After flipping the coin, Charlie decided not to get married now, so in their room, he asks Kirsten for more time, to wait some months because he doesn't want to feel panicked, scared on the wedding day. He even gives her a strong hug because he loves her so much. She's not alarmed yet, thinks he's just stressed because the sleepless night, and gives him an hour to shave and think. Then, they go to take pictures but when the photographer says forever, he leaves. Again in their room, she tries to convince him that he just have to go downstairs and say I do, that's easy, but he says he can't. He tells he loves her, that he wants to marry her and that he doesn't want to be with anyone else, but he also wants to think about living in his father's house, working at Salinger's, with the same woman, the same kids, forever. Gene is mad and wants to kill him, and tries to comfort his daughter, who cries without knowing what to do. Ellie is calm, thinks he'll change his mind and says he isn't thinking rationally (honestly, the writers weren't thinking rationally). Charlie wants to be alone so he sends away his siblings, and then, Julia pleads him to marry but doesn't work, his answer is that he knows he's hurting Kirsten but thinks there's no other way (totally ilogical). Bailey offers to clean up the mess. Incredibly, Joe doesn't say a word, unlike Nick Salinger would. Then, Kirsten thinks about waiting some months, but Ellie "orders" her to give an ultimatum, to marry now or split up (thinking that in the future the same will happen), so Charlie escapes to think. For the record, Gene didn't agree with this. When she was about to send the guests away, he returns and finally accepts to get married, so the people prepares all again. He waits in the backyard with everyone, while Gene and Ellie are ready to deliver her, but she doesn't appear. He goes looking for her in their bedroom and finds her getting dressed on casual clothes. She tells him she can't marry him because he said he's not sure, so she's afraid that one day he will say that he doesn't love her anymore. He tells he made a mistake, that he won't do that, but she doesn't believe him and, in tears, decides to leave the family. Later, she says she'll go to Chicago for a week and then get another place in SF. As for the rest, Justin and Julia get back together being drunk, also Sarah and Bailey get back together with Will's blessing.
I watched this episode twice and still I don't buy it. What happened with the wedding is impossible, there is no way. Many persons can be nervous, or get cold feet on his/her wedding day, cancel everything, but not in this case. Also, the ultimatum was a terrible idea (Ellie was wrong) because no one can get married on those terms. Amy and Christopher are telling us this story, about this family and this couple: since the episode Grownups when Charlie first proposed, he never had any doubts, in Dearly Beloved, he'd get married with Kirsten in a bus or in Macy's (exactly his words), in Change Partners and Dance, he said about having a vision of their wedding dancing happily ever after, and that was in this season!! A few episodes ago!!! And if he feared becoming his dad, that's not what he said in Have no Fear. In Brother's Keeper he said he was glad to be called Mr Salinger, he was looking over his shoulder for his dad. About children, that theme was solved in Falsies. Even his words in this episode doesn't make any sense: being 25? He lived a lot of an irresponsible, unpredictable life before his parents died, and in All Nighters he was glad to leave all that behind. Besides, he's almost 26 now. The same kids? Bailey, Julia and Claudia are leaving the house (and they left) for college in a few years, besides he always can adopt, or wait for IVF or a succesful surgery to fix the medical issue (endometriosis), in Kirsten. The same job? Bailey, Joe or anyone could manage the restaurant when he leaves for furniture business. The same house? Move out with your wife, Owen and your future kids. He only had to marry this incredible, wonderful, beautiful woman who loves him, Claudia and Owen, besides caring for Bailey and Julia. Also, he could have said, let's wait a few days til Meg can come and in the meantime clear the doubts, that would have been more logical than the ultimatum. So, if everything was going great for this couple, there was no reason to change it all, this was like the finale of HIMYM, the writers prepared a whole season for an event and suddenly they blew it all. If Amy and Christopher wanted more drama, well, there were so many ideas they could have wrote: Gene or someone close getting sick, for example, anything that can be believed, realistic. To delay the wedding, they should have wrote something different in the early episodes of this season. What happened here was way against the odds, 1 of a million possible situations, the least likely. I read/heard that even Matthew Fox said in some interviews that this episode was hard to film, was hard to play a character with these mistakes, this emotional wreck. Many times the writers made Charlie much younger than his age and Matthew felt bad for it (seemingly off screen he fought with the writers for all this). I'm not sure what Paula Devicq thought when she first learned what was going to happen to her character, I know just what she said in A Family Album in mid 1998, that was good what she did here as an actress and that was hard to feel Kirsten had to leave Charlie and the family. And yes, it's true, she did an amazing job here and obviously had to be hard being left out of family, of the season. Yet, the reality is that thanks to this, she was left out of the main cast of the show until season 5/mid 1998. She missed 40 episodes, lost her regular job and had to be recurrent/guest, while the Salingers cast and JLH were happily busy with their regular jobs and full salary all that time. I bet she couldn't be glad about that, and considering she also said she wanted Charlie and Kirsten together, maybe she didn't feel the turn out as right. Of course, to blame the writers because this affected the next seasons. I mean, how would have been Claudia and Owen's life with Kirsten always around and not on-off, Bailey's alcoholism plot or Charlie's battle with cancer, with Kirsten as his wife? For me, it'd have been great, excellent, amazing, the way all should have been. But this episode served for another purpose. The filming, acting, the setting were pretty good, and the sound editing was nominated for an Emmy (that's why I rate with 5 and not less) but what matters the most is the story, the plot, and I can't buy it. The writers/producers did this, and after seeing the whole series, it's obvious that the entire development was affected since here. The rest of season 2 and many moments of future seasons felt the damage done now to the storyline.
However, not everything was a fiasco, the story of Bailey/Sarah/Will was good, and well done Will (by punching his friend). Bailey thinks he's ready now to be with Sarah, and she told Will she's still hang up on Bailey. Then, Justin and Julia had enough reasons to get drunk and forget everything, but later this will affect their relationship and themselves (Before and After). I didn't like this part, but it was a consequence of Charlie's fear. Then, I want to highlight Claudia's lines. She said to Kirsten what she feels: she loves Charlie and Kirsten together, she loves her and she wants them to sleep together in the same bed everyday. This implies who are Claudia's parents for her, Charlie is her "father" and Kirsten is her "mother". At the end, she blamed him for the disaster but also she couldn't understand why he did it, as he loves Kirsten. About the baby, Owen appeared only for pictures, held by Joe, then by Julia, and before leaving Kirsten told Charlie that he had an appointment for a pediatrician (implies that she took care of him as his adoptive mother). The last scene with Charlie and Bailey was good too and somehow proves my point: Charlie said he knows he ruined his life, that he screwed up everything, and that's why it seems that the writers forced this, because not even Charlie Salinger wanted this disaster to happen. And that's why he cried then, the writers ruined his life.
For me and for the people who agrees with Claudia, that Kirsten is wonderful, lovely, and fits perfect with Charlie and the Salingers, this episode hurts. I felt conned. I felt more anger than sadness and that's not good. One last thought: the only positive thing about this failed wedding was that allowed the events of early season 3, Going Home and Desperate Measures, two emotional and heartbreaking episodes, without any doubts, far better than this one. That part of the storyline was perfectly made, although the cost was big. I don't know if those episodes were possible without this one.
Conclusion: This episode is one of biggest mistake of the series because doesn't fit with the last 30 episodes, there's no sense, no coherence, no way this could happen. The only explanation is that these two writers exceeded with the drama because leaving Charlie and Kirsten married since season two was too simple, too easy, too obvious. But like I said before, if they thought that, there were other ways (no limits to imagination). This was disappointing.
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