The Two And A Half Men Episode Fans Think Went Too Far

"Two and a Half Men" wasn't necessarily a show that backed away from boundary lines. "Edgy" was a word which could easily have been applied to the long-running CBS series, which combined unusual, yet dysfunctional family dynamics with over-the-top comedy antics, featuring brothers Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen) and Alan Harper (Jon Cryer) and Alan's son Jake (Angus T. Jones). By the end of the series, the characters felt like cartoons who would easily sell each other off to Satan for one corn chip. 

There were, of course, a lot of moments that defined the show and left audiences gasping — at least until they turned away from the series after a long chain of casting and plot twists caused viewer disappointment to set in. We polled 630 of those fans and asked them which episode among the show's many pushed things a little bit too far. The answer probably won't surprise longtime viewers, but the episode in question remains a shocker for fans of sitcoms everywhere.

It's perhaps unsurprising that the show's choice to kill off Charlie Harper (again, after he was killed off in Season 9) by dropping a piano on his head in the last moments of its series finale was not a popular choice for fans of the show, getting 38.57% of the vote. After an entire episode in which a suddenly-alive Charlie stalks Walden (Ashton Kutcher) and Alan, planning to murder them, the two men and Berta (Conchata Ferrell) rejoice in Charlie's being jailed. A helicopter approaches with a grand piano dangling from it, resembling one that jingle writer Charlie used all the time. They wonder if the police arrested the wrong man, and dismiss the notion. 

Meanwhile, a man resembling Charlie from behind walks to the front door and rings the bell, apparently planning to lure his own brother and Walden there so that they'll be crushed to death. Instead, Charlie is flattened.  The camera pans out, and producer Chuck Lorre turns around in a director's chair. "Winning," he says, before he is crushed by his own piano to the tune of uproarious laughter. 

It seemingly stank of personal sour grapes for a lot of regular viewers, who, even if they weren't tuned into Sheen's "tiger's blood" rants, were still attached to the Charlie character. Worse, years after it aired, it makes even less sense in respect to the characters now that Lorre's moved on to more sedate sets and Sheen has faded from the headlines.

Our readers' runner-up choice was Alan revealing he has a sexual fetish for pregnant women at 18.41%. Walden lying to his girlfriend Kate hit just over 17 percent. Alan and Walden marrying to facilitate an adoption came in at fourth with 15.40% of the vote.