In episode three of the quirky comedy Wilfred, under-dog Ryan deals with his fear. We also get to see the result of Wilfred’s instigations from the pilot episode, especially concerning Ryan’s wallet, which he planted at the scene of a crime.
In case you don’t know the general lay-out of the show, Ryan (Elijah Wood) is an unhappy man who has a problem standing up for himself. After he tries to kill himself one night, his perceptions change. Or maybe he’s just insane. Whichever it is, Ryan doesn’t see the neighbor’s pet as a dog, but as a grown man wearing a dog suit. Wilfred (Jason Gann) helps him out with some of his existential issues while generally being an obnoxious pain.
Ryan and Wilfred are smoking pot (as usual) in Ryan’s basement, and Ryan is highly agitated. He’s afraid of his crazy, motorcycle-wearing neighbor, especially since Wilfred convinced him to break in to his house in the pilot episode and steal his weed plants.
Now Ryan feels sure that his sociopathic neighbor Spencer knows that he was the one who broke in and stole his weed, and pooped in his shoes (that too was Wilfred’s idea). And it turns out Spencer does know, thanks to Wilfred going back to the scene of the crime the night it happened and dropping Ryan’s wallet beneath the window.
While out on a walk in the next scene, Ryan gives Wilfred a gift. It turns out to be a giant Kobe beef femur, which Wilfred is disgusted by. He feels like giving a bone as a gift to a dog is racist, “like giving a basketball to a black guy.” Ryan explains he only did it as a symbol of friendship, and Wilfred suggests he give him a new bong next time, or they smoke some weed together. He also talks about the asshole neighbor Spencer, and how Ryan needs to do something about him (and it includes domination, doggy style).
When Ryan’s fear grows and he starts acting paranoid about his neighbor, Wilfred tells Ryan what he did, in his usual unapologetic style. Just a statement of fact. When Ryan begins to go ballistic, Wilfred tells him that he did it so Ryan could finally get Spencer out of his life by confronting him and telling him off.
Of course, when the dangerously unhinged Spencer comes banging at the door, Ryan lies about his wallet, and before he knows it Spencer wants to come over and watch porn and be his new best friend.
Hoping to run away from his problems instead of confronting them, Ryan continues to lie to Spencer and tries to get him out of his life by reuniting him with an estranged buddy. But things look worse and worse after he gets them back together, and they both end up on his couch expecting Ryan to be part of their gang.
Ryan finally gets to the moment where he can’t take anymore, and he tells Spencer exactly what happened, including the part where he took a shit in his boot. Spencer then starts to beat him up, but Wilfred comes to his rescue and knocks Spencer out with the Kobe bone Ryan gave him earlier. After reveling in the moment, and realizing he just survived his first fight, Ryan tells off Spencer’s crazy friend (repeating some choice words that Wilfred is feeding him), and warns him never to come back.
Things seem to end well, but at the very end we see Wilfred planting another piece of evidence in Ryan’s garbage that would indicate him in a local defacing crime. This, no doubt, will leverage more learning and growing by Ryan in the next episode (though he may have to go through some very uncomfortable moments to get there).