Chuck Lorre‘s new comedy series, Bookie, debuts on Max today, Thursday, November 30, and the first episode features an unexpected reunion between Two and a Half Men‘s Charlie Sheen and Angus T. Jones.
Bookie, developed by Lorre and writer Nick Bakay, stars Sebastian Maniscalco as Danny, a Los Angeles sports betting bookie struggling to keep up with the changing times. In the series, Sheen plays a high-rolling version of himself.
In the premiere, Danny heads to Malibu to collect a debt from Sheen, whom he finds at a rehab facility. However, Sheen isn’t a patient at the facility; he’s the host of a weekly poker game, and one of the players is none other than the “Half Man” himself, Angus T. Jones, who played Jake Harper on Two and a Half Men.
As noted by TVLine, the scene is a homage to the poker scene in the Two and a Half Men pilot, even including the same poker buddies who gathered for Charlie Harper’s poker game in 2003.
Angus T. Jones on Bookie; Max
There was also another nod to the hit CBS sitcom before the poker scene when Danny arrives at the rehab center and encounters a woman having a complete breakdown. The woman is played by Jennifer Taylor, who starred in two seasons of Two and a Half Men as Charlie’s fiancée Chelsea.
Lorre spoke with TVLine about putting the poker scene together, as well as what it was like to work again with Sheen, whom he’d publicly fallen out with towards the end of Two and a Half Men.
“It was really healing. It really felt good. It felt like we were closing the book on some horrible times, and we had a good time,” Lorre said of collaborating with Sheen on Bookie.
Charlie Sheen and Sebastian Maniscalco on Bookie; Max
He continued, “It was a painful couple of years. We were making a TV show, hoping to make people laugh, and we did that for eight-and-a-half years, 170-something episodes… and I’m really proud of the work that we did. It was really gratifying to do a little thing [together] again.”
“And having Angus be part of it… Angus put acting behind after Two and a Half Men, and he just slipped right [back] into it,” Lorre added. “It was second nature to him. He was a skillful actor at 10 years old, and he was equally skillful at 30. He looks like a lumberjack now. Man, it was great, and we did another episode with Charlie in this first season.”
Jones’ on-screen career started at five years old when he starred in the 1999 film Simpatico. He went on to have supporting roles in films including See Spot Run, The Rookie, Bringing Down the House, and George of the Jungle 2 before landing his role in Two and a Half Men.
In 2012, Jones said he no longer wanted to be part of the sitcom after his newfound religious faith. He claimed the show conflicted with his religious views and encouraged viewers to stop watching. His character was later replaced by Amber Tamblyn, and Jones officially announced his departure in March 2014. He later returned for a cameo in the series finale on February 19, 2015.
As for how the poker scene came together, Lorre said, “[Charlie and I] were talking about the poker game, and pretty much simultaneously, we both went, ‘Well, what if we try and recreate the poker game from the pilot?’ And then the next moment was me calling Angus and saying, ‘Hey, Angus! You want a job?’”
“It was actually almost 20 years to the day that we shot the pilot of Two and a Half Men… only now, instead of being in pajamas and annoying the guys, Angus was in the game, and he was terrific,” he shared. “It was a wonderful thing to reunite with both those guys. It really was.”
