by Robert Bouffard, Editor
After what I found to be a fairly disappointing fourth season, the vampiric mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows returned for Season Five. Thankfully, the Season Four finale addressed the two main problems I thought the season as a whole struggled with: baby Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) and the vampire gang having largely separate storylines. With Colin back in his adult form and Nadja’s (Natasia Demetriou) nightclub arc mercifully concluded, the crew is all back together, and their group dynamics flourish.
There are some overarching storylines in Season Five, but instead of those being the focus as they were in Season Four, the show goes back to what made it click in the first place and has each episode be, for the most part, its own story. With this, we’re treated to some immediate all-timers, such as “Local News,” in which the vampires are spotted in the background of a news report, and then have to hypnotize the news crew and the entire audience into forgetting what they’ve seen. “The Campaign,” meanwhile, introduces us to the Council of Energy Vampires, and features a guest appearance from Hannibal Buress, who fits the role perfectly and hilariously.
Then, of course, there’s “Hybrid Creatures,” which exists because of the season’s one main arc: Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) being turned into a vampire, and Laszlo’s (Matt Berry) experiments to figure out why his vampirism hasn’t taken full effect. In what equates to a will-they-won’t-they on any other sitcom, Guillermo’s wishes to leave his familiar-ing days behind him to finally join his housemates in vampirism finally takes a big leap in Season Five. When he’s bitten by Derek (Chris Sandiford), not Nandor (Kayvan Novak), which is kept a secret from Nandor, things don’t go as they’re supposed to, to both hilarious and frustrating effect.
The hilarious should be obvious in this case: WWDitS has a long track record of high quality comedy, and that underlying humor has never fallen off. There are countless one-liners (particularly from Laszlo — Berry is at the top of his game) and setups that stand out from this season; the show is easy comfort food. But at the same time, there are only so many times that Nandor can say he knows Guillermo has a secret for that line to be a misdirect, or for his airiness to keep him from finding out, before it gets tiresome. It’s a similar problem I had with Ross and Rachel, Jim and Pam, and now Janine and Gregory, except now it’s one-sided secret keeping instead of soulmates avoiding being together.
But while some plot contrivances can get frustrating, and while Kristen Schaal’s Guide can feel increasingly extraneous, What We Do in the Shadows’ fifth season is the show back and fully on the right track after a minor bump. In fact, its ending even puts a nice enough bow on things for it to be a satisfying ending should the show become another unworthy casualty of the Hollywood studios refusing to properly compensate their writers and actors. Ending or not, though, What We Do in the Shadows has more than cemented its place as one of the best comedies of this era.
Rating: Liked It
What We Do in the Shadows is currently streaming on Hulu
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