Wilfred Review: On the Road Again

at .

The last time we saw Catherine Newman, when we first met her just under a month ago in season one's "Compassion," her situation brought even more intrigue to Ryan's condition. She may have provided some some answers, but she also forced us to ask even more questions about what on earth was going on in Wilfred.

"Service" didn't really evoke those types of thoughts. Instead, it was just another well-written, hilariously performed half hour of television. Or in other words, it was what we have come to expect from Wilfred Season 2.

Wilfred's Road Trip

Like many installments this season, the beginning felt very different from the rest of the episode - setting the scene for what is to come - but like most that have come before it, the opening to "Service" was absolutely hilarious.

It started with Rob Riggle's perfectly timed "Are you down with OPP?" Seriously, that shouldn't have been funny. The phrase has been used time and time again, and probably hasn't been humorous since the new millennium, but there is something about Riggle's subtlety and apathetic attitude that made this work completely.

The joys continued with Wilfred acting like a working member of the office. Apparently a dog's memory lasts about as long as its guilt, because it wasn't too long ago that Wilfred hated all of these office dwellers for ceasing to laugh at his stand up routine.

Between him asking one guy if he saw The Bachelorette the night before, explaining that he "cannot afford to lose this job right now," and his exuberance after the incident of him and Ryan being "two single boys with no jobs and nothing to do," Work Wilfred was wonderful to watch.

Speaking of the incident, it is sad to see Steven Weber go. He was fun in this role, and his speech to the workplace was truly inspiring. It was so inspiring that hearing (and seeing the blood of) his blow to the head definitely elicited a gasp from me...and a laugh.

I felt bad about laughing at the character's death until the show decided to make a joke about Wilfred eating part of Jeremy's brains. If they can do that, I can certainly laugh at the death itself.

They made a couple of call backs to the Wilfred-eating-terrible-things joke, and while the second one was a nice add-on, the third didn't work for me. When you do three similar jokes in an episode, the third one has to be more extravagant than the first two. Maybe I'm wrong, but I felt underwhelmed by the placenta after hearing about the brains and Mittens's corpse.

The rest of the episode was good, but it never lived up to the genius of the beginning moments. Mary Steenburgen was great as the absolutely nuts Catherine, and Wilfred missing out on his regularly scheduled towel whippings and garbage truck chasings was funny, but the highlights of the back half of the episode was yet another perfectly executed dog/man moment.

These events, when Wilfred does something very dog-like and then something very man-like, are easily some of my favorite moments of the series. When Ryan started shaking his keys and Wilfred couldn't resist but to jump in the car, it was great to see Wilfy as a true doggy. His need to immediately call out shotgun made the moment that much better because it was a perfect combination of dog and man.

"Service" wasn't my absolute favorite of the season, but it certainly didn't take a step backwards in this glorious second season of Wilfred. What did you all think of the episode? What was the funniest moment? How crazy is Catherine? And how much will you miss Steven Weber's Jeremy?

Service Review

Editor Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
  • 4.5 / 5.0
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
User Rating:

Rating: 4.3 / 5.0 (6 Votes)

Dan Forcella is a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow him on Twitter.

Show Comments
Tags: ,

Wilfred Season 2 Episode 9 Quotes

I don't want to cast a darker shadow on an already tragic day, but I think someone may have eaten part of Jeremy's brains.

Wilfred

Did you see The Bachelorette last night? Brutal.

Wilfred