10 Epic TV Moments Ruined By Awful Execution
6. Charlie "Returns" - Two & A Half Men
Charlie Sheen was infamously fired from hit sitcom Two and a Half Men at the end of its eighth season, after which Ashton Kutcher was brought aboard to play the replacement character Walden Schmidt.
The show eventually wrapped up with its 12th season in 2015, with fans speculating that creator Chuck Lorre might've mended bridges with his difficult star enough to bring him back for a fond farewell.
This is totally ignoring the fact, of course, that Sheen's protagonist Charlie was given an off-screen death at the start of season nine.
Now, Charlie did technically appear in the series finale after it's revealed that he is in fact alive, though Sheen was nowhere to be seen, with his part instead played by a stand-in from behind.
"Charlie" ends up being crushed to death by a falling piano in the show's final moments, after which Lorre makes a smug cameo (quipping "Winning!") and is then himself crushed by another piano.
For a show that had little interest in the meta up to this point, it felt like an odd note on which to end things, and an excuse for Lorre to simply aggrandise himself while further flinging mud at Sheen.
It would've been far more satisfying to either leave Charlie out of the episode entirely or find a more heartfelt and cathartic way for Sheen to appear one more time.
Lorre did offer Sheen the cameo himself, but he turned it down, instead offering up a more affecting reunion scene, which Lorre reportedly vetoed in favour of this quasi-masturbatory alternate.