MovieChat Forums > Two and a Half Men (2003) Discussion > Berta's explanation makes NO sense

Berta's explanation makes NO sense



Jake is grumpy in the first season episode 20, 'Hey, I can Pee Outside in the Dark'.

Alan and Charlie try 'everything' they can think of to figure out what's bothering Jake, but to no avail.

One morning, Jake is suddenly chipper and seemingly happy, everyone is baffled, except Berta.

Berta confessed having had a talk with Jake the previous evening. Alan and Charlie understandably want to know 'what she said' to him.

Berta proceeds to reach in a cupboard, take out a bottle, slams it on the table and says something like:

"I said to him, drink this bottle of prune juice."

Then she proceeds to lecture Charlie and Alan on what they feed Jake, etc.

Let's back ujp a bit. Is that 'prune juice bottle' just a visual aid to her story? Does she whip out handcuffs when she talks about her past or her kids being arrested or something? She's not a damn PROP comic, and never has been - her evil quips are enough, no one needs a visual aid to her stories.

It wouldn't even be so problematic, if she hadn't used the word "this". (Check it, she definitely says 'this bottle').

Now, there are several possibilities here..

1) That is _THE_ same prune juice bottle Jake drank. How can it have any prune juice in it, if Jake drank its contents? (Technically, 'drink a bottle' doesn't make sense, either, when you think about it, but I'll let that slide due to spoken english not making sense most of the time anyway)

As the bottle is CLEARLY not empty (might even be full, hard to verify), this _can't_ be the SAME bottle, so Berta is lying - she didn't tell Jake to drink _THIS_ bottle of prune juice, but some OTHER bottle of prune juice!

2) That is a DIFFERENT bottle of prune juice, and now we can understand why it's not empty - in other words, it could be a brand new, completely full prune juice bottle that Berta slams on the table. Now the word 'this' makes NO sense, because now we know Jake didn't drink THIS prune juice. Why would Berta take a DIFFERENT bottle and call it "this bottle" when telling the story? Makes no sense!

3) It's some completely different bottle altogether, and has nothing to do with prune juice. Berta is simply 're-acting' (enacting?) what happened last night, again, using a PROP.

As we already established, she is NOT a prop comic, so none of these explanations make any sense!

Can you come up with a reason why that scene makes sense?

I didn't think so, because IT CAN'T make sense, because it doesn't!

What were the writers on, did they actually ATTEND Charlie's parties and snort something, too??

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it's easy to whip out a bottle of digestible liquid while you are in the kitchen though..
had they been in the living room or something you'd have a point.

but they are literally in the kitchen with all the food and drinks.. we assume she has more than one bottle of prune juice

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Can you come up with a reason why that scene makes sense?


Yes. I don't even need to see that scene to know that if *you* think it doesn't make sense, then it clearly must.

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