What We Do In The Shadows recap: Things are finally changing as season 5 begins

Guillermo de la Cruz just can’t win. It’s an idea built into the comedy DNA of What We Do In The Shadows, which returns as good as ever for its fifth season on July 13. Although the show—and especially Harvey Guillén, who re-reveals himself as the emotional bedrock every single time we come back to the series—does its best to let Gizmo keep some measure of dignity most of the time, the fact remains that a show about vampires needs to have someone to sit at the bottom of the status ladder and fetch the blood. And a little infusion of vampire mojo isn’t going to be changing that.

The title of “The Mall,” the season premiere, is a misdirect; the vamps don’t even notice the titular temple of commerce until the last third of the episode, having been preoccupied with Guillermo’s birthday party. (It is not actually his birthday, but who can keep track?) Once they get there, our heroes break into individual obsessions almost immediately: Nadja hunts down Build-A-Bear clothes for her poor abused doll, Nandor goes gift-shopping, Guillermo gets his eyes checked, and Laszlo (ever the vampire most capable of noticing things not happening immediately within the bounds of his head) investigates Guillermo, who’s been acting odd of late.

“Vampires go to the mall” is an idea this show would have played with back in the first season, and, for as fun as it is to see Nandor try to pay for stuff with expired oil change coupons and pictures of Ryan Seacrest, there really isn’t very much to it—which is fine, because it’s not actually the point of the episode.

GRADE FOR SEASON 5, EPISODE 2: B

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The point is to build up the resolution of last season’s cliffhanger: Guillermo’s decision to bribe his buddy Derek to finally turn him into a vampire. WWDITS plays coy with the results for most of “The Mall”’s runtime, briefly flirting with the idea of walking it back completely, which would have been a pretty big bummer for a series that can sometimes be a bit too in love with its “Nothing ever actually changes around here” ethos. But, no: That’s just another misdirect, as flashback footage shows a waffling Guillermo suddenly subjected to a moment of gruesome violence this show loves to occasionally bust out, with Derek lunging forward and opening up his jugular in a suitably awkward fashion. (He just heard the “ready” part of “I’m not sure I’m ready.”)

In the highlight scene of both of tonight’s opening episodes, blood sprays everywhere as the two fumble around like desperate virgins as Guillermo reminds Derek that he needs to drink from the vampire, too, in order for the transformation actually to take—except Derek hates the sight of his blood, so…It’s the sort of fast-moving chaos that marks so many of this show’s best moments, sanguine slapstick that ends with…something…happening to Guillermo, who pops back to life with vampiric eyes—but no actual vampire abilities. (He’s got really good vision now, though!).

It’s partly how “The Mall” keeps the show’s status quo intact amidst a hypothetically monumental change. The other part is a mid-birthday reveal that there’s no faux pas more embarrassing than a familiar going behind his master’s back to get transformed. Why, if Nandor found out Guillermo had violated the trust of their (deeply abusive and unequal) relationship like that, he’d have to kill him and then kill himself! And, yeah, all of these conflicts are just so much oil to keep the plot engine running. (Among other things, the idea of Nandor beating a vamped-out Gizmo in a fight is straight-up laughable.) But it’s a good little engine that lets Guillén continue to play Guillermo as smug, secretive, and scared, always good flavors for him—so who’s actually complaining?

The rest of the vamps are, per usual, in comedic stasis. Nandor and Laszlo are mostly along for the ride, while Nadja is licking her wounds over the closing of the nightclub and feeling remorseful over crushing the doll’s legs during a recent bender. The doll is a very hit-or-miss character for me. Still, the bizarre visual of Colin Robinson sticking it on a Dollar Store dancing robot and Nadja then making it strip (?) in front of an entire restaurant of people was weird enough to justify this little digression. The other big reveal is that Colin has moved from an irritating office worker to an irritating server. In one of the episode’s best montages, he embodies every crappy waiter cliché in the world in the span of 30 seconds, forgetting orders, interrupting private moments, and offering patrons some “prosexxy.” Baby Colin was an interesting story, but Mark Proksch turning the screws on people is one of this show’s main joys, and it’s great to see the series find new avenues for his milquetoast brand of evil.

As is often the case with What We Do In The Shadows, “The Mall” mostly celebrates how good it is to be back with these assholes again. The central five characters (Kristen Schaal has been rightly promoted to main cast this season, but isn’t in this outing) are so consistently well-drawn, so individually awful, that it can take a few months away from them for the joy of the performances to come back front and center again. There’s a language to this show that you can’t get anywhere else on TV, and hearing Kayvan Novak, Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, Proksch, and Guillén sink their teeth into it is a rare and unique joy. Things might be changing slowly and strangely around the Vampire Residence. But on that, we can rely.

It leads us into “A Night Out With The Guys,” the second episode of tonight’s opening two-parter—and an outing that leans heavily on an idea Guillermo floats in “The Mall,” i.e., that the vamps’ rampant abuse of hypnotism has lowered the average IQ of Staten Island considerably over the last few years. Certainly, Laszlo’s best pal Sean (an always welcome Anthony Atamaniuk) and his buddies seem dumber than ever, creating more problems for Lasz and “Andy” to try to solve as the pair bicker over Nandor’s over-use of mind control. The result of this is weirdly sweet—Laszlo’s jealous of Nandor’s skill at hypnotism—but is an excuse for increasing amounts of chaos, culminating in Nandor fixing everything by convincing the cops drawn in by all the car chases and gunfire that he and Laszlo are, respectively, Sully Sullenberger and Blue Bloods star Tom Selleck. (The vamps’ very selective grasp of pop culture will never not be funny to me.)

Elsewhere, Nadja resolutely insists that all of her problems of late, the ruined nightclub, the excessive drinking, etc., must clearly be the responsibility of some dark witchcraft. It’s What We Do In The Shadows, so it turns out to be true, as the returning Guide helps her to learn she’s been hexed by someone from her homeland of Antipaxos—which leads, in turn, to the reveal that there’s a Little Antipaxos right here on Staten Island, giving Nadja a chance to reconnect with her roots, and The Guide a chance to fail to connect with Nadja.

I wish I liked this dynamic more. Demetriou and Schaal are outstanding comics, per usual, but it never seems to work for me. The basic joke is “Nadja is indifferent and insensitive, while The Guide is needy,” and it never evolves from there. The trip to Little Antipaxos is a delight, with Nadja so swept up in nostalgia that she gives in and takes a nibble of human food. The immediate projectile vomiting doesn’t even manage to be the grossest effect of the episode: That goes to the results of Guillermo and Derek’s ongoing efforts to figure out what’s been going on with his non-vampirism, which leads them out to Nutley, NJ, for a visit with Baron Afanas and the Sire. (Always nice to see Doug Jones back and free of the mountain of prosthetics he used to labor under for this part.)

A quick experiment demonstrates the solution to Guillermo’s problem is not to have another vampire try to turn him again. The slow-burn explosion of the Baron’s unfortunate neighbor/thrall is timed perfectly, splattering all involved in a shower of blood. Plus, Laszlo is now on to Guillermo, which can only be a good thing, in that few character dynamics on this show can’t be helped by tossing Matt Berry into the mix. In other words, all of our plots are slowly moving around, but What We Do In The Shadows is, happily, a show more concerned with the fun of getting somewhere than the destination.

If it gets us more moments of idiotic gunplay, incorrect “takitaki” ordering, and rampant vampire chaos, we’ll be happy to meander through Guillermo’s strange transformation as glacially as the show wants. The second half-hour isn’t quite as quotable as the first tonight—hence the lower letter grade—but it’s so fun to be back in this world that it’s hard to care.

Stray observations

• Weirdly, Guillermo never questions whether his slow transformation is the result of his vampire hunter heritage.
• Nandor is in a “really good place” thanks to stumbling on to a copy of the 1960s self-help book I’m Okay, You’re Okay.
• Chris Sandiford is great as Derek, explaining that he has to postpone Guillermo’s vampirization to clean a toilet because “People just go on top of what’s already there” if he doesn’t.
• “Dressing on the side… oof.” Proksch gets so many good little Colin-isms.
• “Why do I always shit in your scenarios?”
• Nadja: “What is… mawwlllrrr?”
• Tonight: Confirmation that Shrek exists in the WWDITS universe.
• Laszlo’s on a mission: “Can’t be sidetracked by cheap sex potions.”
• The final shot of “The Mall,” with Guillermo forcing himself into his new footlocker, is genuinely poignant.
• “Night Out” contains confirmation that the documentary the crew is shooting is also called What We Do In The Shadows, which is neat. (There were also a few meta jokes about the doc in “The Mall,” including Guillermo questioning why they’re asking him about the footage they were there to film.)
• One of Sean’s buddies describes Celine Dion as a “Vegas showgirl singer type,” which made me laugh.
• I’ve been obsessively watching the Canadian sitcom Letterkenny recently; I got very distracted by Sean’s buddy Frank until I realized that actor Gavin Fox has a couple of episodes on that (also very funny) show.
• “So much cheap crap and old fish! It’s like looking out the window of my childhood home.”
• Does The Sire say Young Sheldon at some point? I could have sworn I heard Young Sheldon.
• “So… now we know at least one way that does not work.”
• We can now add “chilaquiles” to the list of words it’s too fun to hear Matt Berry say.