During the Great Charlie Sheen War of 2011, there was a lot of attention on Two and a Half Men as a business — how much it cost, how much it made, how many it employed — and not as much on it as a TV show. Watching its long-delayed return with new star Ashton Kutcher, I was reminded again of what a really dark, cynical sitcom it could be. During the years Sheen starred on the show, it’s willingness to go bleak and revel in his character’s amorality was a big source of its comedy, and it disposed of Charlie Harper much the way it let him live. It turned up the dark, killing him, burning him and essentially saying, “There’s the urn — don’t let it hit you on your way out.”
It was a sort of counterpart to the Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen that also aired on Monday night, but less loving.
