Linda Harris, played by Ming-Na Wen, is a judge who dates Charlie in a couple episodes.
History[]
In the season 5 episode “Dum Diddy Dum Diddy Doo”, Alan tries to set up a double date with his girlfriend Donna, her friend judge Linda Harris and Charlie. Initially, Charlie doesn’t want to come along, because Linda is his age. Alan can convince Charlie eventually, so they all meet in a restaurant. The date doesn’t go very smoothly, as it’s obvious that Linda and Charlie come from very different environments. On the way home, Charlie tells Alan that he’s impressed by Linda, which isn’t a mutual feeling they both come to find when Donna is on the phone with Alan. However, Charlie can’t get Linda out of his head and tries to call her numerous times the following days. He meets Linda eventually in court when he’s arrested for drunk driving. Linda believes that it was a flawed attempt to meet her, fines Charlie 500 dollars, but gives him a second chance to meet up.
Their relationship becomes more serious in “City of Great Racks”, but throughout the episode, Rose shows up multiple times wearing different wigs to mess with Charlie’s mind (Rose supposedly moved to London in “My Damn Stalker”). When the time comes for Charlie and Linda to have sex in a hotel, the room service employee is Rose. Charlie is clearly confused, which influences his sexual prowess.
Despite this, they continue to date and Charlie meets Linda’s four year old son Brandon in “Putting Swim Fins on a Cat”. When Charlie comes over at Linda’s place, and the three of them are having dinner, Charlie starts to sing a song for Brandon to make him eat his vegetables. He does the same thing later that evening when Brandon can’t pee while standing next to Charlie in the bathroom. Linda’s ex-husband finds out about Charlie’s musical skills and offers him a contract as a songwriter for kids songs.
When Linda is honored in her field at an award ceremony in “Help Daddy Find His Toenail”, she doesn’t ask Charlie to join her, believing it would not be his kind of thing. Charlie finds out about the event in the paper, is upset, and confronts Linda. They decide to go together, but when the day comes, Charlie is nervous because of the formality of such an event. Evelyn gives Charlie a pill to calm down, but has mixed it up with a drug. At the event, Charlie, clearly high and not himself, embarrasses Linda to the extent that there’s an article in the paper about the incident the next day (a picture is shown where Charlie licks Linda’s face on stage with the headline “Poor Judge-ment”).
Charlie decides to go see Linda in her office to apologise. Linda is obviously mad at him and explains to Charlie that she might be running for state senator the next year and can’t be publicly linked to him. Charlie tries to make amends by jokingly stating that it’s okay for male and female politicians alike to have “something on the side” and that it would “send a powerful message to women everywhere”. Linda doesn’t agree with Charlie and breaks of their relationship.
When Charlie takes marijuana in “Gumby with a Pokey”, he envisions several ex-girlfriends, including Linda.