Wilfred: Anger

“Anger as soon as fed is dead—tis starving makes it fat.” —Emily Dickinson

Or as Wilfred so eloquently puts it: “Anger is like herpes: you’re not meant to keep it to yourself.”

After accepting a $5000 loan from his sister Kristen in order to bail him out of his car accident fiasco during last week’s episode, Ryan’s debt with his sister allows her to be more domineering than ever.  “Anger,” as the title would suggest, heavily surrounds Ryan’s increasing frustration with his sister’s despotic manipulation of his financial obligation, her perpetual derision of his inadequacies despite his servile compliance with her every demand.  But the episode equally concerns itself with themes of guilt as Ryan struggles with his plaguing sense of responsibility for the death of his childhood terrier, Sneakers, who drowned in the pool when the gate was left open.  Thus when the spirit of Sneakers possess Wilfred and tells Ryan that Kristen was the one responsible for leaving the gate open and not he, as his sister had led him to believe all these years, this only augments Ryan’s reason for indignation.

Though not as consistently vulgar as previous episodes, “Anger” proved generally entertaining nonetheless, and most notably features Jason Gann’s best performance yet as he deftly transitions between the distinct personalities of Wilfred and Sneakers—I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge Gann’s hilariously convincing personification of Sneakers as a fun-loving pup with a homicidal vengeance toward Kristen to be one of his most memorable moments throughout the series.

And although he doesn’t make much of an impression otherwise, Kristen’s husband, Leo (J.P. Manoux), offers the second best line of the night (with Wilfred’s herpes line clearly taking the cake) at Kristen’s party.  Dr. Ramos (Nestor Carbonell), Kristen’s boss (and the head OB/GYN at their hospital) describes one particular birthing experience to Kristen and Leo: 

“I looked in the babies eyes, and I said, ‘You live.  Now.’  And at that exact moment, the baby stared right back at me with these big brown eyes as if to say, ‘thank you,’ and it took its first breath.”

Kristen gasps in reverence.

Leo:  “Let me get this straight.  An obstetrician delivered a baby without killing it?”

Wilfred has always been at its best during these moments of biting sarcasm where characters are called out for their self-satisfaction, and I hope to see more of this in future episodes.

Beyond its inherent comedic value, the episode seemed to divulge slightly more into the psychological component of the series than in previous episodes.  For starters, we now know that Ryan’s childhood dog was a central figure in his life, thus partially explaining why Ryan’s subconscious would manifest itself as a canine.  And at the same time, I find myself once again wondering how much action Wilfred is truly responsible for—how can a dog break a car window and write “Kristen” on a window with lipstick?— and how much is merely a figment of Ryan’s imagination, or perhaps Ryan himself acting out on Wilfred’s behalf a la Tyler Durden in Fight Club.

Next week features a double-header that promises to feature a visit to Ryan’s mother in the psychiatric hospital, once again revealing another piece of the puzzle in what led Ryan to be what he is today.  I’ve been arguing for awhile that the writers should consider infusing more serial style narrative across each episode, and with a seemingly big turning point lingering ahead for next week’s back-to-back Wilfred, it looks like the show is about to do exactly that.