Wilfred: "Fear"

Season 1, Episode 3

Expanding beyond Wilfred results in a higher quality

“Fear has its use, but cowardice has none.”

-Gandhi

There were two things that tonight’s episode did that I really liked, and that I hope the show keeps doing in the future.

The first was that this episode was focused solely on Wilfred. The first two episodes were more or less content to just have Wilfred and Ryan play off of each other for laughs, which is fine as far as those things go, but it’s not something that can be sustained over a long period of time. And sure Jenna is in the mix (I believe the actress is part of the main cast), but since her role is really just Wilfred’s owner and Ryan’s love interest as of now, she doesn’t really add anything to that dynamic. And with Ryan as the straight man (more or less) in this main dynamic, that leaves all of the humor on Wilfred, and as I stated previously, “man in a dog suit” jokes only go so far.

So I was fairly pleased with Spencer (Ethan Suplee) showed up, as he seemed primed to take the focus away from Wilfred and have Ryan react to someone else for a change. I soon ended up being more than pleased, as I ended laughing more than I have at this episode than at previous two episodes combined, even when it came to Wilfred’s jokes. I’m not going to say that Spencer was a particularly deep character, or that I would want to see him in every episode, but here he worked as a good distraction, and it breathed new life into a premise that was already starting to feel a little old.

(The episode also scaled back the “human as dog” humor to just the scene with Wilfred and the laser pointer, in what was a great bit of physical comedy for Jason Gann.)

The second thing was just a continuation of a current trend, but by going deeper into the idea of Wilfred as Ryan’s subconscious, the show managed to give this episode a highly surreal edge. Of course more people will point to the opening dream sequence and call it “weird” – and it certainly is, in the most enjoyable way possible – and it certainly is, but in that scene, all of the weird visions Ryan had were the product of the weed, not Wilfred. Yet “Wilfred” the subconscious creation was there in the basement with him, even as the actual dog Wilfred was outside scratching at the door to go on a walk. This – along with the “You, me, what’s the difference?” line – shows that Wilfred is slowly becoming a larger part of Ryan’s subconscious, and we can look forward to him doing more and more unpredictable things.

But what about when Ryan’s normal self begins to rebel against his new subconscious desires? A large part of the episode saw Ryan fighting back against Wilfred’s attempts to teach him about destroying fear and embracing dominance, to the point where Ryan actually had Spencer use the laser pointer on Wilfred as a form of payback. It was a weird but deft way to visually play out the mental anguish that’s going on in Ryan’s head, but it also showed the dark depths to which the show is willing to plunge, as Ryan actively cause the dog Wilfred to attack a neighbor just so he could sort out all the shit going on in his mind. Ryan eventually snapped back to reality and got the dog back, but I doubt this will be the last time his mental instability causes someone to get hurt.

If I would have to pick a problem with this episode, however, it’s that it ended just like the first one did, with “Wilfred” leaving behind crucial evidence in one of Ryan’s crimes that he’s suddenly become so found of making. I get how Ryan could have dropped his wallet at Spencer’s house and then retroactively blamed it on his new subconscious best friend. But to have Ryan graffiti someone’s house and for us to not know he did it? That’s some Tyler Durden type shit right there, and I don’t know if the show can stand to have Ryan develop multiple personality disorder or anything that cracked. (At least I’m assuming Ryan did do the graffiti but doesn’t know that he did it. His face seemed somewhat surprised when we saw him see it tonight.) Wilfred can be a weird show, sure, and I appreciate the showrunners embracing that, but there’s an extent to how weird it can be, and I hope it’s discovered before we are taken too deep down the rabbit hole.

Quotes, Etc:

“Well these buds are call ‘Purple Thunder Paranoia', but no, you’re not being paranoid.”

“A bone? That’s like giving a basketball to a black guy.”

“It’s not like I was going to bite her. Last time I had Indian, it gave me shits for a week.”

“You want me to have sex with him?” “It’s called domination.”

“Why is the sky gray? Why is the grass gray? Why is a rainbow gray, gray, gray, gray, gray, gray, and infa-gray?”

“Enough words Ryan. I’ll hold him down, you get his pants.”

“Hey, you like porn? God, listen to me. What am I? Some kind of idiot? Everybody loves porn.”

“Nice save. Good doggie. Now we can porn out all night.”

“First round of jerk jobs on me!”

“Anything goes at Club Midia.”

“This is how you get when you have a transsexual stripper for a dad. Now he had perfect breasts.” “I saw them in that porn you showed me.”

“Ooh, a farm? With duckies?”

“You know damn well she didn’t work Saturdays. You banged her on Shabbos!”

“You watched any porn lately?” “I have a government job. All I do is watch porn.”

“Once we get nice and wasted: bottle rocket fight? And then, assuming there’s no burns…”

“I guess I’d screw Toto, marry Lassie, and kill Marmaduke.”