If self-isolation or The Lighthouse have taught us anything is that it isn’t easy to live with roommates — but it is especially difficult to live with roommates if they’re immortal, blood-sucking vampires.
If there was any doubt that the surprise horror comedy mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows would translate into TV, showrunner Jemaine Clement proved that the concept could work across media and across continents. Whether it’s in New Zealand or the streets of Staten Island, as long as you have a group of dysfunctional creatures of the night, you can provide endless laughs and smart spoofs on the horror genre.
Ahead of its Season 2 premiere, check in with your familiar, beware the energy vampire and revisit all the plot lines you may have forgotten about in the debut season of What We Do in the Shadows:
“Pilot”
The first episode of the show mostly serves to introduce us to the vampire roommates of Staten Island. Echoing the opening scene of the original movie from 2014, we start with a vampire rising up from their coffin in a spooky fashion before summoning a house meeting. Only this time it isn’t Taika Waititi’s Viago, but a familiar (basically a vampire’s human slave) named Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) who is tasked with waking up the household, pick up the mail, clean up the house, make it sunlight-proof, and of course, getting rid of corpses.
The main plot of the season, and the reason for the meeting, is that a letter has arrived announcing the arrival of The Baron, a vampire from the Old Country who is coming to visit. The Baron believes that vampires should rule the world, and is coming to New York to check on the group’s progress in conquering America. Of course, they haven’t, they’ve barely managed to conquer a house in Staten Island (“as you can see, the place is fucking massive” says one of the roommates). The episode then deals with the preparations made for The Baron’s arrival, the buying of macabre party decorations like creepy (they actually mean crepe paper).
Who are the housemates, exactly? Given this is a mockumentary, they neatly introduce themselves and what their deals are right to the audience. There’s Nandor “the Relentless” (Kayvan Novak) is the self-proclaimed leader of the house, and a medieval Ottoman warrior turned dandy vampire who is a bit obsessed with neatness. We also have the highly sexual Laszlo (Matt Berry) and his unfaithful lover and wife (who also turned him into a vampire) Nadja (Nastasia Demetriou). They fled to America because people in the Old Country didn’t like the color of their skin, and probably more that they killed and ate people. The aforementioned Guillermo has served as Nandor’s unappreciated familiar for 10 years, desperately wishing for the day he can turn into a vampire like his idol, Armand from Interview with the Vampire. And lastly, there’s Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), an energy vampire who looks like a regular person and can even walk in the daylight, and who drains humans and even vampires of their energy by boring or enraging them. The main reason the others tolerate Colin is because he’s the only one with a paying job.
Nadja spends most of the episode stalking of a human man named Jeff (Jake McDorman) who she believes to be a reincarnation of her former human lover, Gregor, whom she accidentally decapitated in the middle of love-making — she kept going, until her needs were satisfied. Then, The Baron finally arrives (inside a sealed creepy coffin, of course), and proclaims his plans to expand the seat of power that is Staten Island and take over the world. The Baron (Doug Jones) is more of a bat-mummy creature with terribly dry skin not unlike Petyr in the original film, and he’s apparently had secret affairs with both Laszlo and Nadja, involving “acrobatic stuff.”
“City Council”
Though The Baron insists in the group taking over the New World, apparently no one remembers getting that order in the first place, blaming it on The Baron’s tendency to give you orders right at the moment of sexual climax.
So what’s a vampire to do in order to conquer America? Well, they begin with their local city council meeting, of course. Following a tip from Colin Robinson to use talk to the local leaders of the land leads the group to what Colin describes as “a smorgasbord of banality and despair,” which he attends in order to feast on everyone’s energy by boring them to death. We also learn that Colin Robinson enjoys taking the bus, because of course he would enjoy public transportation in New York. The vampires come up with a list of simple demands for the council to appease their new overlords, including a huge dome that will keep out sunlight, an all-vampire TV channels and a nun-free zone.
Of course, things don’t go as planned, so they try different ways to win over the council. Laszlo tries to kill all raccoons in Staten Island to woo the head of the city council, but because he’s so disconnected with the real world, he simply leaves a ton of raccoon carcasses on the lady’s stoop, much to her horror. Meanwhile, Nandor decides to hypnotize a local politician, who delivers a warning of the upcoming vampire ruling in the middle of the council meeting, which everyone takes as the ramblings of a madman so they don’t take the speech seriously.
As for Nadja, she takes pity in a virgin LARPer that appeared briefly in the first episode, a young and shy college student named Jenna (Beanie Feldstein), and decides to make her a vampire.
“Werewolf Feud”
Everyone loved the swearwolves, I mean, werewolves, from the original movie, so it was only a matter of time before a group of lycans made an appearance in the show. Of course, few expected it to happen this way, as the episode opens with Laszlo delivering a monologue about erotic topiary (he loves making sculptures of vulvas) before sniffing out that werewolves have marked their territory all over his mother’s vulva.
Laszlo sets a trap that catches a werewolf, wounding him. Naturally, it becomes Guillermo’s job to treat the beast’s wounds, as if the lycan dies, it would break The Truce, a longstanding agreement between werewolves and vampires that has kept the two Staten Island communities separated and at peace since 1993. When the pack shows up to demand blood, the Staten Island Werewolf Support Group (they are much closer and emotionally stable than the vampires) selects a champion to fight in a duel against Nandor on top of an abandoned building. The two pick their weapons, a chewing toy in the case of Nandor — which he throws off the roof, leading to the werewolf jumping out and suffering hilariously severe wounds.
Meanwhile, Colin Robinson meets his match in the form of Evie Russell (Vanessa Bayer) an emotional vampire that can squeeze sympathy out of people by bumming them out. The two have a hilarious duel where they try to suck the energy out of each other while propelled in the air, until they decide to briefly join forces and date. Sadly, their romance comes to a quick end as Colin realizes this “exquisite emotional turmoil” may also be bad for him.
“Manhattan Night Club”
We start by checking up on Jenna, who only appears briefly and has a little death scare (she literally dies before suddenly waking up, continuing her transformation into a vampire).
In this episode, the vampires venture off to Manhattan to The Sassy Cat, a night club run by Simon the Devious (Nick Kroll). The plan is to form an alliance with Simon, while also partying for a while. We quickly notice that the vampires are very old-fashioned and out of touch with the present, as they spend a long time picking outfits with long capes and hats, only to realize that capes have grown out of fashion. Meanwhile, Laszlo wears a hat he got from a witch hunter who he killed before listening to the warning that the hat is cursed — leading to a series of instances of bad luck. Simon decides they can join forces, but only if Laszlo gives him his hat, which he does reluctantly. Simon then demands that the Staten Island vampires leave, but he accidentally blows himself up while trying to shoot a flaming arrow.
Meanwhile, we continue to see how underappreciated Guillermo is. Always doing Nandor’s bidding with only bread crumbs of gratitude every once in a while. When in the club, he meets other familiars who are also mistreated by their masters. When another vampire at the club makes an advance at Guillermo and says he wants to make a meal out of him, Nandor does a poor job of defending him. When Guillermo angrily leaves the club, Nandor makes it up to him by carrying Guillermo while flying over Manhattan, only to accidentally drop him onto a truck, restoring the status quo of their pseudo-marriage.
“Animal Control”
We finally catch up with Jeff/Gregor, as Nadja goes on a date with him and becomes disappointed that her chivalrous knight now lacks any archery skill and is unable to defend himself from bullies. Nadja snaps and decides to use mind control to make him recall all about his past lives as Gregor, including being decapitated in every lifetime. This leads Jeff to be arrested as he starts acting like a soldier, and fires arrows at skateboarding teenagers.
Meanwhile, the main plot of the episode finds Laszlo try to eat his new neighbor Phil, only to be beaten unconscious with a broom by Phil’s girlfriend. This leads to Laszlo being taken to a shelter by Animal Control. The vampires then go and try to rescue their bat friend, but after Nandor fails miserably to hypnotize the shelter worker to invite him in, as apparently he can only hypnotize someone to do something the person already wants to do. While Laszlo attempts to rile up the other animals into revolting against the humans, Nandor transforms into a dog to infiltrate the shelter, only to be locked up too.
Only when Nadja arrives to help is she able to hypnotize the door passcode out of the shelter worker to free both Nandor and Laszlo, but not before Laszlo frees all the cats in the shelter, leading them to attack him.
“Baron’s Night Out”
Doug Jones’ dickless and desiccated vampire, The Baron, returns! And he wants a night out in town! The vampires think their lives may be at risk, and start thinking of killing The Baron, so when he drinks the blood of a drunken man and becomes intoxicated, Laszlo tries to impale The Baron with a stake, but fails.
The rest of the episode deals with the vampires trying to please The Baron by indulging in eating different people across town. They begin at a bar, where The Baron requests “shots” from a bar patron hanging from the ceiling in the bathroom. They also go out for pizza as The Baron wants to know if it’s as good as people say — until he bites into a pizza that contains garlic, which makes him vomit so much he literally flies off the ground. Then the group goes to a rave and eats people on drugs (this leads to the best line of the episode, as Nandor says “we drank the blood of some people, and the people were on drugs, and now I am a wizard!”).
Oh, and The Baron drunkenly admits that he did think of eating the group, before Nandor admits they thought of doing the same thing, but they all laugh it off. We also find out that “Baron” isn’t a title, but a pun on “baren” as the vampire is dickless and therefore unable to have children. The group finally return to the house as dawn closes in, and The Baron burns to death by sunlight as Guillermo opens the front door with flowers Nandor requested he go get.
“The Trial”
Without a doubt, the highlight of the season. The group accidentally breaks The Baron in half trying to move him and decide to bury him in Laszlo’s topiary garden. Then a floating vampire played by Kristen Schaal gives the vampire group a message that they’ve been summoned to the Vampiric Council to be put on trial for the murder of The Baron.
Together with Guillermo, the three vampires (as usual, Colin Robinson is left behind) head to the Temple of Blood-Devourers, which is technically just the basement of an office building. While Guillermo waits in the familiars lounge, and discovers no familiar knows of another that has actually been turned, the vampires go to trial.
The Council consists of every horror fan’s dream, as we get one surprising cameo after another, from Dave Bautista as a vampire imprisoned for turning a baby into a vampire and leaving it in the Bronx (it was actually Laszlo who did it, out of boredom), to the trio of vampires from the original film played by Waititi, Clement, and Jonathan Brugh, Tilda Swinton from Only Lovers Left Alive, Evan Rachel Wood’s Sophie-Anne Leclerq from True Blood, Danny Trejo’s vampire bartender Razor from From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, Paul Reubens from the original film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and even a Skype-cameo from Blade himself, Wesley Snipes.
The Baron’s familiar testifies and claims she heard the vampires plot to murder The Baron, and also she says she saw them letting The Baron eat human food — but apparently no one in the council really liked The Baron.
Things turn bad when Guillermo is summoned and confesses to the murder, but when no one in the council believes him, they declare the group guilty of premeditated vampicide and sentence them to die by sunlight. Things look grim until Guillermo accidentally kills another vampire and helps Colin save the vampires from the sun by holding umbrellas over them. Sadly, they left two of the documentary crew members behind to die.
“Citizenship”
Remember Jenna? She finally returns in this episode, as it turns out she has been suffering from a severe aversion to crosses, has been hovering above the ground unwillingly, and also burns in the sunlight. Realizing that she had no one to guide her during her transformation, Nadja decides to stop ignoring her and teach her how to adapt to her new vampiric nature by eating some humans.
Jenna fails at crawling up walls, and is unable to turn into a bat (she instead becomes a horrifying humanoid bat thing), and can’t even hypnotize people, but it turns out Jenna does have the ability to become invisible. While at a party full of “hot idiots,” Jenna eats a band’s singer, and declares the night to have been the best of her life.
Meanwhile, Nandor becomes depressed when he finds out his home country no longer exists, and takes up Guillermo’s suggestion to apply for American citizenship. When he meets Jenna and realizes she was turned into a vampire before him, Guillermo naturally gets frustrated. Nandor fails to hypnotize the government worker to get him to grant him the citizenship, but fails because “his soul is already dead” and also fails to answer any of the test’s questions correctly, and can’t even recite the pledge of allegiance as his mouth burns when he tries to say the word “God.”
“The Orgy”
Vampires have a long history of acting as erotic symbols, so it isn’t a surprise that the vampire group would throw an orgy, which is apparently a bi-annual event. As usual, the vampires order Guillermo around and make him a ton of demands to organize Laszlo and Nadja’s sex toys. We also discover that Laszlo has an extensive career as a porn actor, acting all the vampire roles throughout the years.
At the same time, Nandor requests Guillermo invite his friend Jeremy to attend the orgy to be eaten, as they realize they have exhausted the town’s supply of virgins. Guillermo is not happy about it, but agrees reluctantly, until he realizes Jeremy did have sex with another vampire, so they no longer want to eat him.
“Ancestry”
Guillermo, growing ever more tired of his role as servant/familiar, has the DNA of himself and all the vampire roommates tested. Turns out, there’s a reason why Guillermo has been incredibly good at accidentally killing vampires, as he’s part Dutch and also a direct descendent of the Van Helsing family of vampire hunters.
Meanwhile, Colin is revealed to be 100% white, and Nandor discovers that he has 200,000 direct living descendants due to having had 37 wifes in his human life. The entire season has been building Nandor up as a massive dork, so it’s not a huge surprise to see him incredibly excited about discovering he has a descendant living on Staten Island, he decides to pay her a visit, but sadly the shock of seeing a man floating outside her window kills the poor elderly woman.
While at the funeral, Laszlo and Nadja start bleeding from their eyes and also burn because, well, they’re inside a church while Nandor decides to stay. Guillermo, now knowing of his ancestry, still tries to help extinguish the flames burning Nandor up, but accidentally throws holy water at him, making everything worse.
We also see the return of Jeff/Gregor. Laszlo not only confesses he knew Gregor, but that he’s responsible for his many decapitations, as he was jealous of his relationship with Nadja. Jeff leaves the house and is once again decapitated, this time by the wire supporting Laszlo’s topiary.
As Nandor once again berates Guillermo for burning him with the holy water, he says he will extend Guillermo’s servitude for another year before making him a vampire. Poor, angry Guillermo then contemplates some garden stakes, before rejecting his dark thoughts, but not before noticing he accidentally stabbed nearby portraits of the vampires without noticing.
What We Do in the Shadows returns for Season 2 Wednesday, April 15th at 10pm ET/PT on FX, and the next day on FX on Hulu.