Two and a Half Men has started filming again, and the first order of business is to kill off the main character so that they can explain why Charlie Sheen will never again grace our television screens in his seminal role playing himself. TMZ had a very spoiler-filled story over the weekend detailing the way that Charlie’s death is explained. They’ve since removed it, but you can still read the details here. (Spoilers obviously, although the cause of death for Charlie might change anyway.)

The funeral for Charlie’s character, Charlie Harper, features prominently during the first show. Here’s more, from OMG!, which also contains some spoilers if you care. New lead Ashton Kutcher is playing an Internet billionaire:

The actor, who plays Walden Schmidt, an Internet billionaire with a broken heart, filmed his first episode of the CBS sitcom Friday night, which included the funeral of Charlie Sheen’s character, TMZ.com reports.

In attendance at Charlie Harper’s funeral were Alan (Jon Cryer), Jake (Angus T. Jones), Charlie’s stalker Rose (Melanie Lynskey) and one of Charlie’s exes (Jenny McCarthy), sources present for the taping told the site. The audience was only privy to certain scenes of the premiere, as to not reveal Charlie’s actual cause of death. Some sort of “accident” was the only thing mentioned in front of the live studio audience, though multiple takes were shot. (We’re guessing it’s an overdose of tiger blood, no?)

Meanwhile, Sheen’s not grieving over the death of Charlie Harper. The actor, who was fired in March Warner Bros. TV after months of growing tension between Sheen and creator Chuck Lorre, tells TMZ he plans to celebrate the end of his character. “I will be watching my fake funeral, attended by my fake ex-girlfriends, from my very, very real movie theater, with my very real hotties in tow.”

[From OMG]

So everything is fine with Charlie because he has his “very real” bought and paid for “hotties” that have taken the place of the last set of “goddesses” who just couldn’t bear to stick around for more than a couple of months. You would think that getting paid tens of thousands of dollars a month to service one guy would be enough to keep a hooker interested, but for the women working on Charlie it obviously wasn’t.

As far as whether Ashton is passable in the lead role on Men, TMZ reports that some audience members say he had good chemistry with Jon Cryer. At least one person said he was “dry and didn’t quite own the character.” Given what we know about the guy’s acting ability, I would put my money on the latter. It hardly matters when the show is as consistently hokey as Two and Half Men, though.

Ashton is shown in Rio on the beach for a photo shoot on 6/14/11. Credit: Fame. Other photos are from the wrap of the first episode shooting (via E!) and new promos for the show. Credit: CBS