Wilfred Review: Long Strange Trip
In the famous words of Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa: "They can't all be winners, can they?"
Wilfred Season 2 has been interesting. It has been thought provoking. It's been down right hilarious. "Questions" bucked the trend and came up flat.
Sure, the half hour had its funny moments, but they were few and far between in comparison to gems like last week's "Honesty" or anything from the beginning of the season.
Wilfred's "we understand each other" in thinking Ryan wanted him to kill Kristen's baby, or the way he subtly used those chopsticks to gracefully eat the vomit off of Ryan's shirt, were more of the exception to rule. The majority of "Questions" was too wrapped up in Ryan's trip to take time to be funny.
The trip easily could have gone somewhere intriguing... but it never really did. We ended with Ryan realizing he was sad, and it may have been because of Amanda. It may have been a culmination of a lot of things. At the end of the day, though, his big realization was that simply that he was sad. It was a bit disappointing.
I know we will never find out what the deal is with Wilfred until the end of the series, but when they started bringing it up during the trip it was too much of a tease. If you're going to throw out that bait, you have to let us pull on the string a bit. Jerk us around, and maybe give us a couple of hints, before pulling the plug and making the whole thing be about Ryan's sadness.
The episode was shot beautifully, and the trip within a trip thing was tremendously done, but that's not good enough for this season of Wilfred. With the bar that has been set this summer, every installment needs to be intriguing, weird, laugh-out-loud funny, and charming to keep pace with what came before it. Unfortunately, "Questions" wasn't.
A couple other notes:
- Joffrey for the baby name? Apparently Kristen hasn't seen Game of Thrones.
- I loved Wilfred making fun of the spirit guide for his voice cracking.
- Kristen and Jenna making out. Hot or weird?
What did you all think of tonight's episode? Did it do more for you than it did for me? What was the funniest moment? Check out all the best lines in our Wilfred quotes section and sound off in the comments!
Dan Forcella is a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow him on Twitter.
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September 3rd, 2012 10:42 AM
I completely disagree with Dan's review. I thought this episode delivered and then some more. My favorite part was simple but oh so funny red bull comment - absolutely hilarious.
September 1st, 2012 4:15 PM
they did answer the question. watch it again it hints pretty directly that wilfred is his spirit guide...lol how didnt anyone catch this????
August 31st, 2012 10:40 AM
This episode was awesome, so trippy! We finally have an understanding of why Ryan is so flat lined. Just as we are about to find out who Wilfred is, wham, his answer gets sequestered, once again! What a teaser (otherwise it would have been the final episode). I think it's better to watch the undercurrent of what drives Ryan first, then find out who Wilfy is, friend or foe, alter ego or imposter! The photographer as gate keeper of Ryan's memories was extremely creative. It was shot and directed beautifully.
Red bull, I mean Red Wolf was not only funny, but shows that the writers aren't Just comedy writers, but have a deeper, truer understanding of "the bigger picture". I geuss that's what makes Wilfred not just a funny show, but an existential one at the same time! What a feat!
Now I'm looking forward to next week's episode.
August 31st, 2012 9:11 AM
By far the best one yet...and they've all been great.
This one really gave us a lot more as to what makes Ryan tick...and
why he has the problems he has...That scene on the bed with his sister
trying to quiet him, said it all. I felt I was watching an A movie, instead
of a free tv show. The wild scene where Wilfred was tearing out his hair, and
then tore off Teddy's arm was laugh out loud funny. Not the easiest task to
make the audience laugh, and then get into some heavy duty emotional stuff,
but the writers pulled it off beautifully....Kudos to the writers!
More...more....more!!!!
August 31st, 2012 4:18 AM
This was definitely my favorite episode of the season.
I didn't feel like the 'big realization' was a disappointment. What I took away from the flashback was that Kristen was telling him to bottle his emotions up because if he didn't, his parents would have cause to fight more. She was telling him that it's not okay to express his emotions. This stuck with Ryan, and he finally realized where his trouble with expressing emotions comes from, which most likely contributed to his depression and "sadness."
As for the What is Wilfred teasers, I enjoy them. Even when there isn't much of an answer given, hearing the questions always piques my interest, because they're the same ones we're all asking ourselves. It's one of the funnest parts of the show, along with seeing dog traits being played out in human form.
August 31st, 2012 1:58 AM
I agree! This episode was amazing! By far one of the most interesting episodes of the season. The thing about wilfred is that in every episode it shows you how a man's sanity starts to decay. At first ryan showed he wasn't okay in the head because he was depressed and wanted to kill himself. Right after we noticed this, we find out he sees a regular dog as a man with a dog costume. Episode after episode you start to see that ryan's sanity isn't getting any better as he starts to question his own reality. Episodes like "Truth"(season 2) start throwing major spoiler alerts that ryan has completely lost himself. They even go as far as to say that he doesn't even know if the basement is real or a part of his imagination. Tonights episode was one of those crazy, weird, mind-blowing episodes where they actually start showing things that help paint the bigger picture behind wilfred. The fact that ryan falls so easily into wilfred's tricks, show a bit more of he's fall. Also the fact that wilf
August 30th, 2012 11:54 PM
every installment needs to be intriguing, weird, laugh-out-loud funny, and charming to keep pace with what came before it.
Umm.. that's EXACTLY what it was! They didn't jerk us around with teases. Of course they can't let on who or what Wilfred is but we are a little closer to finding it out. The fact that Ryan admitted to himself what's at the heart of what has been bothering him is the start of finding it out.
Jenna and Kristen making out? Hot!