The first episode of What We Do in the Shadows introduced the relationships between its houseful of vampire roommates by bringing a new character, the fearsome (and weirdly sexy) Baron Afanas, into the fold. The first episode of the show’s final season also opens with the re-introduction of a vampiric figure from the gang’s past. But by this point, their dynamics are so well established that the addition of another vampire, their power-hungry old roommate Jerry (Mike O’Brien), doesn’t change much. It just makes everyone feel weird and bad, and so Jerry has to go.
Jerry has been asleep since the Ford administration, and the ‘70s and ‘80s have a strange hold over the first batch of episodes released on FX to mark the show’s final season. (See also: Nandor’s hypnotically-induced Nixon impression, Billy Joel lyrics being quoted verbatim.) This is a good — or, at least, an appropriate — thing, as it’s also been established by this point that the vampires are decades out of step with pop culture. The retro vibes are also all over the workplace subplot established in episode two, “Headhunting,” which brings us Nadja exercising her power as an independent woman of the ‘80s (read: draining finance bros in conference rooms and reading Lean In) in shimmery eyeshadow, a tight perm, and a pussy bow.
It also sees Nadja continuing her arc towards actually trying to help others, albeit for selfish reasons. She’s grown fond of Guillermo over the years, although she doesn’t want to admit it; like a cat dropping a dead mouse on its person’s pillow, she thinks she’s assisting Guillermo by killing off his coworkers so he can climb the corporate ladder. And how does she show that love? By threatening him, of course! Nandor is mostly just helpless without Guillermo and needs to be close to him — a bit like a puppy, to continue the animal metaphor. Neither of them is a functional “human,” as demonstrated in a funny sequence in the Cannon Capital Strategies break room where Nadja pours coffee down a glass wall, and Nandor uses an entire roll of paper towels to lightly dab at the puddle. Guillermo would also never admit it, but I think he likes being needed. Why else would he stay so close?
Anyway, back to Jerry. The gang was supposed to wake him up on New Year’s Eve, 1996, but they forgot — which means he’s been asleep in the basement throughout their lost half-century of wanking and popular literature by the fire. His absence is blamed for their lack of ambition in the season-six premiere, but I don’t really buy that. Sure, the vampires aren’t all that smart, and they are easily influenced — so much so that the entire third episode, “Sleep Hypnosis,” revolves around that idea. But another running theme in What We Do in the Shadows is just how dull and repetitive eternal life can be. With that in mind, Jerry still having ambitions is odder than the gang giving up on theirs.
Still, his presence reinvigorates the vampire household, leading to a trio of episodes that aren’t as inspired as the show’s hot streak (which I’d approximate as seasons two through four) but are noticeably less clunky than last season’s lows. Laszlo’s latest mad-scientist scheme was introduced organically, for example, in the form of a side joke that branches out into a full-on subplot in “Headhunting.” Laszlo ends up being sidelined in his own reanimation scheme, which does and doesn’t fit his character. Yes, he can be a lazy bastard — excuse me, a scholar — who can pass years’ worth of time studying the collected works of Guccione and Flynt (founders of pornography magazines Penthouse and Hustler, for our younger readers). But he can also be quite industrious when he wants to be. Sometimes he even combines his passions, as in his Victorian-era “jackoff machine” powered by a real(?) living(??) raccoon.
Frankenstein bits are a fun way to bring a jolt of electricity (pun totally intended) to the series in its last season — and a rare opportunity for Laszlo to bore Colin to death rather than the other way around. (Talking about alchemy will do that.) The rotting corpses piling up all over the house were, ironically, one of the fresher sources of comedy in this initial batch of episodes. I was also tickled by the self-reflexive streak in “Sleep Hypnosis,” which, in many ways, functioned as a meta-commentary on writing a sitcom. Sitcoms depend on setting and resetting their status quo, sending their characters out on new adventures in each episode while always returning to the same familiar premise.
What We Do in the Shadows has done this itself several times, in the form of Guillermo’s journey to become (and un-become) a vampire over the course of the series. And it does it again here in a jokey, self-aware fashion. The last reset is actually quite poignant: Guillermo accidentally sleep hypnotizes himself into forgetting everything that’s happened to him over the past couple of decades and arrives at the mansion to “apply” for a “job” as Nandor’s familiar. So much has passed between the two of them that it’d be impossible to completely rewind their relationship without betraying Guillermo’s character in particular. So this obviously won’t stick. But Nandor — and the writers — decide not to snap him out of it right away and instead enjoy the moment. You can’t return to a simpler time, as much as you might like. It’s true in comedy writing and in life.
Craven Mirth
• Mike O’Brien, who guest stars in season opener “The Return of Jerry,” has experience doing comedy in tight spaces: His YouTube series 7 Minutes in Heaven, in which he interviewed comedians in closets, ran off and on throughout the 2010s.
• Is Dr. Victor Frankenstein a real person in the world of What We Do in the Shadows? Do he and Laszlo have beef? Will he appear at the vampires’ doorstep before the series ends? (Sure, he’d be dead, but that’s never stopped this show before.) If so, who will play him? I have questions.
• “You clean up shit.” “And piss!” As a former custodial worker (at a mall, it’s a whole story), I appreciated Nandor standing up for the dignity of janitors.
• Poor Colin. He just wants a friend. (I’m not volunteering or anything, just saying.)
• So Jordan (Tim Heidecker) is a vampire, right? Calling that one now.
• Last week, I hosted a screening of the horror documentary Cropsey (2009), in which several talking heads refer to Staten Island as a “dumping ground” for NYC’s trash, human and otherwise. Which is to say that, based on my understanding of Staten Island, garbage bags full of body parts are not an unprecedented thing to have in one’s living room there.
• Even when they’re fighting, Laszlo and Nadja are a cute couple — see their matching chartreuse accents in “Sleep Hypnosis.”
• And the Matt Berry Line Reading of the Week Award goes to… “a slope slippier than a whore’s saddle. Mmmmmmm.”