The whole show is just Frodo having one hell of a trip in the privacy of his home.
All that stuff during the events of the Lord of the Rings obviously messed the dude up, so to help himself relax Frodo goes and buys (or someone gives it to him) some "special" pipeweed or mushrooms. He's had way too much and its a certain day where no one is going to bother him. When it all ends our dear hobbit will wake up from his stupor, totally zen, and go have himself a cup of tea and maybe write everything down for a different book idea. lol
Wilfred is a Demon or an Ancient Pagan God or Some Such Thing.
- I mean, I may have watched too many horror movies, read too many creepy pasta and all that jazz. But that is literally the one thing they haven't teased in the show. Also the symbol is soooo obscure they can't find anything on it? Plus when Ryan finds the *spoiler* Wilfred-like statue *spoiler* it was in this old abandoned area, somewhat creepy looking, and had the symbol upon it's chest.
My guess is for whatever reason, Joyce making a deal to "Help Ryan stay free"- she does have Mittens, after all, another deal?-, something to do with Kristen since she drew the picture, or maybe himself made a deal-to help Kristen?- by covering the symbol (Wilfred's symbol) with his own hand, Wilfred or the spirit within the dog named Wilfred has grown attached-is attracted to Ryan.
Or maybe "Wilfred" and Ryan were pals, close, or whatever in a past life and through the power of the symbol set it up so they could be bros in the next in whatever way possible.
Either way, I don't think Wilfred is lying when he says Ryan is his best friend.
This foil hat fits very well. haha
- Season Four brings up the possibility that Wilfred might either be Mattamon (a talking dog god that will lead a lucky individual to true happiness) or Krungle (a Trickster God that looks exactly like Mattamon, but leads his victims to utter ruination while pretending to be his good twin).
Wilfred is actually just a regular dog.
Okay now please here me out but I think the theory of Ryan having multiple personalities is on to something. After a life of stress and repressing his desires (and maybe along with the failed suicide attempt), Ryan finally snapped. He needed an outlet. Something to release all of the selfishness and etc pent up inside him. Thus, Wilfred became that outlet. Everyone else sees a regular dog, which is exactly what Wilfred is. Ryan sees the dog as a man that he can share things with along with doing things that he knows Ryan won't. The night of Ryan's suicide attempt, Wilfred was barking at Spencer's loud motorcycle. However, Ryan's now insane mind heard those barks as words he was thinking. In "Respect", it was not Wilfred who killed that old lady. It was Ryan. Ryan is the one doing all those drugs. It explains why he's so paranoid all the time. All this could explain why Wilfred can be presented as evil but still Ryan sees him as a friend. So "Wilfred" will sometimes encourage Ryan to just give into his darkest desires (in other words be a perverted, lazy prick) and goes as far as to sabotage Ryan's life just so Ryan could snaps completely and "Wilfred" can take over entirely. Some of the things aren't even things Ryan is suppressing, sometimes it's all just in his head. Like when Wilfred was playing the guitar in another room and no one other than Ryan could here him. Or when Ryan completely imagines the scenario in which Wilfred is being sexually abused by a dog-sitter.
Thoughts?
- Confirmed. Wilfred was a regular dog and the man in the dog suit that appears in front of Ryan was more of a Split Personality and the manifestation of his id.
Wilfred is a Pooka
Like
Harvey Wilfred is a pooka manipulating Ryan's perceptions. The show has a single name title, Ryan is the only that can see him, Wilfred is manipulative almost like a Trickster. He is screwing with Ryan's sanity and it would also explain why
no one notices his undoglike behavior.
Ryan has multiple personalities
Wilfred is just Ryan's inner voice that came out from the psychological stress of either his suicide attempt or its failure. He latched onto the idea of Wilfred either because it runs in his family (re: his mother) or, in light of his life, a way to manifest someone to help him get the girl and assert himself. Anyone else that can see Wilfred is most likely another facet of his personalities.
Ryan is in a coma (U.S. version)
The pills weren't sugar pills; they were real, and Ryan overdosed. Everything thereafter occurs within a comatose dream.
The reason that Ryan backpedaled into his old ways was that he was still bitter over last episode.
Not so much that he's seem what he can get when he throws his weight around, more that he has seen what happened when he doesn't get his way, like moving out to Italy with
Whatsherface. His conscience was holding him back from moving away, and once he's past that, he's out not so much for revenge, but for control. Control that was robbed from him throughout the season.
Wilfred is a guy in a dog suit
Ryan treats him like a dog because he thinks Wilfred is a dog, and is afraid everyone else will think he's crazy (due to his already-present fear of everyone thinking he's crazy.) Everyone else is just being polite and supportive of Ryan.
Wilfred is Ryan and Ryan is Wilfred.
That is, Ryan is kind of nuts. Wilfred is his true personality - that is, kind of a scheming jerkass - that he visualizes as a dog while Ryan is a dog that he visualizes as himself in order to feel like he's harmless. It's a sort of Fight Club-esque situation.
Wilfred is an ordinary dog, and Ryan is his hallucination.
As a dog, he has a limited understanding of the world, so he imagines a human persona to try and understand things that he doesn't understand, like when he is forced to participate in strange tasks such as the dog show or the wedding.
There will be an even bigger
Gainax Ending in the season 3 finale.
- Confirmed. Ryan finds a statue of Wilfred, but the episode ends without explanation.
Look closely in the episodes following "Intuition". You'll note that they're still on the table in the basement.
The writers have no clue how to end the series.
So instead of coming up with a good explanation that explains why Ryan sees Wilfred the way that he does, they just troll viewers with season finales that only raise more questions.
- Jossed. The series finale actually wraps up all the mysteries rather nicely.
Lower your expectations.
Wilfred really sees and hears Bear and other inanimate objects as persons in a similar way Ryan sees and hears Wilfred as a person.
- In the episode Forward, this is actually confirmed. I was honestly surprised.
The final episode will also tie together the original Australian show with the U.S series.
Wilfred, the man in the dog suit not the actual dog, is a
Tulpa.
Ever since his initial suicide attempt, Ryan has been in Purgatory.
He's been trying to create and discover
closure for himself when navigating a limbo that he's stuck in. Think of a ghost trying to
move on, but in the setting of their own afterlife instead of the real world. That's why Ryan's reality is always prone to warping with dream and waking states and hallucinations and the "real world" being indistinguishable from each other—everything we see on screen is real in Ryan's purgatory, though none of the other human characters have souls; they're just Ryan's memories and fantasies about the people themselves.
This fills more plot holes than the official canon ending—why Wilfred can affect Ryan and physical objects in the real world but not be perceived by others within it, how Ryan could be having (what we're told is) intense hallucinations and physical compulsions that he doesn't remember while otherwise appearing lucid, why the cult's teachings fit Wilfred so well even before Ryan knew about the cult, why the closet appears and reappears without reason, and why Ryan drifts in and out of a normal waking experience.
Wilfred fills the role of a guardian spirit (hence his turf war tiff with Ryan's "spirit guide") by watching over Ryan and trying to steer him toward emotional closure. That's not to say that Wilfred is an angel—I don't think this afterlife follows traditional Christian heaven/hell good/evil concepts.
The biggest clue? Bruce's "games" with Wilfred. This isn't a random hobby. Bruce is a psychopomp, periodically interrupting the purgatory to force Ryan to cross over (for better or for worse). Wilfred buys him more time to work out his issues and find closure by constantly fighting and winning games against Bruce that Ryan can't comprehend.
Ryan's suicide attempt in the last season after his guardian spirit left him, assuming he'd found closure set his progress back to the beginning, explaining why and how Wilfred returned against all logic. Ryan can finally pass on when he discovers inner peace, even if that requires thinking that his experiences with Wilfred have been a drawn-out psychotic break. He will eventually realize that he may be dead, struggle but come to terms with that, and continue to the true afterlife (or even possibly wake up in a hospital after a coma from his first suicide attempt, depending on where Bruce has been trying to lead him this whole time).
This may sound like a fan's denial on my part, and to some extent it probably is, but the series yanks Ryan and the viewer around when it comes to an explanation for Wilfred's existence that a follow-up special is entirely possible, at least in terms of in-universe storyline potential.
