We’ve all seen Ashton Kutcher walking around with short hair and no beard, so we knew this hair-centric episode of Two and a Half Men was coming. It’s a weird thing to focus on, but let’s discuss it anyway. Walden’s hair and beard has been awful since the beginning of the season, but it grew on me as part of his character. Maybe it helped separate Walden from Ashton. In any case, it’s gone now. Good for him.
The beginning of the end of the hair is a comment from Zoey (Sophie Winkleman). As Walden’s preparing for their date, she says she doesn’t like the beard or the “Jennifer Aniston hair” either. Walden is shocked. Zoey thinks the ratio of hair to face to be more on the face side. Agreed.
Alan tries to take a picture of himself on a laptop webcam to post on an online dating profile. All of his attempts are scary, ranging from someone out of To Catch a Predator to a version of himself with five chins. Walden, being the sweet and clueless man that he is, insists that Alan come with him and Zoey on their date. Despite that it’s obvious that Zoey doesn’t want him to, he goes anyway.
At the restaurant, Walden snacks on leftovers out of his beard. They discuss the beard situation again, and Alan can’t figure out why Zoey doesn’t like it. Yes, even Alan is probably attracted to Walden and apparently he likes the beard. Zoey asks Alan why he doesn’t have a beard then, and he says it’s because it grows in patchy–”like a possum on chemo.”
Alan’s ex-girlfriend Lyndsey (Courtney Thorne-Smith) is at the restaurant. She appears to be by herself, so Alan goes to talk to her, but of course she’s there with a very young, very attractive man named Dylan. Alan tries to convince Lyndsey that Zoey is Walden’s baby sister and Walden is trying to set him up with her, which works until Walden and Zoey kiss.
At the beach house, Jake and Lyndsey’s son Eldridge (Graham Patrick Martin) watch Beavis and Butthead in a smoke-filled room while eating chips and discussing the million-dollar idea of pre-dipped chips. This is what has become of Jake, and it’s kind of sad. It’s not unexpected, given that they’ve always portrayed Jake as less than smart (to put it mildly), but someone needs to toss the kid an opportunity. Earlier in this season of Two and a Half Men, he flew by himself to Paris, but we unfortunately never got to see what he did while he was there.
When the adults return from their night out, the kids use bug spray to mask the scent of what they’ve been smoking. It’s enough to fool Alan, who considers hiring an exterminator before joining them on the couch. Eldridge tells Alan that his mom’s new boyfriend Dylan is gay, and that she talks about Alan all the time and really misses him. Of course, none of this is true, but it works in getting rid of Alan as he goes off to Lyndsey’s house. When he arrives, with flowers and wine, he can clearly hear what’s happening in the house, and it clearly means Dylan isn’t gay. Home he goes.
Back to the hair: Zoey spits after kissing Walden, and admits that she has a work function coming up and she doesn’t want to show up with “hipster Jesus.” Walden agrees to get rid of the long hair and beard for her, and Berta is more than happy to be the one to cut his hair. She used to be a prison barber until they shut down the prison. When Alan sees what’s happening, he makes Walden feel like it’s not his own choice to cut his hair. Later, Walden shows up at Zoey’s before her work party and his hair and beard have not changed. She’s extremely upset because he had given her his word, and as she slams the door in his face, Walden sarcastically yells, “Thank you for showing me your true colors before I fell hopelessly in love with you!” He realizes he said “love” and runs down the hall of her apartment building before she can open the door to respond.
Lyndsey randomly calls Alan and asks to get together. Alan figures that she must need a kidney–why else would she want to see him when she’s dating a young stud? He inquires about this later while they’re making out. She says it’s exhausting to go out with a gorgeous young man: too much sex, not enough cranberry juice to fix the resulting urinary issues, she had to get up before him in the morning to put on makeup, etc. Alan’s standards are so much lower and she likes it. That’s okay for Alan.
Zoey shows up at the house wanting to apologize to Walden. He comes downstairs, and voila: his hair is short and his beard is gone. Turns out when she wasn’t nagging him about it, he wanted to do it. The episode ends with Alan and Lyndsey going to sleep while listening to Zoey and Walden “test drive the new face.”
This episode was a bit of a means to an end: someone was sick of the hair and it needed to change, and once again, Alan is back together with Lyndsey. Tune in to Two and a Half Men, Mondays at 9pm on CBS, to see what dramatic impact the hair change will have on Walden. (Probably nothing.)
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