What We Do In The Shadows' vamps are reunited and it feels so good

Vampires don’t change. It’s a point that What We Do In The Shadows makes every single time it rolls its still non-skippable and catchy opening credits, what with all those images of its central characters staying thoroughly static throughout the eras. The times change. The fashions change. But these assholes? And yet! While the “One year later” chyron—which kicks off the season four return to one of TV’s most energetic and hilarious sitcoms—obviously matters less to Nandor, Nadja, and Laszlo than it might to the rest of us (including poor, twice-shipped-in-a-crate Guillermo), there’s still a sense of the status quo getting shook with “Reunited,” in ways both big and small.

To dispense with the obvious, there’s the fact that Colin Robinson is still very much dead. Probably. Laszlo, at least, is deeply invested in the idea that the horrifyingly curly-haired and Mark Proksch-faced toddler he’s been “looking after” for the last year is not the same joy-draining energy vampire that he and his housemates used to know and love treat with unlimited and deserved contempt. Guillermo’s attempt to get Colin’s PIN out of “The Boy” (naturally Colin would have seized control of the house’s finances at some point) suggests he might genuinely be a new person. Then again: What could be more Colin Robinson than wasting 15 minutes of everybody’s time on a wild goose chase?

Said cash is required because a year sans Gizmo has left the house in even worse shape than usual, not helped by Laszlo’s very literal “when all you have is a hammer” approach to house repair. (This, despite his newfound obsession with a house flipper show that’s apparently the only thing that will put The Boy to sleep; babies love Sklars, it seems.) Of course, given that WWDITS is a show where problems blessedly exist only and exactly for however long it takes to set up the next joke, none of this is treated with anything but surface-level concern; it’s mostly there to establish the fact that Nadja has returned from London with a deep and abiding need to start a vampire nightclub, “Like in the film Blade!” (The WWDITS-verse’s ongoing obsession with the stars and scenarios of Blade will never stop being funny.)

Meanwhile, Nandor appears to have shaken off his third-season funk and retained some measure of his newfound respect and affection for Guillermo; there’s something genuinely sweet about the way he immediately tosses himself into the “gas-hole” in order to save his bodyguard/familiar when he falls through the house’s now flooded basement. Nandor’s recounting of his world travels also delivers the one-two punch of the paired funniest moments of the episode. I’m genuinely torn about which hit harder: The reveal that Nandor caused 2021's infamous Suez Canal blockage by eating the entire crew of a container ship, or the reveal of Kayvan Novak’s Wisconsin-as-delivered-by-a-vampire accent while recounting his time with a nice family Nandor met in Fresno. (Okay, it’s the latter; I’ve listened to Novak’s “Hey dere Nandor!” about 20 times now and it hasn’t stopped making me laugh.)

Those moments aren’t hurting for competition. This is an extremely funny half-hour of TV, with everybody involved seeming to revel in how much pure silliness they can shove onto the screen: Natasia Demetriou cooing at a raccoon; Laszlo and Nadja cheerfully inviting Nandor into their reunion fuck; the baby running around with a lit candle on his head; the pleasures of this show are many. There’s a genuine joy that radiates from all four (non-babied) leads at being back in this very funny world, and the script, from Stefani Robison and Paul Simms, matches that sense of freedom. So, yeah, some things may have changed. But What We Do In The Shadows being one of the most purely fun shows year-in and year-out,? That, happily, has not.

In almost any other TV show, whether drama or comedy, the discovery of a functional genie’s lamp (complete with 52, count ’em, 52 wishes) might be a matter of some note. Characters might have strong feelings about this access to sudden omnipotence and some measure of conflict might even ensue.

WWDITS’ genius is rooted in its strict refusal to give a shit about any of that for the very simple reason that said dramatics probably wouldn’t be as funny as what episode two, “The Lamp,” is actually used for here: Nandor’s typically callous attempt to trawl his catalog of dead wives in search of his “perfect love.” WWDITS’s reality is so loose and its stakes so low that it can get away with introducing a put-upon djinn (American Idol’s Anoop Desai, getting a lot of mileage out of very little dialogue) to help Nandor run a life-and-re-death parody of The Bachelor—and have it work, because not a second of it is out of character for the big, semi-romantic lug. (Including the nice-in-his-mind promise of “a gold coin” to lure all the ones he rejects right on back to their deaths.)

Amazingly, and despite lending episode two its name, the whole “Guillermo and Nandor find a genie and use it to date dead people” part of “The Lamp” probably qualifies as the episode’s B-plot. We spend as much time on Nadja’s conflict with The Guide over the former’s desire to transform the Vampiric Council Headquarters building into a nightclub, and then Laszlo’s efforts to get to the root of The Guide’s resistance to change. It’s a shame because it’s the weaker half of the episode for sure.

A big reason for that is The Guide herself. Don’t get me wrong: Kristen Schaal is a treasure, and she gets tons of funny lines here, especially once her festering crush on Guillermo is deployed in full force. It’s just that the character exists primarily to get in the way, and WWDITS is, at its best, all about barreling toward the next big silly idea. (Verily, “Where is the blood sprinkler nightclub?” is the new “When are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?”) The reveal that The Guide has an army of obedient wraiths at her disposal is fun, and the payoff—with Laszlo psychoanalyzing her in Matt Berry’s best “important psychiatrist” voice, and the confrontation with Guillermo—is great. But it doesn’t maintain the absurd energy of the rest of the half-hour.

Still, any such quibbles are really just grading on the curve that got set super high by “Reunited.” By any other measure, there’s a ton to like here, including Nandor’s casual reveal that he had “girl wives” and “guy wives,” and Guillermo’s deep discomfort at the thin distinction between murdering the rejected wives and just “making them dead again.” (Oh, and Guillermo might have a boyfriend! Hooray, Guillermo!) All that plus we get Laszlo’s reveal that he was the personal inspiration for Freud’s “penis envy,” and plenty of Schaal cackling while smashing pillars with a sledgehammer. Even if “The Lamp” doesn’t quite hit the highs of “Reunited,” it’s still a welcome return for our favorite Staten Island vamps.

Stray Observations:

“Reunited”

• Hey folks: I’m William Hughes, your new recapper for season four of What We Do In The Shadows. My former colleague Katie Rife, who handled the first three seasons of the show, is so tough an act to follow as to make the task functionally impossible. But I’ll be here doing my best for the rest of the season.
• The first giggle of the night comes less than three seconds into the episode, as Laszlo narrates “Previously on this documentary.”
• The baby Colin Robinson really is an amazingly disconcerting effect, huh?
• “I want to peel you like a potato and mash your insides.”
• “There’s a very strong smell of gas leak down here. Can someone throw me down a lit candle, and I can find my way out!”
• The reveal that Nandor’s vacation talking head sequence is taking place mid-Nadja/Laszlo fuck session is a little predictable, but a lot funny.
• “Drown me my darling, it’s hot, yeah!” Is this the most explicitly horny episode of this very frequently horny show?
• “Does anyone know if we have any money? Anyone?”
• Other cash-making plans: Robbing Fort Knox (requires 600 yards of strong rope), robbing Henry Ford’s house (requires just 10 yards of strong rope)
• We’re going to meet Bran and Toby from Go Flip Yourself in person at some point, right?
• Also, I deeply want to see what else Nadja and Guillermo got up to in the U.K.

“The Lamp”

• “I am not a creep. I’m just a very powerful and ancient warrior who wishes to marry you. So I’d like you to come back to the basement of my mansion and examine my massive dowry.”
• These are apparently the episodes of WWDITS where people fall through holes.
• “Most modern women have access to spoons already.” “We live in a time of miracles.”
• “Or what I like to call, ‘Wanting of the wang.’”
• “I also wish for all of them to speak English”—basically everything with the wishing works; I’m hoping we get more of the djinn soon.
• The only thing funnier than Laszlo trying to make every part of The Guide’s issues sexy is when they do, in fact, get sexy.
• “Sounds like murder.” “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
• A quick analogy: Matt Berry’s hypnotist voice is to Matt Berry’s regular voice, as Matt Berry’s regular voice is to normal people’s voices.
• If someone ever tries to tell you this world isn’t miraculous, just remind them that it’s someone’s job to photoshop cartoon pictures of Kristen Schaal’s face onto pixelated old-timey porn. It’s a funny old place!
• “I was, simply put, extra.”
• Guillermo wants to be the nightclub’s accountant, hopefully, so he can embezzle the shit out of it.
• “Yeah, sure, the nightclub’s fine, I don’t care about that anymore.” Problem-solving, WWDITS style!