S1E10: Finally, Wilfred shows that it’s got a little something below its fake-fur covered surface. Ryan’s cleaning up his act, stops smoking weed and has a bit of an existential crisis and finally, all this brings up the question of whether this thing with Wilfred is helping or hurting him. And for once, the episode doesn’t suddenly drop the magically solved storyline before it’s ripe and we actually get a bit of an episode that makes us think and takes the relationship between Ryan and Wilfred to another level. Thank God.
“Ryan, it’s been 10 days what are you trying to prove?” –Wilfred
Ryan’s polishing up his resume, learn yoga, and reading – basically acting like an adult. Wilfred is trying to undermine his progress, but says it’s for the best.
Suddenly, Ryan keeps seeing a scruffy man with shades, but note that his sister doesn’t see him. Of course this could mean he walked away before she turned her head, but it likely means he’s imaginary. Wilfred is still trying to keep Ryan off the path to progress. Ryan sets up a date with a woman from an online dating site, but Wilfred wants him to just find a slutty girl to wet his whistle instead. Meanwhile, Bruce, the guy with the glasses, approaches Ryan and tells him he can see and hear Wilfred and the he ruined his life. This prompts Ryan to ask Wilfred if he’s ever had this relationship with anyone else, Wilfred says Ryan is his one and only. It’s like a romantic entanglement – it was a cute little moment.
Ryan has a drink with Bruce, who’s a bit too much of a gimmick for my tastes. He says Wilfred pulls all kinds of tricks on him, even poking a hole in his condom at one point so that he ended up getting a stripper pregnant. Clearly the best decision is to tail Wilfred. So Ryan watches him make a mess and dance around in his house before leaving to pick up some weed from some Mexican drug dealers. It turns out it was all a ruse because Wilfred knew Ryan was following him and the breach in trust is forged. It’s just a little obnoxious because they’re really taking license with this “it’s all in Ryan’s head” concept. Wilfred going to a dealer’s house assumes he’s able to communicate with those people as well, but there’s the convenient excuse that Ryan’s probably imagining all of it.
“I don’t know what snout rape is, but I hate my mailman too.” –Angelique
Wilfred cancels Ryan’s date with the nice, successful woman and replaces her with Angelique , the sure-fire slut, courtesy of a “gross” message that the loose woman still finds “hot” somehow. She wants to head home and get busy and Ryan just wants to go home alone. When a condom falls out of his wallet that he didn’t put there, he gets suspicious. Of course Bruce is hanging out in the bathroom and tells him to test it – there’s a hole in it. Bruce tells him to take Wilfred out somewhere and ditch him. Ryan seems desperate enough to do it.
He tells Wilfred they’re going to a giant, unmanned field of weed – the stoner’s equivalent of the farm where people always tell kids their lost or deceased pets go. Obnoxiously, Bruce is also here. It turns out they do know each other, and they fight until Bruce looks like he’s about to kill Wilfred. Ryan picks up the gun and shoots Bruce. And while he’s freaking out about what Wilfred just made him do – not something he chose to do out of his volition, which is what really happened – Bruce gets up and it turns out it was all a ruse to get Ryan to choose his faith in Wilfred over the doubt Bruce instilled in him.
I do like that the episode ends without us being sure if Bruce really is another person who can see and hear Wilfred (though he’s just his pal instead of the man whose life was ruined by Wilfred) or if he’s another figment of Ryan’s imagination, perhaps a personification of the mental somersaults he’s been doing as a result of his interaction with the man-dog.
For once, Wilfred actually helps Ryan realize that those superficial changes in his life aren’t really a solution in themselves – he’s got to make some changes in his head too. Finally, we find a surprisingly mature result from this show. I knew you had it in you, Wilfred.
