Wilfred: "Sacrifice"

Season 1, Episode 12

It’s all been building to this

“Love is a willingness to sacrifice.”

-Michael Novak

For the entirety of Wilfred’s first season, or at least the episodes I’ve have time to review, I have been relentlessly focused on the idea of Wilfred-as-Ryan’s-conscience, something that I’m sure as turned more than a few readers off. (“Why can’t you just focus on the comedy?” I’m sure somebody has said.) I don’t do this out of a lack of other frameworks in which I could discuss episodes (there have been several), or because I have some weird obsession with the topic (okay, maybe a little bit), but because I believe it is the show’s greatest asset, and the one it needs to develop further if it wants to grow to be a better show. The show is funny sure, but laughs don’t seem to be its biggest aim, and there’s very little character work to speak of. (In this instance, I don’t mean that as an insult. Many comedies are better when they leave the character work aside and just focus on the humor. This show is one of them.) The weirdness of the show is what makes it stand out, and what keeps me watching from week-to-week.

So I was of course fairly happy with “Sacrifice”, an episode which I felt struck an even balance between Wilfred as a character and Wilfred as a symbol. The season arc, if I can be bold enough to suggest there was one, was focused on Wilfred’s changing effect on Ryan, sure, but there was also a romantic B-plot involving Jenna. It hasn’t had a very strong presence, or had any real development, but there’s been enough of it that we can believe in Ryan’s infatuation with Jenna.

And that’s good thing, as tonight’s episode used that relationship as its basis for the weekly Wilfred hallucinations. The show has always had a weird habit of trying to connect Wilfred’s lesson (in this case, sacrifice) with whatever Ryan’s actual problem is (in this case, his feelings for Jenna), and while most the time it ends up being a narrative stretch, tonight it worked out perfectly. The show was smart to lay some ground work – both with Ryan’s chance meeting with the hot Italian woman (whose name I could never hear perfectly enough to even attempt to spell it), and with Jenna’s big move in the world, to the end that we could easily make the connection before the show did it for us. Usually I am against such obvious connections, but I think Wilfred is the kind of show where knowing where it’s headed can actually be a beneficial to one’s viewing of it.

The other big development of the night was that we finally learned why Ryan left his law firm – as “The Archaeologist” he had to dig up the dirt on the people on the other side of the courtroom, and it morally broke him down – and while it’s nice to understand that (it does help to put a few things in context), it was a bit tonally off for the rest of the episode.

But that’s all right, as it was hidden within a crazy dream Ryan had featuring Wilfred, the perfect encapsulation of just how far the Wilfred persona has become buried in Ryan’s psyche.  The show has often been coy about Wilfred’s origins in relation to Ryan (especially in last week’s “mythology” heavy episode, which really only raised more questions than it answered), but knowing that Wilfred is a manifestations of Ryan’s doubt, id, and conscience, this weird mix begins to explain a lot of Wilfred’s behavior over the previous 11 episodes. It was a heady subject to take on, but it was also an important one. Now that the show has finally nailed down who Wilfred is, it can go on to make even better stories.

Quotes, Etc:

“I was going to get it in on Kindle, but then people couldn’t see how deep I am.”

“Well, what have we here? And what is that thing above them, with the mouth and eyes.”

“Yeah, I’m on shrooms right now for my…scrapped knee.”

“I swear, the minute you take the dick out of Bear’s mouth it’s nyah nyah nyah.”

“There’s some symbolism in that poop, Ryan..and some grass…and half a slipper.”

“You’re selling the TV? That is the cornerstone of our friendship!”

“Now? How about now? What about now?”

“You gotta feel how soft my tits are!”

“What, you think you can do better than undies on the face?”