Of Course He's Dead is the two part final episode of Season 12 of Two and a Half Men and the final episode of the series. It aired on February 19, 2015.
The cold open of the series finale begins with a flashback to Charlie's funeral where Mia asks why they cannot see Charlie's body and Rose explains that he was hit by a train and "his body just exploded like a balloon full of meat". In the present day, Rose merrily prepares tuna and vodka on a tray which she lowers into a pit in her basement for an unknown occupant.
Alan receives a letter informing him that $2.5 million in royalties for Charlie is waiting to be collected. Alan needs Charlie's death certificate so he can collect the money but is unable to find one, or any proof that Charlie is dead. Walden asks how Alan knows Charlie's dead and Alan realizes his only proof is Rose's word. Meanwhile, Rose enters her basement/dungeon singing a song about marriage and is shocked to find that her captive has escaped. Clues begin to mount that Charlie is still alive - Alan discovers that the royalty money has been claimed by an unknown person and deposited into an account in the Cayman Islands; Alan and his mother receive threatening messages while Jenny receives a mysterious check for $100,000 and an apology from someone who is sorry they were never there; Alan receives a FedEx package addressed to Charlie containing whiskey, cigars, and a knife Charlie used to wield while chasing Alan around the house.
Rose reveals to Alan, Walden, Berta and Evelyn that Charlie is still alive and tells them the whole story which was relayed in an animated sequence. She had caught him cheating with a hooker, a mime and a goat and stormed out. Charlie caught up with her at the train station where she tried to have her revenge by throwing him into the path of an oncoming train; however, his fall was deflected by the goat who fell into the train's path instead (and whose ashes were passed off as Charlie's). Rose bound and gagged Charlie, took him back to America, and imprisoned him in a dungeon underneath a house she bought in Sherman Oaks for four years until he escaped. After telling the story Walden receives a threatening message and he and Alan go to the police, while Evelyn goes into hiding. Alan and Walden go to the police and talk to to Lt. Wagner (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), and in the process re-tell the story of Two and a Half Men, revealing various plot holes and weaknesses. The detective sends them home where they find life size cardboard cutouts of themselves wearing nooses. Jake Harper drops by and tells a surprised Alan and Walden that he left the Army and is now married, has 2 kids, and living in Japan when he received a mysterious $250,000 check and a note saying "I'm Alive", Jake gambled with the money in Vegas yielding $2.5 million in winnings. Jake then leaves and they're contacted by Lt. Wagner who tells them that Charlie has been captured; however, the suspect turns out to be Christian Slater. Alan, Walden and Berta (who has also received a check from Charlie, and announces that she will retire), celebrate and relax in lounge chairs, drinking Charlie’s scotch and smoking his Cuban cigars, thinking he’s been captured, when they see a helicopter carrying a grand piano, like the one Charlie used to play, approaching the house. Charlie, shown only from the back, approaches the door and had just rung the doorbell when the piano falls on him and crushes him to death. The camera pulls back and series producer Chuck Lorre, sitting in a director's chair, turns around and says "winning" (a Charlie Sheen catchphrase), only to have a piano fall on him as well, ending the episode, and the series. Scene cuts to Porky Pig in his famous quote "Th-Th-Th-That's all folks!" then zooming in to the Warner Bros. shield.
Alan, after Walden asks him how he knows that Charlie is really dead.
Quotes[]
[The series' last lines]
Walden: Wow, look at that.
Berta: Someone's having a piano delivered by helicopter.
Alan: That's the kind of extravagant thing Charlie would do. He had a baby grand just like that.
Walden: It's coming right this way. You don't think...that it's possible that the cops got the wrong guy, do you?
Alan and Berta: [after a thought] Nah!
[Charlie, seen from behind, walks up to the front door and rings the doorbell. He is immediately crushed by the piano. Pull back to find, sitting in the director's chair...]
Chuck Lorre: [turning to audience] Winning.
[A piano crushes him]
Trivia and Goofs[]
Despite it being the final episode, "Of Course He's Dead" has a more tongue-in-cheek tone with more meta jokes, intentionally bad subversions, and many winks at the camera. it plays more like a satire of "botched" series finales then a legit episode. It is possible this was not considered to be a "canon" episode.
The only Two and a Half Men episode to air back-to-back on the same night on CBS.
Every single character who was ever part of the main cast over the course of all 12 seasons, appears in this episode in some capacity. Although Charlie Harper is played by a body-double (whose face is not revealed) instead of Charlie Sheen, and Louis is shown only in a photo.
Despite being a popular character, Herb does not appear in this episode, nor is there any mention of him. Elsewhere, Melissa does not appear when Alan calls several of his ex-lovers despite her having several flings with him. Neither do Kate, who was dating Walden for a long time, and Gretchen, who was engaged to Alan.
Rose's flashback involving Charlie Harper was demonstrated using CGI animation. It is unknown why.
Bizarrely, no-one tried getting Rose arrested for her crimes: kidnapping, attempted murder.
She also doesn't jump off the deck, finally admitting "That's stupid."
According to Chuck Lorre, the ending was going to be different at first by saying that: “Our idea was to have him walk up to the front door in the last scene, ring the doorbell, then turn, look directly into the camera and go off on a maniacal rant about the dangers of drug abuse,” Lorre began. “He would then explain that these dangers only applied to average people. That he was far from average. He was a ninja warrior from Mars. He was invincible. … And then we would drop a piano on him. We thought it was funny. He didn’t.Instead, he wanted us to write a heart-warming scene that would set up his return to primetime TV in a new sitcom called The Harpers starring him and Jon Cryer. We thought that was funny too.”
