"Of Course He's Dead" is the two-part series finale of the long-running American sitcom Two and a Half Men, which ran for 12 seasons.

[3][4][5][6] In this episode, Alan Harper discovers that his brother Charlie, presumed to have been killed in a train accident in the ninth season premiere, has a fortune in unclaimed royalties.

Former cast members Angus T. Jones, April Bowlby and Jennifer Taylor make cameo appearances.

Alan Harper receives a letter stating his presumed dead brother Charlie has $2.5 million in unclaimed royalties.

Evidence that Charlie may be alive mounts after an unknown party claims the money, and Alan and his mother Evelyn receive threatening messages.

He mentions having received a $250,000 check and a note reading, "I'm alive" before gambling with the money in Las Vegas, yielding $2.5 million in winnings.

A helicopter carrying a grand piano like Charlie's approaches the house, and the three ponder whether Wagner caught the right man, but quickly brush it off.

[1][7] At the Television Critics Association's winter press tour on January 15, 2015, Chuck Lorre spoke about the show and had nothing but praise for Sheen, saying, “It would be inappropriate to not acknowledge the extraordinary success we had with Charlie and how grateful I am, we all are, to his contributions.

[19] The animated flashback sequence that filled in the gaps between season 8 and season 9 was created by an outside company from Warner Bros.[15] Unusually for sitcoms shot in front of a live studio audience, the episode was shot out of sequence; it was just a couple of scenes, rather than the usual full episode, in order to shield surprises.

[16] In order to prevent plot details and secrets from being leaked, guest actors were only given the pages they were involved in and certain lines were redacted.

[9] Lorre subsequently revealed in his vanity card that Sheen had been offered a cameo where he would walk up to the door of the beach house, recite a rant about the dangers of drug use and his own invincibility, at which point his character would be killed by a falling piano.

[21] When discussing the infamous last scene, Lorre said that deciding to put himself in the final shot "felt like comedically the right thing to do.

Chuck Lorre's signature vanity card, shown at the end of the episode:[21]I know a lot of you might be disappointed that you didn't get to see Charlie Sheen in tonight's finale.

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.

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.

This marked a significant increase, of over four million viewers, in the ratings from the previous episode, "Don't Give a Monkey a Gun".

[23] The episode ranked second in its timeslot, being beaten by the American political thriller television series Scandal on ABC.

"Of Course He's Dead" received mixed reviews, with praise for the premise, cameo of the cast and meta-humor, but criticism for the rushed season finale and anti-climax.

Entertainment Weekly found it to be a good piece of television, "some of the unrelenting boldness inherent in the self-referential nature has to be applauded".

They praised its unapologetic overtly self-referential meta approach: "Two and a Half Men never beat around the bush with its humor, with its awareness of what the audience thought of its actors.

The finale celebrates that with being one of the most meta episodes of television ever devised; like it or not, Two and a Half Men won't apologize for ending that way".

"[24] Max Nicholson of IGN gave it a 3.5 out of 10, saying: "I don't think I could come up with a worse ending than a faceless Charlie Harper walking up to the front doorstep of Alan's home, a grand piano falling on his head, and then a pull-out to Chuck Lorre sitting in his director's chair and turning around to say, 'Winning!'

[25] Time, on the other hand, gave a positive review of the finale, saying: "Its bawdy, sentimentality-free goodbye was a funny and deeply weird hour of score-settling, fourth-wall-breaking, hugs-and-tears-denying TV".

[28] Daniel Fienberg of HitFix gave the episode a mixed review, saying: "The only people who lost were fans who watched an hour of the Two and a Half Men finale waiting for Charlie Sheen only to see a body double get flattened by a baby grand."

"[29] Variety gave a negative review of the episode, saying: "Diving into the business side of the show so relentlessly felt seriously misguided — and more than a little defensive", and that "while the sendoff addressed a certain kind of 'Winning', in the grand pantheon of series finales this wasn't even close to serving up a winner.

[32] Emily VanDerWerff of Vox gave a positive review: "You almost had to admire its sheer willingness to follow its vision off the cliff... it's an utterly bonkers episode of television".

Charlie Sheen, former star of Two and a Half Men, hated the episode and took offence to the closing vanity card which prompted an outspoken rant on Lorre, saying: That's just him.