“Trust thyself, and only another shall betray thee.” – William Penn
On some level, I almost wish I hadn’t seen the original Australian version of Wilfred. I find myself constantly comparing the FX version to its Aussie predecessor, which makes it difficult to objectively judge the new show on its own merits. It would be appropriate to do an in-depth comparison if the U.S. Wilfred were a straight-up remake of the original, but it isn’t. The shows are very different tonally, thematically, and even story-wise, so it isn’t really fair to use one rubric to judge the quality of the other.
And yet, I can’t seem to help myself. Maybe if I get my thoughts out right here, right now, when I’m done I’ll be able to review/recap the second episode, “Trust”, without distraction. Let’s give it a shot:
It seems to me that the Aussie version is much more straight-forward, cut and dry, than the American version. (Or at least as straight-forward as any show about a dog who looks like a man dressed in a dog suit can be). The dynamics and motivations are easier to understand. For those of you who haven’t seen the original, the Ryan character (played by Elijah Wood in the FX show) is called Adam. Adam (Adam Zwar) has a new girlfriend, Sarah (Cindy Waddingham). Adam is crazy about Sarah — she’s super hot (way out of his league), very cool and down to earth (she curses like a sailor, drinks beer, acts like “one of the guys”) and, most importantly, she’s wild in the sack.
The only problem is Sarah’s dog, Wilfred (Jason Gann in both the original and the US version). Wilfred is extremely jealous of anyone he sees as a threat to his relationship with Sarah-he doesn’t want to share her. Wilfred thinks that if Sarah has a guy in her life she won’t have time for him anymore. So he tries to sabotage Adam’s relationship with her. More than that, really: he basically tries to destroy Adam’s life. But Adam realizes that his chances of hooking up with a girl like Sarah are pretty slim, so he toughs it out and puts up with Wilfred’s attacks.
The FX Wilfred is a bit more ambiguous. First, we’re not really sure if Wilfred even exists beyond Ryan’s mind. In the Aussie show it’s made pretty clear that Wilfred does exist and that he’s just a regular dog that Adam happens to visualize as a man in a dog suit. Adam is kind of a schlub, but he’s well adjusted mentally and there is no reason to suspect the hallucinations are caused by psychosis or schizophrenia. With Ryan, we’re not sure. He’s obviously depressed and quite possibly suffering from some kind of mental illness. Secondly, I’m not really sure about the character’s motivations. I think I understand why Ryan is drawn to Wilfred: loneliness-he doesn’t seem to have any other friends.
But why does Jenna (Fiona Gubleman) want to have anything to do with Ryan? As we find out in “Trust”, she already has a boyfriend. Wilfred’s motivations are the most difficult to get a handle on. In the original, you understand immediately why Wilfred is such a jerk to Adam: he doesn’t want him anywhere near his girl. In the FX version, Wilfred vacillates between helping Ryan overcome his fears/self-esteem issues and doing things to totally screw him over. It seems to me that Wilfred should be doing all he can to help Ryan win Jenna’s heart, given the fact that Wilfred thinks Jenna’s boyfriend, Drew (Chris Klein), is a “dick.”
The FX Wilfred feels like a very well thought-out show, so I’m sure that as the first season rolls along these questions about motivation and the like will be answered in a satisfying way. I trust that in the long run viewers will be rewarded by this increased complexity. In the short run, however, it’s hard not to compare the two shows, and thus far, I must say that the Aussie version does a better job of grabbing the viewer, appealing to us on a visceral level, and incorporating us into Wilfred’s world.
The crux of the second episode, “Trust”, is a trip the vet. After a day of bonding for Wilfred and Ryan at the beach, Jenna talks Ryan into taking Wilfred to get his teeth cleaned under the guise that they would be going to the theater to see a Matt Damon (Wilfred’s favorite actor) flick. Ryan is hesitant to lie to his new friend, knowing that the dog will inevitably discover the betrayal and lose all trust in his human buddy.
Wilfred gets payback for the ruse, though. Just before he passes out from anesthesia, he whispers to Ryan, “Jenna has a dick…” Gullible Ryan takes the phrase at face value and spends the rest of the day convinced that his neighbor is a tranny or a hermaphrodite. This leads to a few awkward exchanges as Ryan tries to pump Jenna for information while not revealing his real concerns about her nether-regions.
Ultimately, Ryan’s probing behavior freaks Jenna out and she bails on their first sort-of-date. When Ryan works up the nerve to knock on her door with a bouquet of flowers and a heart-felt apology, he learns that Jenna already has a boyfriend. At the vet, Wilfred went under before finishing his sentence. Jenna doesn’t have a “dick”, she has a “dick for a boyfriend.”
As the title suggests, “Trust” is a major theme of the episode. To dogs, as well as humans, trust goes hand in hand with loyalty. Wilfred brings up an interesting philosophical question, one that I’m sure will be returned to throughout the series, when he suggests that Ryan – as a human and therefor genetically inferior to canines – is “simply not capable of my kind of loyalty its deep, its profound.” How will this interspecies couple deal with their inherent differences? Are dogs really more loyal than humans?
“Trust” isn’t always deep and philosophical, I apologize if I’ve given the impression that Wilfred is a serious, thinking-man’s show. There are bunch of funny gags in the episode. We get a scene of Wilfred – and then Ryan – taking dumps in a pair of boots. Wilfred is very impressed by Ryan’s “coiler”. Ryan tells Wilfred about his most recent girlfriend. His story about their break-up is great: let’s just say it involves an act that Wilfred describes as “knuckle busting”. We meet two new characters (bringing us up to a total of six, which is three more characters than the original show had): Drew the boyfriend and Spencer the pot-growing, biker neighbor (Ethan Suplee).
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.