45 Favorite Episodes: 10

Resistance. The penultimate episode of Wilfred. It is rough. The comedic elements of the show were almost completely gone at this point, but that made complete sense. The show evolved over time and it excelled at story-telling even more when it was taking the saga of Ryan and Wilfred through a dramatic lens. And boy does it rip them apart in this one. Wilfred, now three-legged, is still trying to lead Ryan to happiness and he believes Jenna to be the answer. But when she invites Drew to sleep on her couch, Wilfred believes he failed Ryan and, in one of the best acting performances I've ever seen, he destroys the basement before collapsing. At the veterinarian's office, Ryan mentally says goodbye to Wilfred by playing some fetch in the location of the basement's painting before a shocking moment where he and we see Wilfred as a real dog for the first time. But the episode still has more devastating consequences. Wilfred is dead, but Jenna and Drew reconcile and Ryan, feeling lost, runs on the beach, remembering Wilfred, before collapsing in the sand in anguish. It's a painful episode, but it's so well-made. It's art.