Wilfred TV Series (2011-2014)

Ryan Newman

A manic depressive, a man in a dog suit, and a couch in the basement. At first glance, Wilfred might seem like an easy pass, however the show has been a favorite of mine since it was introduced in 2011. The show is billed as a dark comedy, but has definite drama and mystery undertones. I've always been a fan of shows that give you more questions than answers, IE The X-Files and Lost and Wilfred definitely scratched that itch. Wilfred is based on an Australian TV show by the same name.

The series opens with Elijah Wood's character Ryan cheerfully attempting suicide, only to fail (maybe?). Ryan soon finds out that he is the only person that sees his neighbors dog Wilfred (Jason Gann) as a man with an Australia accent in a dog suit. The two develop a friendship that revolves around the two smoking pot and drinking in Ryan's basement, followed by Wilfred making an insane request of Ryan and torching him until Ryan finally gives in.

What drew me into the show, is that fact you never really know what Wilfred's motivations are, or what Wilfred really is. Did Ryan die and is now in purgatory? Is he insane? Is Wilfred some kind of spirit animal sent to guide Ryan? Are Wilfred's games aimed at improving Ryan's life, or is he just screwing with him? The show does an excellent job of keeping Wilfred's motivations and true nature ambiguous, while not feeling like it's dangling a carrot on a string.

What really makes the show great is the chemistry between Ejilah Wood and Jason Gann. Both are excellent actors, and Wood's uptight, nervous portrayal of Ryan plays very well off of Gann's antagonistic, carpe diem attitude. Both actors are at the top of their game for the duration of the series.

I don't think a television show can be properly reviewed until it has completed its run. A TV show's ending can make or break an other wise excellent series. That presents a problem for shows like Wilfred. It can be very easy for the writers to paint themselves into a corner that is difficult to get out of when the time comes to end the series. Often times, when a show centers around mystery and intrigue, after the mysteries are solved, and the questions answered, the show can leave the viewer feeling very flat and unfulfilled. Worse yet, is when a show ends and NONE of the questions are answered at all.

Wilfred is no exception here, and I'm sure some will be unhappy with the ending. That being said, I can say that I thought Wilfred's ending was exactly what it should have been. The ending manages to answer all the shows questions without feeling like too much of a let down or leaving you feeling deflated. All in all, I really enjoyed the series and would highly recommend it.

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There was never really a mystery. Throughout its run, the FX, and later, FXX comedy Wilfred, invited intense speculation about the real nature of Wilfred, the dog who appears as an Australian guy in a dog suit (Jason Gann), but only to burnt-out former lawyer Ryan (Elijah Wood). The show spawned theories that rivaled Lost (and invited the comparison) maybe Wilfred was an alien, maybe Ryan was dead the whole time, and maybe Ryan was a figment of Wilfred's imagination. But the answer was always right in front of us. Ryan is psychotic, and after attempting suicide in the pilot, he started seeing Wilfred as a person, the manifestation of repressed parts of himself. It was all in his head, basically, a series-long, less violent version of Fight Club.

The show played coy in the past, hinting several times that Wilfred was a supernatural being, maybe a demon or, throughout this past season, a god. But the writers more or less gave up the secret in the season two premiere, when Ryan tells Wilfred that it's messed up that he spent several months pretending Wilfred was a person, and the dog responds like a lovesick actor trying too hard to sell a romcom. "Without you I have no purpose. I'm nothing. It's like I don�t even exist."

It's become fashionable in recent years for series finales to shoot for big, defining statements, with results ranging from divisive to, well, divisive. "Resistance" and "Happiness," the final two episodes of Wilfred, won't satisfy those who were hoping for a truly crazy ending, but for the most part they succeeded in recontextualizing and clarifying what the show was about from the start: a guy coming to terms with himself and his messed-up family history by grappling with a pretty serious history of mental illness. It took almost 50 episodes, but Ryan is finally comfortable just hanging out inside his own head at the beach, the answer was that the answer didn't matter. It's crazy that the ending feels warm and fuzzy and safe.

OK, the emphasis on the bromance between Ryan and Wilfred (or, rather, Ryan and himself) is all kinds of disturbing if you think through the full implications of everything Ryan's done over the course of the series. Late-night surprise cunnilingus, committing several crimes and then framing a kid for said crimes, kidnapping a bunch of cats. These facts are mostly papered over, with the exception of the nauseating Fight Club-style reveal of Ryan giving a panting, clueless dog the finger, smoking and laughing hysterically alone in the closet, and holding his own head in a toilet. This is what we've been watching the entire time.

It's the right kind of disturbing, forcing a confrontation the silly dog humor and what it stemmed from. The wrong kind of cornball ending would have found Ryan cured and happy with Wilfred's owner, Jenna (Fiona Gublemann), who he correctly acknowledges has mostly been another fantasy. If there's been a central question for Wilfred to answer, it's not "What is Wilfred?," but �How can Ryan be happy?" And "Resistance" proves once and for all that attaining Jenna wouldn't, couldn't make him happy, just try to imagine decades-older versions of those characters showing up on Married. Ryan ending up with her, as Wilfred wanted, would have been narratively conventional but much sadder, closer to the vomit-inducing ending of Silver Linings Playbook, which posits that true love somehow alleviates serious mental health conditions. Relationships can provide emotional support, but they also create a whole new sort of work. Suggesting otherwise puts an enormous burden on both victims and their partners.

The many links to the pilot, from Ryan's suicide note (he's even wearing the same clothes) to the tennis ball, strengthen the notion that Ryan's ultimate rejection of Jenna is the most important action he takes over the course of the series. In a great showcase for the normally restrained Wood, he tells her "you want to run back to Wisconsin and play it safe, instead of taking a risk and maybe finding real happiness." Ryan is sorry for Jenna for being normal. His life with Wilfred is insane, but as he says in his moment of despair, it isn't boring. Instead, Wilfred's "happy ending" is, essentially, Ryan coming to terms with the fact that he's batshit crazy, that his best friend is a hallucination of an Australian dude in a dog suit, and that's just fine. That's why the best moment of the finale isn't the exposition dump about Ryan's mom' history with the dog-worshipping Flock of the Grey Shepherd or Ryan's confrontation with his zonked-out real father and former cult leader (Tobin Bell). It's Wilfred helping Ryan remember who he loaned his Roman Polanski box set to (Jamie Fowler!).

Wilfred casually reveals itself as a series filmed almost entirely from the subjective point of view of a person suffering from a serious mental illness in a tragic context. "Happiness" has the misfortune of airing the same week as the suicide of Robin Williams, who guest starred as a dream version of himself who is also a doctor in a mental hospital of Ryan's creation. Williams has received countless eulogies all better written and more heartfelt than I could hope to achieve. But his shadow, and loss to depression, looms large over the end of this series. Is Wilfred really so great of an investigation of mental health when it's easy to construe its final lesson as be comfortable with your own illness and don't seek professional help?

I'm genuinely unsure about the final message of Wilfred. It's maybe not quite as happy of an ending as the show wants you to think as much as everything was really about Ryan, the dog does die (the shot of Ryan holding the tennis ball, confronted with Wilfred's real body is heartbreaking), and the show's status as a longform examination of getting stoned and hanging out with the voices in your head is, to say the least, complicated. Ryan's mother, his sister Kristin, and Ryan himself all seem to be happy, but for how long? Is Ryan going to try to piece through all of the horrible stuff he did? Will he ever be able to be in a healthy relationship? (A question the show seemingly answered "no" with Allison Mack's Amanda in season two.) Is Wilfred's goofy stoner-philosophy veneer really a good attitude to lean on in the face of the insanity of the rest of the world? It might depend on whether or not you see the finale as Ryan finally working through his issues, with a little help from himself, or as a deus ex machina absolving him of all responsibility. But, as with the rest of the show, that's probably a matter of perspective. Or, as the show asks, "What would make you happy?"

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