Who is April Bowlby

Two and a Half Men
The Complete Fourth Season

For those who haven't had the pleasure of seeing this top-rated series on TV, it's about the lives of two brothers, one of the brother's son, and the many people, especially women, who surround them. When his wimpy younger brother Alan Harper (Jon Crier) becomes separated from his wife and moves out of their house, he has to move in with Charlie, his older brother (played by Charlie Sheen). Alan shares custody of his son Jake (Angus T. Jones), who was 10 when the series began and who stays with them part-time. The "half a man" in the title of this sitcom is in reference to the fact that Jake isn't an adult yet.

Charlie Harper is a successful bachelor with a house on Malibu Beach, a Mercedes in the garage and an easy way with women. His easygoing, often hedonistic single lifestyle is interrupted when his tightly-wound brother, Alan (a chiropractor), and Alan's son, Jake , move in with him. Alan's hung-up ex-wife Judith (Marin Hinkle) frequently makes matters worse, as does the brothers' narcissistic mother, Evelyn (Holland Taylor), whose wide-ranging sex life is a recurring gag throughout the series. The brothers' housekeeper Berta (Conchata Ferrell) is unapologetically sarcastic, and often has the best one-liners, trading insults with Charlie referring to Alan as "Zippy." Their household can't function without her.

There are a number of other series regulars, but in this viewer's opinion, Charlie's wacky neighbor and female stalker Rose (Melanie Lynskey) is one of the best. She has a habit of popping over Charlie's deck railing and sometimes enter his house at inopportune moments. It's alluded that she had a one night stand with Charlie shortly before the show started, which she believed to be more significant than he did. Rose's father Harvey is played by Martin Sheen, and in one episode he asks Charlie of his intentions with his daughter. At one point Harvey meets Charlie and Alan's mother and has an affair with her, and popping in and stalking her just like his daughter does with Charlie.

April Bowlby is something of a cameleon. Blonde, brunette, redhead. She's naturally a redhead (my favorite look for her because it makes her pretty eyes pop).

Two and a Half Men
The Complete First Season

Hedonistic bachelor Charlie (Charlie Sheen) is a jingles writer who, he blithely states, makes a lot of money for doing very little work, sleeps with beautiful women who don't ask about his feelings, drives a Jag and lives at the beach, and sometimes, in the middle of the day, for no reason at all, likes to make himself a big pitcher of margaritas and take a nap out on the sundeck. His brother, Alan (Jon Cryer), evicted from his house by his soon-to-be-ex-wife, is "rigid, inflexible, uptight, obsessive and anal-retentive." Charlie and Alan are "twisted Jungian archetypes," according to series co-creator Chuck Lorre in one of this set's bonus features. If by "twisted Jungian archetypes," he means Oscar and Felix from The Odd Couple, then yes, Charlie and Alan are "twisted Jungian archetypes," and this inaugural season finds rich comic tension in their period of adjustment. Charlie is a Man Behaving Badly, whose idyllic life is upended when "fuddy-duddy" Alan moves in, accompanied by his impressionable 10-year-old son, Jake (Angus T. Jones), with whom he shares custody with his iceberg-cold, sexually confused (a comic conceit thankfully abandoned by season's end) estranged wife, Judith (Marin Hinkle). Alan is a single father who is appalled by his amoral brother's lifestyle and by the influence Charlie might have on Jake ("Uncle Charlie, I understand the point spread, but I'm still confused about the vig"). And then there's Berta (effortless scene-stealer Conchata Ferrell), Charlie's formidable, tart-tongued housekeeper who is initially driven out the door by Alan's fussiness ("The peanut butter stains on Jake's shirts really require an enzyme presoak").

Two and a Half Men
The Complete Second Season

Welcome back to the Harpers' Malibu beach house, home to one of the funniest TV comedy hits in a long, long time. Bachelor Charlie's trying (but not very hard) to remember the name of the girl currently taking a shower upstairs. And Alan, Charlie's divorced, uptight brother, who's proud to have been named the San Fernando Valley's Chiropractor of the Year. And Jake, Alan's 11-year-old son, who's happiest with a juice box in one hand and the TV remote in the other. After a year of living together, the guys have figured out how two and a half men equal one family. Sort of. But there are plenty of hilariously rough spots along the way. And you'll share them all in this 4-disc collection that includes all 24 episodes of the series' smart and sparkling second season.

Two and a Half Men
The Complete Third Season

Episodes: Weekend in Bangkok with Two Olympic Gymnasts, Principal Gallagher's Lesbian Lover, Carpet Burns and a Bite Mark, Your Dismissive Attitude Toward Boobs, We Called It Mr. Pinky, Hi Mr. Horned One, Sleep Tight Puddin' Pop, That Voodoo That I Do Do, Madame and Her Special Friend, Something Salted and Twisted, Santa's Village of the Damned, That Special Tug, Humiliation is a Visual Medium, Love Isn't Blind It's Retarded, My Tongue is Meat, Ergo The Booty Call, The Unfortunate Little Schnauser, The Spit-Covered Cobbler, Golly Moses ,She's A Muffin, Always a Bridesmaid Never a Burro, And the Plot Moistens, Just Once With Aunt Sophie, Arguments for the Quickie, That Pistol-Packin' Hermaphrodite.