Walden Schmidt

Walden Thoreau Schmidt is a fictional character in the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, portrayed by Ashton Kutcher.^[1] The character was introduced in the season nine premiere episode, "Nice to Meet You, Walden Schmidt" to replace the character of Charlie Harper after actor Charlie Sheen was fired from the series. Walden was a main character throughout the show's final four seasons (seasons 9-12). He is listed on Forbes' fictional list of the top 15 richest characters as number 11, with a wealth of approximately $1.3 billion.^[2]

Schmidt is introduced to the series as a billionaire internet entrepreneur who has recently been divorced and is now suicidal.^[3] After unsuccessfully attempting suicide, he turns up at Charlie Harper's beach house and decides to buy it from Charlie's brother, Alan, to whom Charlie has left the house in his will, after dying in France.

Over the course of his duration on the series, Walden's personality greatly matured.

Character development

Charlie Sheen's firing and replacement

For the first eight seasons of Two and a Half Men, the series' main character was Charlie Harper, portrayed by actor Charlie Sheen. In February 2011, after continued verbal attacks against series creator Chuck Lorre by Sheen, CBS announced that Two and a Half Men would suspend production for the rest of its eighth season.^[4] On March 7, CBS and Warner Bros. Television jointly announced that Sheen had been fired from Two and a Half Men, citing "moral turpitude" as a main cause of separation.^[5]

Creation of Walden Schmidt

In April 2011, Chuck Lorre announced that he had developed an idea for a Two and a Half Men reboot that would exclude Sheen and have Jon Cryer, who portrayed Alan Harper, in a lead role alongside a new character.^[6] On May 13, CBS announced that Ashton Kutcher would join the cast. Kutcher was quoted as saying, "I can't replace Charlie Sheen but I'm going to work my ass off to entertain the hell out of people!"^[7]

Lorre was originally fixated on a character in his mid to late forties and originally approached Hugh Grant, who was fifty at the time. However, meeting 33-year-old Kutcher changed his mind. Lorre was quoted as saying "It got easy to let go once I met with Ashton. Because this was an opportunity to work with a pretty big talent, and it just became apparent to figure it out and let go of the old idea."^[8]

Jon Cryer stated in 2014 that "the writers didn't want to just do Kelso from 'That '70s Show,' because that's a criminal waste of Ashton's intelligence. He's actually a smart guy, so they tried to come up with a different take on a character for him, and it's been fun to watch him figure out who this guy is."^[9]

Kutcher's first episode and the first appearance of Walden Schmidt was in the season nine premiere, "Nice to Meet You, Walden Schmidt", which aired on September 19, 2011.

Character introduction

In the season nine premiere it is revealed that Charlie Harper has died in France and has left his beach house to his brother Alan. However, Alan has to put the house up for sale as he is unable to afford the mortgage payments and property tax. While Alan is speaking with Charlie's ashes and trying to decide where to spread them, Walden suddenly appears on the house's back deck, scaring Alan and causing him to drop the ashes on the living room floor. When Alan lets Walden in so he can use the telephone, Walden reveals he has just tried to commit suicide by drowning in the ocean. He tells Alan that he is worth $1.3 billion, but would give it all up to reconcile with his wife Bridget, (portrayed by Judy Greer), from whom he had recently separated. Walden and Alan then proceed to bond at the local bar, where Walden tells Alan that he made his money when Microsoft purchased his website. At the end of the episode Walden tells Alan that he is going to buy the house.

In the following episode, "People Who Love Peepholes", Alan moves out of the house to live with his mother, but his friendship with Walden strengthens and Walden lets Alan move back into the house.

Character traits

Walden's ex-wife describes him as "having the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old",^[10] and she, his housekeeper Berta and his ex-girlfriend Zoey have all described him as needy. However, he drives a Fisker Karma as he cares about the environment, and does not believe in lending money, as it is never repaid and leads to resentment of the person to whom the money is lent; instead he prefers to just give it away.^[11][12] He does not like the taste of alcohol and so does not drink much.^[13] Kutcher described him as "somewhere between an alien and Jesus Christ".^[14]

When Walden first appears on the show he has long hair and a beard (resembling Jesus Christ according to Alan and Thor according to Evelyn), but in the season nine episode "A Possum on Chemo", he cuts his hair and shaves off the beard.^[15] Chuck Lorre explained this was done because "We wanted to tell a story about being in a relationship and being pressured to change..."^[16]

Up until season 11's "Nangnangnangnang", Walden never referred to Charlie Harper by first name. He would refer to him as "your brother" (to Alan) or "Alan's brother" (to others).

The character of Walden started the show as childish and someone who needed to be taken care of, and ended with him becoming an adult and being ready to take care of another, Louis.

Early life

Walden was born on July 12 (as stated in season 11), 1978 (as stated twice in season 10). He lived primarily with his mother Robin as his father, a magician, disappeared when he was very young. He was raised for the first four years of his life with a baby Gorilla named Magilla, (who he believed to be imaginary at the time) as his mother was a primatologist.^[17] In high school he met Bridget, who he would go on to marry.^[18] After flunking 8th grade, his mother had him evaluated, and the results were that the tests were too easy for him and he was bored.

Friendship with Alan Harper

When Walden met Alan Harper, the two almost instantly formed a friendship. Walden is very generous, which Alan uses to his advantage at times, such as when Alan's ex-wife Judith drops off their son Jake, and Alan convinces Walden to allow Jake to stay.^[19] Despite events such as this, Alan does demonstrate genuine concern for Walden. When Walden discovers that his imaginary childhood gorilla friend, "Magilla", was real, and was part of an experiment being conducted by his mother, he becomes very upset, as he thought of Magilla as a brother.^[20] Alan climbs a roof to console him, telling him that he knows what it's like to lose a brother.^[21] Walden knows that Alan is poor and has offered him money, but Alan refuses because he wants Walden to see him as a friend, rather than a freeloader.^[12]

When Alan helps Walden keep control of his company "Walden loves Bridget Enterprises" after Bridget and his mother wrest control from him, Walden rewards Alan for being such a good friend by renaming the company "Walden loves Alan Enterprises" and by putting his name on the deed of the beach house.^[22] Later, when Alan suffers a mild heart attack, Walden insists on paying for his hospital bills, even when Alan fakes a second heart attack.^[23][24]

When Zoey leaves Walden, Alan arranges an intervention by his mother, Berta and Walden's business partner, Billy Stanhope, to try to help him.^[25]

A running joke on the show is the idea the Walden and Alan are gay. There are lots of references to them being gay, such as Walden hugging Alan when he his completely naked, the two men hugging when the song I Will Always Love You plays. Other people believing they are gay e.g. a nurse at the hospital after Alan has a heart attack telling Walden to fill in the box life partner and saying "come out, come out wherever you are". A homosexual doctor at the hospital also thinks Walden is gay and says "Thats why we gave up Women, right buddy?" after Zoey starts complaining, the mailman thinks they are gay. Walden and Alan deciding to turn gay in the season 10 premiere episode after Zoey leaves Walden. Walden squeezing Alans butt while thinking of Zoey, and stroking his hair.^[26] Alan references the running joke when Walden wants to break up from Rose and Alan tells him to tell her that he is sick of hiding his feelings towards him (Alan).

In season 10, however, he has now come to regret his decision in allowing Alan and Jake to live with him as he grown tired of Alan taking advantage of his generosity and always dreams about the Harpers not living with him anymore. Despite this, a part of him still enjoys having them around and as he confesses in season 11, he considers the Harper clan (consisting of Alan, Jake, and Evelyn) to be a part of his family as they were there for him when he was down on his luck.

Marty Pepper, Evelyn's boyfriend and eventual sixth husband believes Walden and Alan to be gay and arranges for them to be married by the minister who married him and Evelyn, seeing as he was there.

The two men have a love rivalry with Jeff Probst who often taunts them about the number of women he has and the fact that he steals the women they are with.

In season 12 episode 1 Walden proposes to Alan, and the two are married in a small civil ceremony in season 12 episode 2. They later become foster parents to Louis, played by Edan Alexander.

History on the show

Walden asks Evelyn to redecorate the beach house using solar power and wind power. The redecorated house included a voice-activated command to turn the lights on and off and get ice from the refrigerator, by the use of Walden's voice, but not Alan's. He begins dating con artist Courtney Leopard, whom Alan knows from the past, so he tries to warn Walden, but he doesn't listen, so Alan calls Bridget to convince Walden. He thinks this could be his chance at getting Bridget back, but she turns him down again. When he sees Bridget dating someone else again, he becomes jealous and tries to date a woman who looks like Bridget called Danny who happens to be a lesbian.

When his old business partner Billy Stanhope returns wanting to create the "Electric Suitcase", Walden turns him down, still bitter about the viral video rants about him created by Billy. However, Alan manages to get them to agree with each other and become partners again. When creating the Electric Suitcase, Walden finds out that Billy is sleeping with Bridget. They successfully create the electric suitcase and begin work in a new office tower, where he later gives jobs to Jake and his friend Eldridge.

He began dating a British woman named Zoey. Because of his childlike behavior, he is great with children like Zoey's daughter Ava. Zoey is the reason Walden cut his hair and shaved, as she wasn't fond of "the Jennifer Aniston hairdo"; this proved difficult for Walden as he loved his hair and beard but did it to prove how much Zoey meant to him. In the season 10 premiere, he proposes to Zoey, but she says no, leaving him confused. When he goes to confront her about it, she tells him that there is another man, which causes him to become depressed. Alan and Lyndsey try to set up some dates for Walden with some of Lyndsey's friends, but none of them go well. Later at Pavlovs bar, he meets Rose, who has been spying on Walden since he arrived at the house. When he tells Alan whom he bumped into, Alan warns Walden, but Walden interrupts and tells him she explained everything about what happened with Charlie and that when you're in love, it makes you do crazy things; however Alan knows she is lying.

Walden later begins to see that Alan was right about her when she moves all of her things into the house after only mentioning staying. He goes to break up with her when Zoey reveals she would like to get back together, but Rose becomes enraged and orders her ferrets to attack him, even leaving them in his car to attack him, but instead attacks Alan. However Rose arrives at Zoey's apartment pretending to be pregnant, telling her that the baby is Walden's, so Zoey gets angry and breaks it off with Walden for good.^{[27][28][29][30]}

He has grown tired of women wanting him just because of his money and so pretends to be poor by wearing some of Alan's clothes and using the pseudonym "Sam Wilson", pretending to be living in Alan's beach house with Alan as his billionaire landlord. Kate says Sam should leave the house and come live with her in her apartment; he agrees, eager to see where the relationship will go. Kate says he should find a job and so he goes out job hunting and finds a job selling Christmas trees. Kate works in a sewing store but her sewing machine breaks so Walden goes and buys her one; she wonders how he could have paid for it but is thrilled and asks Sam that there be no lies in the relationship.^[31][32] He gives Alan 100 thousand dollars to give to Kate to go to New York to get her fashion business going. However when the strain of pretending to be someone he's not takes its toll on him, he tells her his real identity, but Kate gets mad and dumps him.

On February 14, Walden is alone and depressed, but is overjoyed when Kate returns to him, but only to give him the money back he loaned her; she reveals that she has a new manager: Rose, who gets Kate away from Walden by flying her to China. Walden goes to a billionaires singles club in the hope of finding someone, however he sees Bridgit there and imagines what life would be like with her again so decides to ignore her. When Alan almost burns the house down, Walden gets mad and kicks him out. Eventually Walden begins to miss him and so asks Herb (whom Alan was staying with) if he had seen him, but a lonely Herb says no because he doesn't want to give him up. Eventually Alan makes up with Walden and goes back to him because he needed him more than Herb. However Walden asks Herb how he would feel about shared custody of Alan. Walden tries to cheer a lonely Herb up who is depressed about Judith leaving him, after Herb helps him in a medical emergency, and so tells him he has to party to forget her. However Walden and Alan cannot keep up with his partying and so ask him to leave after numerous days of non stop partying. However they become worried about him and so ask Judith to come and take him back. When Jake announces that he is going away to Japan for a year he asks Walden if he would like to come on a road trip with him and his dad. But Walden says he cannot as he has to see where his relationship with his girlfriend's grandmother goes.

After Jake leaves to Japan for a year of military service, Alan's niece Jenny appears in the episode "Nangnangnangnang," and Alan offers her a place to stay; Walden is not keen on this as he is tired of a Harper always taking domain in his house; he then changes his mind after finally warming up to Jenny, and realizing the Harpers are like family to him. After a former employee named Nicole (Odette Annable) forms a new software company in her garage with her assistant Barry (Clark Duke) she asks Walden to help her design it. They try to maintain a strictly platonic workplace relationship, but eventually reveal their feelings for one another. After successfully completing the software Nicole is offered a job at Google. She accepts leaving Walden devastated. However Barry agrees with Walden and would rather work with him, so turns up at his doorstep with his belongings and moves in with Walden, whom he idolizes and knows too much about. He and Alan are asked by Marty Pepper (Carl Reiner) to be his best men at his wedding to Evelyn, and to organize the stag party which ends in disaster. Rose continues to stalk him but he and she have sex when he believes his life to be in danger; they make up for all the wrongs they have done to each other in the past. His ex-girlfriend Kate returns from China wanting to "talk"; taking advice from Jenny and Barry, he goes to see her. They agree to go to dinner as "just friends" but later leave the restaurant to go home and have sex. The evening is ruined, however, by food poisoning. Walden believes Kate to be "the one" and tells Alan that he will propose to her. However, when a young woman named Vivian (Mila Kunis) arrives at the beach house, he falls for her while Kate is away due to her free spirited attitude and believes her to be "the one". He breaks up with Kate to find Vivian again, but she turns him down telling him to go back to his girlfriend. Depressed at losing two love interests he goes to his therapist who tells him to have casual encounters. As Alan's wedding ends in disaster, he and Alan have another talk on the couch, saying he wants Alan to continue living with him and to go back to the way things were when they moved in with each other three years ago, just two friends hanging out.

He is the only other character besides Alan to appear in every episode since his introduction.

Romantic relationships

Bridget

Walden first met Bridget in high school, where they fell in love and eventually got married. She met Walden when he wasn't a billionaire so her intentions were noble as she claims when talking to his girlfriend Zoey who met him when he was rich. She has a very good relationship with Walden's mother Robyn, which is proven when they team up to remove Walden as president of his company. She kicks him out of the house prior to the beginning of season 9, because he was too immature and relied on her more as a mother than a wife, which leaves him devastated, and causes him to attempt suicide. She has tried to reunite with Walden, but he began dating a woman named Zoey, so she began to get jealous and spy on him, where she meets a woman called Rose who agrees to take her under her wing as a trainee stalker. She began dating his friend Billy Stanhope.

In the tenth season, Walden comes to the conclusion that getting back together with Bridget would be a bad idea; in the episode "Throgwarten Middle School Mysteries," Walden fantasizes about getting back with Bridget, with the end result being her removing his testicles and putting them in a small chest, calling them hers. He then realizes (after imagining Alan lecturing him) that Bridget's controlling behavior was the reason that their relationship first failed.

Zoey

Zoey Hyde-Tottingham-Pierce is an English woman who began dating Walden after they met in a supermarket. She has a young daughter, Ava, who adores Walden. She like many do not like Alan and believe him to be taking advantage of Walden's good nature. She cares a great deal for Walden but can see his weaknesses. After refusing to say "I Love You" to Walden, (because she believes if she says it something will go wrong in the relationship) she finally does, making both of them happy. She sides with Walden when his mother and ex-wife try to take his company from him, to which they win, but is disappointed when he renames the company Walden Loves Alan Enterprises instead of Walden loves Zoey Enterprises. In season 10 Walden proposes to her but she turns him down because there is another man. He begins cutting out pictures of her and sticking them all over his bathroom walls and calls it "the Zoey room". When Ava invites him to her birthday party he gets her a huge dog, which annoys Zoey, the dog becomes a pain for her, but when she tries to return the dog to Walden she finds out that the dog has eaten his phone. They meet again in a restaurant where she is seeing another man, which makes Walden and Zoey insecure about seeing each other and so they leave.

Rose

Apparently, Rose continues to stalk the Harper family (regardless of Charlie's death) and Walden is a victim of circumstance. Walden meets Rose at Pavlov's bar, where she reveals to the audience that she had been spying on him. The two get along, and when he tells Alan who he meets he becomes skeptical, telling Walden that she is trouble, however he begins to date her. Walden says that with Rose he is having the best sex he has ever had. However things get out of hand with her when she moves all her belongings into the house. When he reveals to her that Zoey wants to get back together with him she becomes angry and gets her ferrets to attack him, even leaving them in his car to attack him (although the ferrets end up attacking Alan instead). She goes to Zoey's and reveals that Walden got her pregnant, but this was just a lie. She is last seen stalking Walden through his window. When Walden's girlfriend after Rose, becomes a fashion model, Rose is revealed to be her agent who has sent her away to Japan to get away from Walden so she can have him for herself. When Alan and Lyndsey are having an affair with each other one year after these events, her boyfriend hires an investigator to see who she is having an affair with. The investigator is Rose, who informs Walden that someone is trying to kill him, and so she takes him to a motel to hide with her. They apologize to each other for all the upset they may have caused each other and kiss and have sex.

Kate

Kate met Walden at Target, where he introduced himself as Sam Wilson, dressed in Alan's clothes and looking in the store as he was pretending to be poor to find someone who didn't just want him because of his money. "Sam" and Kate hit it off and begin to date. When she sees where Walden lives, where he pretends Alan is his rich landlord, she takes a dislike to Alan and so asks him to move in with her at her apartment. She asks him to find a job, so he goes out selling Christmas trees. For Christmas he gets her a sewing machine, even though Sam Wilson could never afford it, but Walden Schmidt could, she thanks him and says that there should be no lies with each other. She cares for Sam in a great way and tries to be romantic, like hanging a piece of broccoli as she didn't have any mistletoe. Walden donated $100,000 to Kate to start up a fashion design business but made her think Alan did it, though Alan tried to pull the stunt of only donating half of it and keeping the other half for himself. Kate then went to New York City to prepare a fashion show for her outfits. Weeks later, Sam Wilson came to New York to see Kate and finally revealed to her that his real name is Walden Schmidt and that he's really a billionaire. Kate was upset with him at first because he lied to her but forgave him shortly after realizing that he was really the one who donated that money, not Alan. He told her that they could talk about it when they get back to L.A. but she said that because of what he's done for her, she might now have a future in NYC. Walden realized that he really didn't think things through. Kate told Walden that they'd have to see what happens but Walden declared that he loved her. Kate said that it was Sam Wilson she loved but she wasn't sure about Walden Schmidt and told him that she needed time to process this big new information. Weeks later, Kate returned to L.A. on business with a check for $100,000 to pay Walden back because she's gotten a new business partner and investor. Walden begged Kate for another chance and they reconciled, trying to make their relationship work but their work schedules seemed to keep them apart. Walden said that their life together was so much easier when they were poor. Kate was last seen in a limousine, leaving for China with her new business partner and investor, who turned out to be Rose; Rose's real motive for becoming Kate's business partner is to keep Kate and Walden apart. Kate, unaware of Rose's history with Walden, told Rose that she's crazy about Walden. Rose said that she's been there.

Nicole

Nicole is a girl who used to work for Walden before he fired her. She bumps into him one day and tells him about an idea she has been working on. Walden is interested so they meet and after short negotiation they end up working together, now with Nicole as boss. From the beginning there is sexual tension all over the place but Nicole does not want to mix relationship with work. But Walden is not used to get orders and after rejecting one ends up fired. Shortly afterwards he kisses Nicole and later asks her out to dinner. After hearing no from her he decides to set up a dinner in front of Nicole's garage where they work together. After short persuasion Nicole agrees on giving Walden another chance in the company. The tension is growing and they invent mind-reading tool, they finally end up in bed. After becoming increasingly paranoid that she was cheating on him after cancelling their dates, Walden and Barry follow her and find her talking to a man whom she reveals to be an employee at Google who offers her a job. Walden tries to convince her to stay and become Google, rather than just work for them. She decides to take the job offer stating that she and Walden were just having fun.

Other

• Judith Harper-Melnick. He and Judith kiss when he starts crying about Bridget, she consoles him and they kiss. She later asks Herb to grow a beard.
• Courtney Leopold. She meets Walden and the two have sex most of the time they're together, she reveals herself as a con when Bridget pays her to leave.
• Danny. Bridget's doppelganger, who is a Lesbian.
• Evelyn Harper. After Alan warns him that she is a cougar, she ends up sleeping with Walden. The two seem to ignore that this ever happened. Regardless, Walden considers Evelyn (as well as Alan, Jake, and Jenny) to be a part of his family.
• Jennifer. Zoey's neighbor who he attempts to date after a misunderstanding with Zoey. Jake, however, manages to seduce her (under the false impression that he was the same age as her) and the two later end up having sex.
• Jill. A woman Walden picks up at Pavlov's after Zoey turns down his proposal. When having sex he keeps seeing Zoey's face, then Bridget's and his mother's face and then he sees Michael Bolton's face.
• Whitney. An actress who Walden hires to be his girlfriend but ends up falling for her, but she reveals that she is gay.
• Shari. A rich older woman, who believes him to be poor as he was driving Alan's car to get it fixed. He becomes her toyboy.
• Stacy. A hot 22-year-old, who just wants to have sex with Walden, but he is more interested in her grandmother.
• Jenny. Alan's niece, on whom he has a minor attraction to. They also participated in a drunken orgy together.
• Berta. His housekeeper, who used to lust for him when they first met. She eventually got over her crush, but still made subtle passes at him on occasion. She was also in the orgy.
• Jill. An intelligent young woman who works at Disney World as Cinderella. She shares many interests with Walden, most notably astronomy. Lindsey ruins their date however. He later finds her with Jeff Probst, Walden's love rival.
• Vivian, played by Mila Kunis. She is a wandering free spirited young woman who impresses Walden and believes her to be "the one".

References