Wilfred: "Pride"

Season 1, Episode 7

A new way forward

“In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.”

Stephen H. Coogler

I have to wonder after viewing the episode whether or not the format of “Pride” should be Wilfred’s MO from here on forth. Not only does the episode’s title/theme actually make sense and have a clear path all the way through the episode (Ryan’s doing all of this because he’s too proud to take money from his sister, something that’s set up early on so as to drive the episode’s plot), but Wilfred’s characterization also worked so much better than it has in the previous six episodes. This isn’t to say that up until this point Wilfred hasn’t made any sense as a character – indeed, the meat of my reviews of this show are about finding out what narrative purpose Wilfred serves in each episode – but in the past he has usually stood for some very complex philosophical/psychological issues, and that has usually made his place in the episodic narrative shaky at best.

Tonight though, Wilfred was very simply a manifestation of Ryan’s pride coupled with his libido. It was a weird pairing to be sure, but it made for some very funny and very disturbing sexual exploits, and it was handled in such a way that it made us question Ryan’s sanity, but not his sexual peccadilloes.  Sure, the episode was a bit too straight forwards about this at times – especially that shot of Ryan’s reflection in the window combined with Wilfred’s silhouette from the other side – and that meant that there was a loss of thematic complexity that generally makes for a intellectually stimulating exercise. But the tradeoff for this was two-fold, as not only did all of the elements at play (the theme, Wilfred, the plot) fit nicely together, but the show finally found a lower-key storyline that fits the show’s stoner aesthetic.

It’s just too bad that the story that these elements convened around wasn’t all that great. While Jane Kaczmarek was great as always in her role as the hard-nosed older woman, and managed to make some of her lines much funnier than they had any right to be, the idea of a older woman who trades someone financial obligation to her for a night of passion feels quite tired. This meant for a good deal of its running time, the plot, and therefore some of the jokes, became a tad too predictable, and the show seemed to lose a bit of its edge. The show tried to recoup this in the end by having Ryan’s second night with the woman become even raunchier, but Ryan trying to service Raffi the stuffed giraffe made very little sense (at least from the perspective that his motivation to do so came from his own damn mind) and it felt like shock value for the sake of shock value. Oh well; with a more logical and flexible format hopefully now in place, maybe the show can pull out a few more win before the season is over.

Quotes, Etc.:

“What do you mean it wasn’t real?”

“Jobs are for immigrants.”

“She’s you sister mate, she loves you. Bleed the bitch dry.”

“And thanks to you, I’ll be going down on the deepest throat in all the animal kingdom!”

“Tonight I wanted to do something special – so I had my assistant whip up a home cooked meal.”

“Hey, do you mind? We were having a conversation here you adorable piece of shit!”

“For a girl who’s never been outside of the box, Raffi really thinks outside of the box.”

“Goddamn, this must be some kind of record. I’m an idiot for not timing this.”

“Battleships change location in the middle of a war, Ryan. It’s what they were designed to do!”