Similar to the first season's reveal that the basement that Ryan (Elijah Wood) spends most of his time in may not even exist, last season revealed a childhood drawing Ryan had that clearly showed Wilfred (Jason Gann) peaking out from behind a tree. Of course, now Ryan wonders if he has seen Wilfred before, and if he has, why doesn't he remember the dog-suited man.
As with past seasons, the three or four episodes that really push the "how crazy is Ryan" question are bookended by more or less one-off adventures involving the former lawyer and his neighbor's dog.
The season starts off with Wilfred and Ryan learning that Wilfred is chipped and they track down the address programmed into the chip, only to learn that he apparently used to belong to an elderly rich woman who, when Wilfred went missing, had him cloned. Now that the woman is deceased, Stinky (the clone), is the owner of all of her estates. Besides simply trying to learn more about Wilfred's past, the main goal behind this road trip is to see if Ryan can find any puppy pictures of the man-dog. If so, then that should prove that Wilfred wasn't present so many years ago when Ryan drew the picture.
As any follower of this series would expect, the findings are inconclusive and Ryan ends up doubting if the evidence they found wasn't just something he planted himself and then forgot. Of course, the question of the picture's origins comes up several times. Ryan tries everything from hypnotherapy to even talking to his mother and what results is another mental loop-de-loop that leaves even more questions up in the air.
As for the one-off episodes, Wilfred: The Complete Third Season has Ryan going through an interesting series of adventures. A lot of Ryan's issues this season deal with his ill-fated relationship with Amanda (Allison Mack) that ended quite suddenly last season. In one, he meets his mailman (Zachary Knighton, Happy Endings) and befriends him when Ryan sees how well the man bottles up his emotions. Ryan even attempts to start a new relationship when he runs into a high school crush that teaches dog training classes. Deciding to claim Wilfred as his own, Ryan feigns being a "dog weirdo" in order to get close to the old acquaintance. Of course, Wilfred doesn't like this new direction Ryan is taking and preaches the "just be yourself" approach.
Ryan decided last season to stay out of his neighbor's lives as much as possible (which is hard since he dogsits Wilfred everyday), and when Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann) and Drew (Chris Klein) come back from their honeymoon, he finds he has to work extra hard. At first Ryan insists that he no longer has feelings for Jenna, but by the end of her 30th birthday party, it becomes clear that he hasn't really gotten past any such emotions.
There are a couple of new recurring characters this season. For one, we finally meet Ryan's father, Henry (James Remar, Dexter), and Ryan obtains a roommate to help with his housenote in Anne (Kristen Schaal), a sloppy, down-on-her-luck character that makes money online by having people pay to watch her eat.
Even though the DVD set doesn't have any special features and the show only boasts 13 episodes, a follower of the series will want to pick up Wilfred: The Complete Third Season to see more of the crazy interactions between Ryan and Wilfred.
