Two and a Half Men 9.16 “Not in My Mouth!” Review

On last week’s episode of Two and a Half Men, Zoey and Lyndsey had a long cat fight on Valentine’s Day. This week, their relationships with the men are strained: one due to a near-death experience and one due to excessive vomit. Clearly, these are similar situations.

Walden’s private jet almost goes down when he and Zoey are returning from a frivolous dinner of fried clams in San Francisco. As the plane plummets, Walden declares his love for Zoey; she only screams, “I don’t want to die!” It’s not really what he wants to hear in the moments before his death, and when the plane levels out, he starts questioning their relationship.

Alan is also questioning his relationship with Lyndsey, because he’s starting to think she has a drinking problem–Alan should be used to being around someone with a drinking problem. Lyndsey denies it, but she’s drunk at the time, and she’s drunk for most of the episode. When Walden comes home and explains that Zoey didn’t return his, “I love you,” Lyndsey’s solution is for him to get drunk, but he doesn’t drink when he’s depressed. Walden understands that it’s okay to be afraid for your life when you’re going down in a plane, but he thinks Zoey should have said something after the fact. Instead, she only asked, “Why do I smell pee?” because Walden had a bit of an accident due to the trauma.

After Walden tells his story, there is an awkward moment between Alan and Lyndsey, where they discuss their feelings while trying to get the other one to be the first to say, “I love you.” Neither of them will break.

In the morning, Walden is distressed about the Zoey situation and goes into Alan’s room to talk about it. He’s wondering if he should break up with her, but Alan tells him that some people have a hard time articulating their feelings so they express them in other ways. In Alan’s bathroom, Lyndsey is expressing her feelings by throwing up all over the place–Walden has a difficult time listening to this without gagging. Zoey is going to England for a few weeks, so if Walden is going to end the relationship, he thinks now is a good time. Lyndsey continues to throw up, and Walden and Alan both start to gag; she lets them know it’s coming out both ends, and with that, they boot it out of the room.

At Zoey’s apartment, Walden is greeted by her ex-husband Nigel. (Nigel: “Walden. Delightful.” Walden: “Nigel. Disgusting.”) Walden tries to talk to Zoey about what happened, but she thinks everything is fine. She doesn’t want to feel pressured into saying she loves him, but Walden wants a decision. He leaves, thinking she has rejected him, and he decides he is done with relationships–until he meets a hot blonde in the elevator a few seconds later.

At the beach house, Jake asks Alan if he can have seventy-five dollars for the new Call of Duty game, claiming it will be an investment if he ends up in the army and already knows how to kill terrorists. Jake then proceeds to not smoke pot the entire episode, which in itself makes it a good episode for Jake in comparison to the rest of the season. It was practically delightful to see him talking about video games and trying to pick up an older woman–Walden’s new woman, of course.

Walden arrives home with Jennifer, the girl from the elevator. Before they go for a walk on the beach, Alan asks to talk to Walden. First, he wants to know how in the world Walden met a new girl in less than an hour, but he mostly wants to tell Walden that he can’t give up a relationship just because the other person is hesitant to say “I love you.” Alan says if he did that, he would never have any relationship.

Berta makes a brief appearance to tell Alan she’s not cleaning up the “corn chowder” covering the walls of his bathroom. “Not my girlfriend. Not my vomit. Not my problem.”

Before Walden can get anywhere with Jennifer, Zoey calls from the airplane. She tells him that she feels miserable about how they left things, and explains to him that she’s afraid that if she says those words, something bad will happen. The last time, she ended up married to an “insufferable twit.” The time before that, Zoey explains, “I got a thank-you note and a Swatch watch from Russell Brand.” Interesting. Just as she’s about to tell Walden that she loves him, Jennifer walks in the room–oh, the joys of video calling–and that’s the end of the conversation.

It’s nice that Alan’s life seems to now be balanced between awful moments and amazing moments. One second, he’s cleaning Lyndsey’s partially digested food off the toilet, and the next second, Walden is asking him to fly to England with him on his private jet to act as a witness and tell Zoey that nothing happened with Jennifer. There’s no time to pack, so Walden will buy him anything he needs. The only mistake Alan makes is allowing Lyndsey to come along. If Zoey won’t say she loves Walden, Alan will, and he does: “I love you, Walden Schmidt.”

On the plane, Walden sets up Alan and Lyndsey with a lobster dinner to make up for the fact that Alan was supposed to take Lyndsey out on a date. There is also wine. Wine combined with Lyndsey–with or without turbulence–means the fancy dinner isn’t staying down. She practically sits on Walden to tell him how romantic he is to fly to England to get Zoey back. Then, just as she’s about to tell Alan she loves him, she throws up on him instead. Walden gets her an airsick bag, but she throws up on Walden too. Then Alan falls in it, and when the pilot makes a pleasant announcement about their flight, an external view of the plane shows a window getting plastered with vomit. Maybe because the episode dealt with a topic that wasn’t particularly comedic, the writers thought the slapstick comedy was required. What it did was put Lyndsey on par with Jake and her son, Eldridge: she drinks, they smoke.

When the plane lands and they find Zoey, Alan tries to reassure her that nothing happened between Walden and Jennifer. Zoey has no reason to believe him since he got a free trip to England out of the deal, but either way, the point is that he invited another girl back to his house. Walden admits he made a mistake, apologizes, and starts to leave. Of course, Zoey stops him and proclaims that she loves him, but she says she’s worried that every time they have a fight he will go pick up another woman. He assures her that as long as he knows she loves him, it will be fine. Alan and Lyndsey find this scene so sweet that they declare their love for each other too; they finish with a kiss, and here’s where the episode title comes in. Lyndsey can’t keep her food down for one romantic moment, and Alan yells, “Not in my mouth!”

Back in Malibu, Jake has been hitting on 24-year-old Jennifer, who has no idea where Walden is. Jake has told her that Walden will be right back. He offers her a beer and accidentally rests more than one extremity in more than one plate of food. The next morning, Jennifer is still there and Jake is on the phone with someone who can only be Eldridge, saying, “Yep, five times. Best half hour of my life.”

The best part of this episode was seeing Jake do something other than smoke. The worst part was the vomit, and the comfortable part was the interaction between Walden and Alan. Their dynamic is critical to the ongoing success of Two and a Half Men, and right now, Ashton Kutcher and Jon Cryer are making it work.

What did you think of “Not in My Mouth!”? Watch Two and a Half Men, Mondays at 9pm ET on CBS.