Wilfred – “Compassion” and “Isolation” Review

“You look like your father, minus the thin lips and the soulless eyes.” – Catherine

Wilfred is really in a groove right now. These two episodes that aired back to back were perfect encapsulations of the series as a whole. There was a really strong bond between Ryan and Wilfred that lead to some dark events but stayed light due to the way the show is written and filmed. There were also some really good guest stars mixed in.

Take the first episode, “Compassion” and think about what went on. We meet Ryan’s mother who happens to be insane (just like Ryan). Ryan shames her and denounces her, but he learns from Wilfred that needs to accept her. This all seems normal when sumarized, but some of the stuff Ryan’s mom was saying and some of things she was doing, made this episode anything but normal.

The first subtle brilliant cooky thing she did was paint a painting of her painting. Then she did a performance art in the front yard. I laughed when she introduced herself to Jenna. “Mrs. Newman is my slave name.” The dinner scene was great. “Don’t be so uptight, everybody masturbates, right Jenna?” And then when she couldn’t express her anger to Ryan in words, she just straight up shot him the bent over beaver. What a wonderfully bizarre character she was.

She just added to our ever evolving perception of Ryan. We already know how overbearing his sister is. I couldn’t help but laugh when his mom asked, “I am dying to catch up on the family gossip, is Kristen still into black guys?” With Kristen and Catherine growing up around him, it’s no wonder he’s a little off.

Him being a little off is the focus of the second episode of the night, “Isolation.” Basically Wilfred is trying to teach Ryan that he can’t be such a loner, that he needs to be part of the pack.

This episode was filled with a lot of Jenna and normally when she’s around, Ryan is trying to impress her. This time, he was more just being himself and trying to fix one of his problems. I think that works better for the show. We’ll need her to accept him for who he is rather than for who he thinks she wants him to be.

I was really happy we got to see Ryan begin to better himself. The show has the potential to stagnate if Ryan doesn’t actually DO anything. He’s tried to kill himself, he talks to a dog, he’s been ok with murder and now he joins in a dog and pissing on homeless person’s grave. (Peter Stormare is a great character and you should all love him  He really has a lot of room to grow and I think we need to see a slight progression.

Like, when does Ryan get a job? When do we get to meet Ryan’s dad? When does he make a move on Jenna? Will he ever start taking any medication? Will that make him stop seeing the dog? The show has a lot of places to go and we just started moving forward a little bit and I like that.

Also, that Fatty Arbuckle joke? DARK! I’ll just explain it really quick. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was a comedic silent film star who was accused of raping and killing a young starlet at a drunken hotel party. He was acquitted, but still, it was ballsy for Ryan to make a rape/murder joke to his new friends, albeit in a weird dream sequence.

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Tagged compassion, dog, isolation, Ryan, slider, wilfred