Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 3 finale of What We Do in the Shadows, “The Portrait.”
The Season 3 finale of What We Do in the Shadows, written by Sam Johnson & Stefani Robinson & Paul Simms & Lauren Wells, showed how the housemates were grieving the loss of one of their own, each in their own way. Over the course of the episode, entitled “The Portrait,” they made life-changing decisions that left them in very different places that are sure to play out in wild and crazy ways in Season 4, which is already filming.
After screening the finale, Collider got the opportunity to discuss the shocking events of the episode with Mark Proksch (who plays energy vampire Colin Robinson), Simms (who’s also the showrunner) and Johnson. During the interview, they talked about knowing where they wanted to take Season 3, throwing so many different elements into the finale, the fun of having Donal Logue play himself, the journey for Colin Robinson and how that will play out in Season 4, and how they’ll be following through on all of the crazy character moments.
Collider: This finale is insane, so congratulations and thanks. And also, congratulations on Season 4. I’m glad to know that we’re getting another season, and especially that you’re already filming it. Is this a show where you knew what the end of the season would be, at the start of the season? Did you know where things were headed in Season 3, before you started shooting?
PAUL SIMMS: We did. We knew a lot. We definitely knew where Colin was going and we knew that people would wonder, halfway through the season, “Why’s Laszlo being so nice to Colin. This doesn’t make sense. Why would Laszlo be so friendly to Colin? Have they run out of ideas?” That’s why we laid in all of those clues, so that when you look back on it, at the end, you go, “Oh, it does all make sense.” That, we knew about. There are some other aspects, at the end of the season, that we didn’t. Often, at the end of the season, we start painting ourselves into a corner. With this season, it was having the vampires all scatter and go off and leave the house and leave Staten Island. That was something where we were like, “That’ll be fun and we’ll figure out later how to deal with it.” But we knew where we were headed with Colin, from very early on.
With this finale, you have just about everything I love about this show, all at once. It’s got the humor and the drama, it has the snappy dialogue, it has all of the crazy things going on, it has the arrogance of these vampires while poor Guillermo still wants to be a vampire, you have Donal Logue playing himself, and of course, you have the Nadja doll. Did you just want to throw everything in and go for it all together, in one episode?
SIMMS: Part of it was, since the beginning of the show, my favorite scenes to write and my favorite scenes to watch are the scenes where it’s the whole group all together, in one room. We do episodes where one or two of them go off on an adventure of some kind, or they’re out dealing with the real world and people have different stories, but I love the scenes when it’s everyone altogether. That was what inspired that last episode, and that it would be the doll, Kristen Schaal as the guide, the Baron’s burned half-carcass on the couch, the Sire, and even the Hell Hound. It was literally, “Let’s put everyone in one room and make most of the episode that.” Those are always my favorite parts, except for the obvious absence in that episode, which was Colin Robinson. That’s why it was all about them dealing with, or not dealing with, the fact that he was actually dead.
What is the fun in having an actor like Donal Logue, where you can write for him as himself, but still also make it completely insane?
SIMMS: One of the first shows I did was Larry Sanders and we had real people play themselves. We would always be nervous about making fun of them, and then when they would show up, they would always be much more willing to mock their own personas or personalities. And Donal was great because so much of what he did was ad-libbing stuff that was perfect, about just being a working actor and having to self-tape for a Law & Order part, and a lot of those details. He got it immediately. He was really laughing at it. But it was one of those scripts where, when I sent it to him, I was worried that he would go, “Are they making fun of me for being a journeyman actor?” But he loved it, so that was fun.
SAM JOHNSON: There’s a great memoir in him somewhere. He’s gone from multi-cam sitcoms to these much more serious dramas. And then, recently I saw that he’s the co-writer of Danny Trejo’s autobiography. He’s a man of many talents.
SIMMS: And he has a trucking company. And he has a wood processing plant. He is a fascinating guy.
So, he’s definitely keeping himself busy when we’re not seeing him.
SIMMS: That’s right.
Mark, what was it like to read that scene when Colin Robinson dies and his face collapses into a pile of goo? How did you feel about that?
MARK PROKSCH: I was excited by the opportunity that brings up and, for an actor, what comes next for this character. I didn’t think that it was the end of Colin Robinson, as a character on the show, or for myself, as an actor. We don’t know what type of character it will be, in baby form and going forward, but I was excited. Anytime you change up a character, for me, is great. I get very tired of watching characters on TV, doing the same thing, over and over again. You can see when an actor is just trying to appease the audience and they start doing catchphrases, or what have you. I think that’s so lazy and it’s boring to me. So, anytime that you can have a big twist for a character and the opportunity to try something new, I think is great.
At what point were you told that Colin Robinson would be dying and that he would be coming back as an infant baby? Were you given both of those pieces of information at one time?
PROKSCH: No, no, no. I had to read it with the rest of the cast and deal with all of the looks that they were giving me, thinking that I wanted off the show or that the writers decided I needed to go. A couple hours after the table read, Paul called me and filled me in. Paul and I are friends. I didn’t think that I was, all of a sudden, going to be off the show. The show is a cartoon. Anything can happen. So, I wasn’t worried about his demise.
SIMMS: But I didn’t warn him about it, too far in advance. Usually we read the scripts, two or three at a time before we shoot those chunks, but because of the pandemic, we read all of our scripts before we even started shooting. I did call Matt Berry and say, “By the way, from Episode 2, what’s going on is that you know Colin is dying and that’s why you’re being nice to him.” So, he knew that while we were reading the scripts. The first audience for these episodes is the cast, when they read them the first time. One of the most fun parts of the job is them performing it, but also being the audience. I wanted them all to be surprised when it got to the end and his head really did cave in, and it’s not a trick. He’s dead. I reassured Mark, “Don’t worry, you’re not gone, but Colin, as we know him, is maybe gonna be different.”
How did you decide on just what that would be? What made you want to do the Colin Robinson baby?
SIMMS: Part of it was, I have kids of my own and kids can be energy vampires, unwittingly. My son will talk forever about Legos and Nerf guns. He’s just go on. He’s not trying to drain me.
JOHNSON: He is getting bigger though.
SIMMS: That’s true. They have a way, as energy vampires do, of talking without caring if you’re listening or if you’re interested, so we thought that was interesting thing to examine. But also, a lot of the next season is about, is Colin destined to grow up to be an energy vampire again, or is it possible for him to grow up to be a normal, interesting human being. That’s a lot of what the fun of Season 4 is about.
What do you call the Colin Robinson baby?
SIMMS: Baby Colin is what we call him.
Mark, what was it like for you to see what that finished scene would look like, with your head caved in, and then to see yourself as a baby?
PROKSCH: I haven’t seen the final scene yet. Paul sent me some early test footage and it was very creepy, obviously. That was a composite of different effects. The creepiest version of Baby Colin is an actual physical baby with my head on it that the practical effects people, Paul Jones and his team, came up with. That is extremely creepy because it can move. My parents are fans of the show, which embarrasses me to no end because of all the sexual content in the show, but I can’t wait for my mom to see a baby version of me that can be creepier than the one that came out of her.
SIMMS: It’s interesting, the baby required every trick we knew in the book. There were puppeteers that operated it. We knew, doing it, we couldn’t just make some digital thing. So, it’s old-fashioned puppeteering, prosthetic building, some digital face replacement, and the addition of layers of goo and moisture on it. We wanted it to be a sweeter version of the Eraserhead baby.
PROKSCH: To be fair, I do have a lot of moisture on me, at all times.
What can you say to tease where all of this is going in Season 4?
SIMMS: I think the biggest thing is that we’re not gonna rip anyone off and it’s not gonna be like, we come back in Season 4 and it’s like, “Oh, all that stuff happened, but it’s all undone at the snap of a finger.” Everything that happened at the end of Season 3 is what Season 4 is all about. The whole thing plays out and it’s not gonna be, “Oh, that was a trick, or that was a dream,” like on Dallas. It’s not gonna be that he grew up overnight and it’s just Colin again. It’s a lot about trying to figure out what his fate is, as he grows.
This must just be the most incredibly fun show to sit in a room and figure out ideas for because nothing is too crazy or too wild, as long as you can make it work for the characters.
SIMMS: It is fun. The only hard part is settings rules for ourselves, so that things actually have consequences. If something happens, like Guillermo has Van Helsing blood, we’re not gonna go, “Oh, that was just a joke.” That’s now part of the whole story. If Colin dies, he’s not gonna pop up and go, “I’m not really dead!,” although we did that once. Everything that starts as a joke plays out with actual consequences that lead to further jokes.
What We Do in the Shadows will be back for Season 4, and is available to stream at FX on Hulu.