What We Do in the Shadows is a horror-comedy TV show based on a movie of the same name. While the movie was written by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, Clement takes the reins solo on this vampire mockumentary. Its comedy style is reminiscent of The Office, if The Office was full of four several hundred-year-old vampires and a human familiar desperate to become a vampire himself, and if the office space itself was a dilapidated mansion on Staten Island.
Usually, a sour season can be caused by the loss of a beloved character, but the gang is all accounted for in season four, in one way or another. At the end of season three, it is revealed that energy vampires only live 100 years. This information is inconveniently revealed at Colin Robinson’s (Mark Proksch) 100th birthday party. However, he is not lost as a character in season four, but literally reborn again. Subsequently, he is raised by Laszlo (Matt Berry), who is determined to make Baby Colin as different from old Colin as possible.
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What Was Season Four About?
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At the end of season three, Colin Robinson was dead, Nandor (Kayvan Novak) and Guillermo (Harvey Guillen) were heading on a world tour that was set to end with Guillermo’s vampiric transformation, and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) was set to leave for England with Laszlo who, at the last minute, sent Guillermo off with Nadja. Not only did this deeply upset Nadja and Nandor, but it also ruined Guillermo’s only offer from Nandor to be turned into a vampire. It was a surprisingly dramatic and epic finale for the comedy series.
Instead of following through on that finale and tracking the characters are they go their separate ways, season four instead picks up at the end of everyone’s travels, erasing the drama of the finale and bringing everyone immediately back to the mansion. Laszlo’s let the house turn to ruin, Nadja wants to open a vampire nightclub, and Baby Colin grows faster than Renesmee in Breaking Dawn Part 2. Throughout this season, there were a few plots happening, like Nandor’s search for a wife and their desperate acts to fix up their house, but none of them carried enough weight to really be the A plot.
Things That Were Great
Where this season lacked its usual gore, it definitely did not lack comedy. Nandor, in his search for a wife, finds a djinn (Anoop Desai) in a lamp, and after owning said lamp finally changes the rotation in which he rubs it, unleashing a djinn who grants 49 more wishes than your average genie in a bottle. Throughout the season, Nandor squanders his wishes on things like wanting his coffin shut and fixing minor imperfections until they get so out of hand that he wishes himself back to normal.
This season also perfectly replaces Colin Robinson with an equally annoying Baby Colin (a child with Mark Proksch’s face digitally attached) who grows to adulthood within one season. The writers perfectly capture every annoying thing that a kid does, going so far as to make him a musical theater gamer whose favorite question is, “Guess what?” Just when the character started to get downright annoying, he would age overnight and become an older, differently annoying energy vampire only to reach his final form and turn back into the old Colin Robinson. Proksch, as usual, is a subtle stand-out.
The highlight of the season could possibly be when Laszlo’s newfound heroes and TV home renovators, Bran (Randy Sklar) and Toby (Jason Sklar) choose Laszlo and crew for an episode of Go Flip Yourself. A surprise entrance of the brother results in Nadja killing Toby and hypnotizing the team into thinking he’s taking a sick day. After a very botched home makeover, it is revealed that Bran is really Simon the Devious (Nick Kroll), aka Laszlo’s villainous nemesis who created Go Flip Yourself and ran it for 100 episodes just so he could steal back the witch’s skin hat. After he steals the hat, some of the house problems fix themselves, and the next episode of Go Flip Yourself ends in a home explosion, once again proving that the coveted witch’s skin hat is indeed cursed.
If so much was going right this season, what’s the issue?
How the Vampire Parody Disappointed in Season Four
While this season was very funny, it didn’t have a through-line or any impending danger like the seasons that came before it. It had so many mini-plots throughout the season, looking back it’s hard to remember what was from this season and what was half of an episode from a previous season. It did not set itself apart with any big discoveries either. What We Do in the Shadows has had surprising, dramatic revelations before, from Guillermo being a Van Helsing descendant, Colin Robinson dying, and Nandor choosing to now make Guillermo a vampire anytime soon. Season four, however, reneged on the promise of these and other plots, and lacked drama as a result.
There also were not as many fun guest stars this season. Simon the Devious and his gang of cringe-up-to-no-good vampires bring a Kroll-specific chuckle that there was not enough of this season. Baron (Doug Jones) was also a beloved guest star that was left in the shadows for most of this season. Alternatively, there was way too much of The Guide (Kristen Schall), which detracted from the major characters.
Worst of all, this season was crueler than previous seasons without the self-aware mockery of the main characters, which makes their behavior downright mean and obnoxious. Even Guillermo was jaded and harsh this season, which after three seasons of being a punching bag, was earned but not offset with a cheerful character. Nandor reanimated all of his past wives and carelessly tossed them away until he was left with Marwa (Parisa Fakhri’) who he still tossed away in the end. It was promising to have another female character on the show, but in true What We Do in the Shadows she didn’t last long.
The cruelty of this season comes to head when Guillermo’s boyfriend Freddie (Al Roberts) comes to town and Nandor is so jealous that he has the djinn turn poor Marwa into a carbon copy of Freddie. When Guillermo’s Freddie goes back to London, Nandor feels bad and sets his Freddie off into the world, even though it’s really Marwa, and says he’s happier that way. The Freddies are found to have gotten together when Guillermo goes to surprise him and finds the two of them together on the street. If Nandor’s cruelty doesn’t ease up in season five, it’s going to stop being funny at all.
What We Do in the Shadows Seasons Five and Six
While this season wasn’t perfect, FX renewed What We Do in the Shadows for two more seasons. The show’s season finales are often highlights, and with the Guillermo-affirming cliffhanger season four ended on, there’s hope for better, funnier days ahead. Hopefully, seasons five and six bring back the vampires who have made this underrated comedy a hit, but only time will tell.
