Charlie Harper – but not Sheen – returns for ‘Two and a Half Men’ finale

Charlie Harper may have returned for the series finale of “Two and a Half Men,” but the star who played him for eight seasons — Charlie Sheen — did not.

The final episode of the CBS sitcom revealed that Charlie was still alive, and that his wife/stalker Rose (Melanie Lynskey) had faked his death and been hiding him in a basement dungeon for the past four years. But after talks to bring Sheen back for the finale failed, “Two and a Half Men” referred to — but didn’t show — his character, save for an animated flashback scene.

The characters are first tipped off that Charlie might be alive when they learn of $2.5 million (get it?) in unclaimed royalties, which someone begins distributing to the women he wronged over the years. They soon confirm his escape when he sets off on a path of revenge against his brother Alan (Jon Cryer) and Walden (Ashton Kutcher) for carrying on like nothing happened since his death.

Along the way, there’s plenty of references to Sheen’s unceremonious firing from the show in 2011: When Walden searches the Internet for reports of Charlie’s death, he only finds a “crazy rant about a former employer.” He later receives a threatening text message that references “tiger’s blood,” a Sheen catchphrase during his post-“Men” publicity tour.

In fact the entire finale had a meta feel, with characters often shooting knowing glances at the camera, like when Walden tells Jake (Angus T. Jones), “it’s amazing that you made so much money with such stupid jokes” after the boy returns home having made $2.5 million playing “craps” (insert laugh track here).

The closest the episode got to a Sheen appearance was a backwards-facing silhouette approaching the front door of the beach house in the final minute, with Alan and Walden still thinking Charlie is in jail. But before he can ring the door, a piano is dropped on his head — a fate that also befalls series co-creator Chuck Lorre when the camera next pans out to him in a director’s chair.

But it was Lorre who got the final word in his long-running sitcom. Before the piano came comically crashing down, he uttered another Sheen catchphrase: “Winning.”