What We Do in the Shadows Recap: Go Swap Yourselves

• What We Do in the Shadows Recap: What does a vampire go through in a year?
• Everyone has changed after taking a year off, but Colin Robinson has changed the most.
• Colin has become a boisterous bundle of mimicry.

What We Do in the Shadows Recap: What does a vampire go through in a year? 365 human days are comparable to taking a quick snooze that lasts for several hours because you forgot to push the “save” button on your phone alarm when you have oceans of time to travel at your leisure.

Naturally, a time jump is also a tried-and-true method for getting a sitcom out of a particularly troublesome narrative hole. After a year of international vacation and/or home remodelling television, the status quo is thus restored for season four of What We Do in the Shadows as our fabulously filthy foursome of vampire housemates (and that other guy — what’s his name again?) reconvene in Staten Island.

Everyone has changed after taking a year off, but Colin Robinson has changed the most. During the year that Laszlo has been Colin’s caretaker at the mansion, Colin has become a boisterous bundle of mimicry. It’s been a calm year, full of Go Flip Yourself marathons with Teddy and Bran, feeding excursions at night to the playground, and eating Count Chocula from a dog bowl.

Laszlo, like many new parents, is determined to break the cycle by growing nü-Colin to be the most fascinating guy to have ever lived. In the meantime, he has transformed into a vampire Harry Harlow who is trying to shock the boy’s boredom out of him.

However, Laszlo’s housekeeping abilities have taken a complete hit during this nesting phase, resulting in one of the episode’s most successful visual jokes: the mansion, which has aged more quickly than a Florida mother with a tanning habit. The basement is inundated with filth, the floors are collapsing, creeping vines are suffocating the walls, there is a gas leak that would be devastating if the residents weren’t already dead.

This programme excels at using visual effects and stunt action to achieve satisfyingly ridiculous goals. More amusing than the total of each individual pratfall was the effect of many characters falling through the floor into the basement.

My personal favourite of them was when Laszlo and Nadja bumped ugly people in ten feet of foul toilet backwash after being reunited. Nadja has resigned from her position on the Worldwide Supreme Vampiric Council after leaving for London at the conclusion of season three in order to go back to her “broad lover” and “peel [him] like a potato and smash [his] insides.” To be fair, the work was also extremely monotonous.

Nadja will likely keep getting promoted till she becomes Supreme Leader because she is still not fit for administrative work. She also didn’t seem to take anything away from the experience, saying inadvertently that her position is where the Council “put Z-list and C-list vampires” without realising that this also makes her a temporary inconvenience. Still, whatever. Our girl enjoys having a good time and will flaunt her freakiness! For everyone, drug blood and endless butt machines!

Laszlo, Nadja, and the eerie doll that is thought to be haunted by Nadja’s ghost from when she was still alive cuddle up on the couch for some post-coital Go Flip Yourself. If there is any unresolved tension between the three of them, it is not immediately obvious. But Nadja is more erratic than ever, and her plans to start a vampire nightclub shortly may conflict with Laszlo’s parental responsibilities.

The only person with a grudge at the moment, though, is Guillermo, who, to be fair, can’t recover as quickly as the vampires can after spending two weeks in a wooden coffin with nothing but Pedialyte and Oreos.

In the previous two seasons, Guillermo struggled to overcome his low self-esteem by clinging to it with bloody fingertips as he repeatedly tried in vain to accept his role as a vampire hunter and break up his relationship with Nandor. He’s now falling back to where he started at the start of season four.

I don’t get why being the best man in a wedding where the bride is still undecided is what draws him back into vampire service. Guillermo’s justifications for not prioritising himself, however, are empty ones. Nandor is adored by Guillermo.

Never has, never will. Nandor has also come to love Guillermo enough to act as a go-between for him and their disrespectful housemates. (Their contempt for people is still evident.) And provided Nandor’s traditional hunt for a bride doesn’t wind up being the thing that separates the two, that might end up being close enough. A little bit of sabotage and jealousy seem practically certain.

Given that the majority of What We Do in the Shadows’ core cast is British, it wasn’t absolutely impossible — if unlikely, given COVID shooting protocols and sitcom budgets — to film at least some of season four in London.

A simple and convenient reset of the wider story arc bringing everyone back to Staten Island isn’t a big concern, either, given that What We Do in the Shadows continually shines in the more specific areas of joke writing and delivery.

This is a hangout show that is also a romantic comedy and a workplace sitcom. The company of the characters and the deeply referenced text make for a large portion of the enjoyment of viewing it. With the exception of Nandor destroying the world supply network by pulling a Dracula in the Suez Canal, the episode’s flashbacks felt more like a narrative necessity than particularly imaginative side stories.

The difficulty for the characters will be to remove their blinders and realise how their individual obsessions are harming the people they care about as What We Do in the Shadows settles in for a new season. They’ll likely discover this in a messy manner and after it’s too late, but that’s all part of the fun, right?

Regarding the programme itself, it will be intriguing to observe what transpires when it returns to themes it has previously addressed. In season three, sticking with silly things and character development paid off beautifully, so as long as the writing remains strong, everything should be OK.

Fixing the gas leak would also be beneficial, however Laszlo will be sad when his nightly food delivery service is discontinued. When you’re a single parent, even the smallest comforts can make a significant impact.

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