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Progress
Season 2, Episode 1
Progress
Air Date June 21, 2012
Written By David Zuckerman
Directed By Randall Einhorn
Episode Guide
Previous
Identity
Next
Letting Go
"Discontent is the first necessity of Progress"
―Thomas Edison

Progress is the first episode of the second season of Wilred (US).

Synopsis[]

Ryan realizes the consequences of not having Wilfred in his life.

Plot[]

Progress1

Ryans name is being called by an unknown man while Ryan is looking at a tennis ball. Ryan finally notices the man trying to get his attention, and the man asks Ryan if Thursday is going to happen. Ryan tells him that he think so, and the guy repeatedly asks him about Thursday. A woman sitting across from him hands him a note which says wake up. Ryan is talking to a therapist about the dream. The therapist tells him that it is time that he sees Wilfred how he really is. Ryan has not seen Jenna and Wilfred in 4 months. They go outside and Jenna and Wilfred are coming towards them. Wilfred is in a wheelchair and still looks like a human, disappointing Ryan.

Progress2

Ryan and Jenna hug and he asks her if she is married yet. Jenna explains to him that her relationship ended with Drew after finding out that she wasn't pregnant. She has been taking care of Wilfred since he was run over by a car and Jenna wants Wilfred and Ryan to spend time together. While Ryan is walking with Wilfred, he asks if he remembers everything. Wilfred says he does, but that something might be wrong with Ryan's mind. Ryan tries to help Wilfred out of his wheelchair, but he doesn't want help even though he struggles to get out. Wilfred tries to explain why he can hear him talk, but Ryan doesn't want to know and wants to live in the real world.

Wilfred smokes weed and offers Ryan some, but he refuses it because hes on medication. Wilfred asks him why, and Ryan says that he needs it. Wilfred tells him that while he was in the hospital, he wanted it all to stop. Eventually he left the bed and started digging, saying that dogs do it to find truth. Wilfred tries to talk him out of staying, but Ryan tells Wilfred he is the part of him that lies to him and walks away. Ryan talks with the therapist again and a nurse comes along and gives him more pills than usual.

Progress3

Ryan asks the therapist what the pills do and when he can leave. Dr. Eddy motions for him to take the pills and Ryan does. When the therapist leaves, he spits out the pills having not taken them. Ryan is having the same dream again, but just the woman from the dream is there and they are working. He looks at the exit sign, confused about what time and day it is, and starts freaking out when he hears a loud sound. He asks the woman what the noise is and she says that it is Felicia. He tries to leave, and one of the men from his dream is at the door. Ryan wakes up and hears someone yelling. He goes to the door and tries to open it, but it is locked.

Progress4

A woman then peeks in through the window in the door. Later Ryan is walking with Wilfred and he tells him that he was right about the mental institution. Wilfred says that if they leave now they might be able to make it to a concert by My Morning Jacket which he has 2 tickets to. Wilfred says that they should leave early so that Ryan can get a ticket, because one of them is for Bear. Ryan then says that Wilfred wants him just for a ride to the concert and that he is the same self-serving manipulative bastard as before. Wilfred explains that he misses spending time with him. Wilfred says that he has no purpose without Ryan. Ryan thinks he is faking being crippled, and notices a frisbee on the back of his wheelchair.

Progress5

Ryan throws the frisbee and Wilfred jumps out of the chair, crawling after it. Ryan then burns a cigarette on Wilfred's leg still thinking that he is faking it. Jenna and workers from the mental institution come and take him away. While he is back in his room, Dr. Eddy tells him that the review board has allowed him to do a more aggressive form of therapy. He then brings Ryan to a room with an electroshock therapy chair. Ryan tries to leave, but workers stop him and the therapist says that leaving is no longer an option. Ryan is being tied to the chair having had permission by Ryan's father. The therapist asks for a sedative, and Ryan realizes that the therapist is Robin Williams. One of the workers then injects the other worker with a sedative. The worker uses a defibrillator to knock the therapist unconscious and helps Ryan escape from the mental institution. The man who helped him then pulls off a mask, revealing himself to be Wilfred.

Progress6

Bear is driving, and Ryan realizes that he is in a dream. Wilfred tells him that he needs to wake up and all of a sudden they crash into a brick wall. As he wakes up he is in the situation as his first dream, having had fallen asleep while in a meeting at a new job. Ryan looks at his phone and sees a text message from Jenna saying that Wilfred is back. He then leaves the room and looks around, as not realizes that everything was just a dream.

Progress7

Ryan runs home and sees Jenna, still with her boyfriend. He enters his house and goes to the basement door to read Wilfred's will. There is a closet here, but Ryan removes everything and starts to destroy the back wall of the closet, revealing the basement. He starts to read the will, but all the pages are blank except for the title and the ending, which says Keep Digging. He then starts to clean the basement back to the way it was.

Cast[]

Starring[]

Special Guest Star[]

Guest Starring[]

Continuity[]

  • Wilfred's paralysis in his legs in the dream is a result of the car accident he got himself into in "Identity".
  • Jenna informs Ryan that her and Drew broke up after finding out that she is not pregnant. Her pregnancy news was announced in "Identity".
  • Also in "Identity", Ryan's basement was turned into a closet.
  • Wilfred says he misses sitting on the couch and watching Matt Damon DVDs. This activity was introduced in "Happiness".

Notes[]

  • Ryan yells out "Holy shit you're Robin Williams!" after recognizing the actor from his work in the film Good Will Hunting.
  • When Robin Williams is hit in the head with the defibrillator, he shouts, "Shazbot," his famous curse word from Mork & Mindy.
  • The Blue Barn appears the the form of a portrait in Ryan's 'dream', foreshadowing it being a repressed part of Ryan's past.
  • Outside of dreams, Jenna and Wilfred don't actually appear.
  • Amanda, a future love interest of Ryan, is introduced.
  • Elijah Wood and special guest star Robin Williams originally starred in the animated feature film Happy Feet and its sequel.
  • This episode premiered on June 21 on several streaming services as a special preview.

Wilfred's "Dogisms" []

Every episode contains dogisms, or actions that Wilfred performs as a human that parallel him actually being a dog, in this episode there is:

  • Wilfred's leg is injured from the car crash but Ryan sees this as him in a wheelchair.
  • Wilfred takes dump on the grass.
  • Wilfred says he dug for hours in search of the truth until he hit a wire (Which he calls China because he doesn't know words).
  • Ryan takes a frisbee from Wilfred's bag and taunts him with throwing it and Wilfred falls to the ground in pursuit of it since his legs are still injured.
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