“That motorcycle dick is ruining the neighborhood.” – Wilfred
“Fear,” the third episode of Wilfred’s inaugural season, acts as a second pilot in some ways. It’s relatively common for shows early on to use an episode to reintroduce the premise and the characters for the purpose of welcoming new viewers who may have missed the pilot.
The thing about “Fear” that makes it unique is that it’s actually a significantly better episode than the pilot. In “Happiness”, Wilfred’s real pilot, we meet some of the show’s main players: Ryan (Elijah Wood), Wilfred (Jason Gann), Jenna (Fiona Gubbleman), and Ryan’s annoying sister, Kristen (Dorian Brown). Wilfred and Ryan are awesome, clearly, but Jenna and Ryan’s sister didn’t do it for me. Luckily, in “Fear” Jenna and the sister are replaced with two much more bad-ass characters: Spencer (Ethan Suplee) and Jesse.
Spencer is Ryan’s pot-growing, biker neighbor and Jesse is Spencer’s ex-best friend who works for Animal Control. During the first two episodes, we only get brief glimpses of Spencer as he screams around the neighborhood on his Harley. His proper introduction comes in “Fear”, and, boy, what an introduction it is.
Spencer finds Ryan’s wallet — which Wilfred planted after the break-in, in his yard and confronts Ryan, accusing him of stealing his pot plants. Thinking quickly (especially for a guy who has been smoking a ton of weed recently), Ryan convinces Spencer that he too was a victim of a break-in, and the robber must have stolen his wallet and dropped it in Spencer’s yard. Spencer, not the brightest guy in the world, buys the story and decides that he and Ryan are now BFFs. NP Spencer comes back to Ryan’s place later in the day with some DVDs, ready to “porn out” all night. When Ryan tires of all the porn, Spencer drags him to a strip joint. Spencer is the type of guy that brings a laser pointer to the club in order to point out “weird breasts” from across the bar. Either he’s a huge Howard Stern fan or a top notch a-hole.
The laser pointer finds a secondary use when Ryan discovers that Wilfred, being a dog and all, cannot help himself from chasing the red laser dot around. The laser pointer torture sends Wilfred into a fit of rage and he lashes out on a passer-by. Animal Control is called to come put Wilfred down and we are introduced to Spencer’s former friend Jesse. The pair had a falling out because Jesse banged Spencer’s hooker girlfriend. “You know damn well she didn’t work on Saturdays. You banged her on Shavis, man!” Walter Sobchak would not approve. After a touching speech from Ryan, the two make up and Jesse agrees to spare Wilfred from being put down.
The episode ends when Ryan, finally fed up with Spencer’s boorishness, calls him an “a**hole” and admits to perpetrating the break in. Spencer, predictably, cold cocks Ryan, knocking him out. Luckily, Wilfred is there to back Ryan up and he bonks Spencer over the head with a large dog bone. ‘Cause, hey, what are friends for?
“Fear” has the feel of one of those episodes that occur early on in a good television series, the kind of episode that solidifies a show into being really “quality TV.” I’m still not sure that Wilfred is going to work long-term, but “Fear” convinced me that the folks behind the show are competent enough and have enough ideas to give us at least one really great season.
More thoughts on “Fear”:
* “Buy me a new bong. Or better yet a vaporizor. Buying a dog a bone is giving a black guy a basketball.” – Wilfred
* “That motorcycle dick is ruining the neighborhood.” – Wilfred
* “Sometimes when I look at you I see a giant tampon string hanging out from inside of you.” – Wilfred
* “This is how you get when you have a transexual stripper for a father.” – Spencer
* “I have a government job. All I do is wach porn” – Jesse
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.