“You’ve lost your mind, it’s like you’ve got some kind of God Complex.” – Ryan
Last week I talked about the way Wilfred seems to be in a state of transition from week-to-week, trying different things out and working to establish an identity for the show. It seemed to me that Wilfred was moving in the direction of becoming more “sitcom-y” in recent weeks. Last night’s episode, “Respect”, changes course entirely and more closely resembles the darker episodes that began the season.
In the opening scene. Jenna (Fiona Gubleman) introduces Ryan (Elijah Wood) to a guy she recently profiled (I had completely forgotten that Jenna works as a television reporter), who traveled to Africa to help starving children. “Wow, you’re like the Great White Oprah, aren’t you?” Ryan says jealously. He starts to feel a bit bad about not doing anything worthwhile with his life, despite Wilfred’s (Jason Gann) attempts to cheer him up. “Don’t sell yourself short. How many people can watch a whole season of The Wire in one sitting? Not many, I’d wager. That shit is dense,” Wilfred says. To ease his guilt, Ryan decides it’s time for him and Wilfred to start giving back.
He drags Wilfred to the South Venice Hospice for a bit of community service. Of course Wilfred would rather hang out at home and do bong hits (“Community service? That’s for drunk drivers and wife beaters, not decent folk like us.”), but Ryan is insistent. At the hospice, Ryan meets Lisa (Rashida Jones), who runs the place and is immediately (and understandably) smitten. Ryan and Wilfred become quite popular after Wilfred passes out next to a patient who dies while the dog is asleep. Everyone assumes (wrongly) that Wilfred was able to sense that the patient was close to death and curled up next to her so she didn’t have to die alone. Well, everyone except for Ruby, a Haitian nurse who recognizes that Wilfred and Ryan are probably up to no good. Lisa assures Ryan not to worry about Ruby, “She’s been a total bitch since the earthquake took her family.”
This earthquake line is pretty indicative of the kind of jokes in the episode: pretty harsh and not all that funny. “Respect,” in my opinion, is the least funny of the episodes I’ve seen thus far. That isn’t to say that there weren’t a couple of knee slappers. There were, but they were just few and far between.
Ryan takes advantage of Wilfred’s new found gift. Lisa calls what the dog did “a beautiful thing” and Ryan responds with a barftastic pick-up line. “Well, compassion was the first trick I taught him.” Yuuuck. Not ready to give up impressing a lovely lady, Ryan drags Wilfred back to the hospice the next day. But, this time he struggles to usher any old folks into the afterlife. Ryan promises Wilfred that he will let him do whatever he wants (which mainly consists of eating cheese and stealing prescription drugs) if he can summon yesterday’s magic. Ryan begins to doubt his dog’s gift. “Tell the truth, Wilfred. This is all just a scam isn’t it?”
Ryan waits and waits, but still no one dies. Finally, he gets fed up and threatens to take Wilfred home. Wilfred, who initially balked at the idea of going to the hospice, doesn’t want to leave now that he has easy access to pharmaceuticals. When Ryan walks into one of the patient’s rooms, he discovers that the woman has finally passed, however he suspects Wilfred might have done a bit more than hold her hand as she walked through the pearly gates.
The episode gets weirder and weirder, not to mention more dramatic as it progresses. The tone of “Respect” seems to mirror Wilfred’s mental state — the more f-ed up on pills he gets, the more out of control the episode spirals. The climax occurs when the suspicious Haitian nurse accuses our heroes of stealing drugs. Wilfred says he will take care of her, and a few seconds later she plummets from the roof to the pavement to her death. Ryan sprints up to the roof and finds Wilfred standing near the edge. They have a dramatic and rain-soaked confrontation. “You’ve lost your mind, its like you’ve got some kind of God Complex!” Ryan screams. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Ryan. I haven’t got a God Complex. I am God!” Wilfred responds, as lightning crashes around them, as if on cue.
When they make their way downstairs, Ryan prepares to make a confession on Wilfred’s behalf. Before he can speak up, Lisa discovers a suicide note left by the nurse. Shocked, Ryan asks, “Are you sure it’s human handwriting?” And, of course, no one knows what the hell he means by that, so they ignore his outburst. He is forced to accept the fact that Wilfred is most likely not a murderer and he also learns a valuable lesson about himself. “I don’t care what other people think, the only thing that matters is how I feel about myself,” he says. His attempts to impress Jenna through community service are over and he and Wilfred retire to the couch for some pizza and weed.
Having spent a good deal of time thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t just the show that seems to change styles/genres/tones each week. The Wilfred character himself seems to be in a constant state of flux. It’s as if the writers have yet to figure out just what kind of personality they want him to have. Ryan is more or less constant — well, perhaps not constant, but his metamorphosis from depressed loner to self-confident stoner is more or less steady. Wilfred, on the other hand, is more of a wild card. One week he will be a (mostly) harmless nuisance, the next week he’ll be a super conniving shit-starter, and the week after he will have morphed into a full-blown homicidal maniac. It’s hard to tell whether or not this inconsistency is intentional. What does everyone else think? Are the writers just trying out different things to see what works best or will Wilfred’s constantly shifting personalities be a permanent characteristic of the show?
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.