Review: Wilfred ‘Suspicion’/’Sincerity’ – Garbage Is The Shit

Wilfred‘s second two-pack of episodes to open season three take a very similar approach to the first – drawing obvious parallels between Ryan and Wilfred – to tell a pair of stories involving Ryan’s sister and a ghost from his past. Like the opening episodes of the season, Ryan’s coming face to face with the unknown and thanks to the always-stressful presence of Wilfred, causes him to make some bad decisions. However, a lot of the material just retreads things Ryan’s already faced, teasing us again with the real core of Ryan’s emotional issues, but again avoiding opportunities to dive into deeper waters.

Of the two, ‘Suspicion’ is definitely the weaker episode – and of the four episodes this season, probably the worst. The problem is simple: ‘Suspicion’ spends too much time indulging in silly Wilfred dialogue (mostly involving Bear and him breaking up, and Bear “getting involved” with Kristen’s baby Geoffrey), and then has to spend the last few minutes explaining itself, not having made its parallels clear enough throughout the episode. They almost find their grounding when they do: but it feels like a rushed conclusion, bringing together something pointless (Wilfred’s “dilemma” with Bear) with something meaningful (Ryan’s suspicious nature, and the effects of that) for no reason except to show us that Ryan is resisting growth and maturity, hung up on his predisposed paranoia despite the lessons he’s learned from the Kristen situation.

And it’s really not that funny: the investigation of Kristen’s date never gets interesting, hampered by lots and lots of Wilfred jokes that don’t really land, moving away from the traditional dog-related humor for one-sided arguments with Wilfred yelling at Bear – and ultimately, attempting to kill Bear, a really unfunny joke about spousal abuse that nearly undermines the point the scene is building to. That’s not to say it’s all terrible – it’s just too much, too many random Wilfred riffs that carry on and on, without anything to keep it tethered to what’s important about the episode.

‘Sincerity’ works quite a bit better – though again, it comes to a bit of an abrupt ending without really bringing its point home effectively. Again, the episode is about the parallels it draws between Wilfred and Ryan, as Ryan tries to woo a former high school crush by lying to her a ton, and Wilfred tries to show off to the obedience class by being the rebel, something none of the other dogs in the class are trying to pay attention to. Though they appear to be playing two different high school archetype roles, they’re playing two sides of the same coin, that kid who can’t express his true self, and hides it behind an attention-grabbing facade that nobody is attracted to.

Of course, at the heart of this is honesty: until Ryan is honest with himself, he’ll never be comfortable being honest to the people in the world around him. Remember when Wilfred told Ryan to “keep digging”? The reason he fails in ‘Sincerity’ is because he still isn’t digging deep enough: he focuses on the superficial (thinking that being a dog person will impress her) instead of being honest with himself about still being uncomfortable about who he is. Of course, getting reminders that he was a little ‘off’ in high school (at least, that’s how others perceived him) doesn’t inspire any confidence from him – and predictably, him and Kim turn out they aren’t meant to be.

The one thing underselling the point of the episode is Kim’s character: they make her such a “dog weirdo” (defined by the two at the opening of the episode), she never comes out of the one-dimensional box she’s characterized in. She dresses up her dog, talks to it (and for it, weirdly), and generally focuses her life around her dog. Most of that would be fine, if not for the judging eye the camera takes when she’s expressing her love for her dog: it screams “look how batshit crazy this girl is!”, which kind of undermines her presence as a lesson to Ryan. At the end of the day, Kim was a honest, sincere person: but in the end, Ryan’s presented to us as the more stable, redeemable character.

In a nutshell, I have no problem with Ryan repeating the mistakes of his past: but if he’s going to do so without any sign of growth, than how are we supposed to believe he’ll ever get better? Einstein said insanity is repeating something over and over and expecting different results: in other words, Ryan is still as insane and unstable as he was when we first met him. There has to be consequences for that, consequences that go beyond absolving Ryan of anything involving Amanda because she was crazy: and if that’s the path season three is taking, it needs to be a little more convincing (and honestly, dark) when it comes what comes around for Ryan and his inability to grow.

‘Suspicion’: C

‘Sincerity’: B

Other thoughts/observations:

– lots of weird cinematography: super-focused on Ryan and Wilfred in the center of the frame, blurring everything in the background. Nothing new of course, but the amount that is used in the two episodes suggest that Ryan’s really teetering on the edge.

– Yelp mentions two episodes in a row, in case you missed them. Don’t remember if they were in the first two or not.

– Wilfred gets bullied on social networks in the tamest observation about internet bullying ever.

– Three horrible phrases Kim said that I’ve heard in real life (and cringed when I did): “Adorbs”, “Hilars”, and “cutesplosion.”

– multiple mentions of Ryan being “detached” (or similar phrases) in both episodes: something to note, along with the shooting techniques mentioned above.