For the first half of 2011, it seemed you couldn't go anywhere without someone yelling "Winning!" or "Tiger blood!" A clash between Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen (then the highest-paid actor on television) and the series' creator, Chuck Lorre, led to Sheen's very public firing — and very public meltdown. The media couldn't help but follow Sheen's spectacular downward spiral, in which he lived with interchangeable blond "goddesses," denounced "trolls" and went on a nationwide tour to spout his catchphrases. But in the second half of the year, Sheen calmed down, laughed at himself during Comedy Central's highest-rated roast ever, reached a reported multimillion-dollar settlement in his lawsuit against Two and a Half Men producer Warner Bros. TV (whose parent company, like TIME's, is Time Warner) and signed a sitcom deal with FX. Talk about winning.