his relationships come about as a result of either his crippling insecurity and neediness or the fact that he gravitates towards emotionally-damaged women. This included his first ex Judith, his second ex Kandi, his former receptionist Melissa--and her mother--Rose, and a pill-popping suicidal woman played by Creator/JaneaneGarofalo and Rose herself (not Melissa's mother but Charlie's Rose, the Rose that is mad and played by Creator/MelanieLynskey).

** Also averted in "And the Plot Moisens". Jake is realistically terrible at singing.

* TheImmodestOrgasm. When trapped in the beachhouse by a storm, both Zoey and Lyndsey fake very loud sex noises, each to try to one-up the other. Zoey's are [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments operatic, no less]]. Also, Lyndsey can be quite vocal when she's [[HurricaneofPuns having a ball]].

* MistakenForGay: Charlie and Alan on several occasions. Neither of them ever seem to want to point out that they're brothers.

* MomLooksLikeASister: In Season 3, after Kandi moves out, her youthful and equally-looking mother Mandi shows up at the Harper household looking for her. Charlie is surprised yet amazed that Mandi is Kandi's mother. Mandi points out that despite her age, she and her daughter look so much alike that in public they're often mistaken for sisters.

* OneHourWorkWeek: Walden is the head of a billion dollar company, yet he seems to have tons of free time to hang out with Alan and is hardly ever shown working.

* PrenupBlowup: Charlie suggests a prenup to his fiancee, then gets angry when she readily agrees because she owns a good deal of real estate she hadn't mentioned to him yet.

** When Jake made his first appearance after Angus T. Jones publically slammed the show in Season 10, the opening minutes of the episode featured Jake saying he was beginning to think he was no longer part of the family and numerous cracks about him joining a cult.

** Judith was always a JerkAss, but throughout the series she managed to become even worse, to the point that she abuses and neglects Jake, does everything in her power to make Alan's life even worse [[ForTheEvulz just for kicks]] (Like giving Kandi her divorce lawyer) and even treating [[NiceGuy Herb]] like he's a third class citizen for no apparent reason.

* {{Unishment}}: Happens with Charlie twice in regards to Chelsea. Once, when she was considering a breast reduction to alleviate her back pain, Charlie talked her out of it by suggesting that if her breasts were smaller then that would put more focus on how fat her ass was. This nearly brings her to tears and she decided to live with the back pain, giving into what Charlie wanted all along. On another occasion, Charlie lied to her about having a colonoscopy appointment to get out of going to her parents' house. The trope is initially inverted, as Chelsea did find out that he was lying and flew her parents out to California as revenge. When the trip prompts her father into [[spoiler:coming out of the closet and leaving her mother]], she decides she has too much else on her plate to deal with given the recent developments, and forgives Charlie.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Pretty far on the cynical end of the scale. The men in this show are usually sex driven idiots and the woman are lustful gold diggers who are quickly willing to leave their spouse or significant other for someone with more money.

* ShamelessFanserviceGuy: Walden is very nonchalant about being naked in public ([[MrFanservice which happens often]]), to the enjoyment of most of the female character who eagerly [[EatingTheEyeCandy enjoy the view]].

* ShoutOut: Happens occasionally, for example, when Charlie attempts to get Alan out of the house, and Bertha suggests they MakeItLookLikeAnAccident, Charlie shouts out to ''Film/TheGodfather'' (Even 'forgetting' to replace "Fredo" with "Alan"):

* PlayedForLaughs: Anytime Alan is almost suicidally depressed, Charlie is always thinking of himself no matter what. To be fair, Alan's never going to do actually do it, due to StatusQuoIsGod.

** In one episode, Alan actually says "Go to your room" to Jake upon returning home. This was for Jake imitating the growl of a wild animal, causing Charlie & Alan to flee and jump into a body of water. Earlier, the three of them got lost searching for a ranch and went from driving to walking.

** Berta leans on it so hard she tilts it in the second ChristmasEpisode, "Walnuts & Demerol", as she spends the episode gleefully likening the unfolding disaster that is Charlie's unplanned Christmas party to an actual play. Just before an ad break, for example, she quips "I can't wait for the second act!"

* OnceASeason: Charlie kicks out Alan over a trivial argument. Alan (& sometimes Jake) wanders the city looking for a place to live while Charlie quickly adapts to living without Alan. Eventually Alan returns to live with Charlie, usually at the suggestion of someone else. Incidentally Alan continued the tradition when Walden replaced Charlie.
** Charlie dates a woman who's forbidden fruit (e.g. Jake's teacher or Alan's receptionist), dumps her quickly, and gives Alan a BS reason why he does it. Alan has seen it so often he lampshades what happens when Charlie loves & leaves his aforementioned secretary all within the span of an episode.

** Judith coming out as a lesbian, but then revealing she was just using as an excuse to divorce Alan, was in part due to the writers realising that ''Series/{{Friends}}'' did the exact same thing with Ross & Carol.

* StatusQuoIsGod: No matter what plot twists we're wrung through, Alan is still sponging off of Charlie, Jake is still a young doofus, Evelyn is still a self-absorbed drunk, Judith is still an absolute bitch, Charlie's still single, etc, etc. Well, except for the changes brought by Charlie's death between Seasons 8 & 9.

** When Jake made his first appearance after Angus T. Jones publically slammed the show in Season 10, the opening minutes of the episode featured Jake saying he was beginning to think he was no longer part of the family & numerous cracks about him joining a cult.

* OhCrap: [[spoiler:Walden telling Alan and Berta that he's met a woman at a bar elicits this reaction, after he mentions she was called Rose & that she knew Alan.]]
** Actually any episode where Rose is introduced by a third party, such as Chelsea or Zoey, to Charlie & Alan (or just Alan in "the Ashton era") qualifies. Such episodes w/ this instance took place when Melanie Lynskey was no longer a regular cast member & a certain period of absence had to suffice to enhance Charlie's & Alan's shock upon seeing Rose again. It's implied Rose had to get to Chelsea or Zoey before meeting Charlie or Alan as the women she introduced herself to were less familiar w/ her than the Harpers. Charlie in fact quipped that when he saw Rose, he made the neat description of likening his anus to trimming a cigar.