What We Do in the Shadows Recap: Video Village
The end is in sight for What We Do in the Shadows. Vampires may live forever, but this show will not, and with only three episodes left before the series finale, I assume we’ll shift into story mode starting next week. But before we wrap up six years of undead tomfoolery into a nice episodic bow, we pause for, well, one last round of undead tomfoolery. This week’s episode seems like it originates from an inside joke on the What We Do in the Shadows set — and not in a bad way. If you had the privilege of hearing Matt Berry and Kayvan Novak goof off between takes while you waited for a lightbulb to get replaced or a stunt harness to get rigged, wouldn’t you want to share that with the world too?
The wrap-party vibe is palpable throughout “P.I. Undercover: New York,” which is ostensibly a comedic siege à la season five’s “Local News” episode but is really more of an excuse to film Berry and Novak walking around doing silly voices and making fun of all the lingo you find on a TV set. (I figured them all out but taffy. I still don’t know what taffy is, at least in this context.) Episode director Kyle Newacheck kinda-sorta playing himself as the empty-headed idiot — Laszlo’s words, not mine — in charge of “P.I. Undercover: New York” underlines the good humor of the whole exercise. So does writer Max Brockman praising himself through Laszlo’s dialogue about how indispensable writers are for a TV series.
But the real siren song here is not ego but the irresistible pull of swag. Sure, Laszlo might lust after Nandor’s “sweated shirt” with the kangaroo-inspired pock-ET now. But that’s just because he can’t have one. That’s the thing about swag: You only want it if you can’t have it. Once you get it, you’re stuck trying to figure out what you’re going to do with this crap that’s taking up space in your house. I should know — I’m one of those reviewers who gets their turn this week when Colin looks up reviews of P.I. Undercover online. I felt a little called out by the phrase “winsomely entertaining copaganda,” but, again, not in an unfriendly way. We all get ours this week — even you, the person about to leave a comment on this recap!
The main story line of “P.I. Undercover: New York” splits into three branches fairly quickly as Nandor gets swept up in the excitement of production, Laszlo — jaded by his career in adult pictures, I assume — grumbles cynically on the sidelines, and Guillermo fangirls out over Jack Mancuso, who turns out to be a “No pictures, please” type. (Swag solves this problem, too, as it does everything.) Lest we forget, his intense fandom of Interview With the Vampire is what got Guillermo into vampires to begin with, so his devotion to the “PIU” franchise shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s a stan at heart. If he were to ever get into Taylor Swift, people might die.
Nadja has a little bit of the fangirl in her as well. She has been bingeing the televisual series Sexy City on her portable computer device, treating it like an exercise in mastering the chatter of human females. Nadja’s arc this week is in the spirit of a running gag in which WWDITS hangs absurd takes on “Live, Laugh, Love” signs in the background of scenes, riffing on basic-bitch culture. Nadja’s interest in visiting Colin’s old work buddy Joel — which she pronounces as Jowel, a callback to “Jesh” in season one — is largely anthropological, a visit to the “deliciously mild” world of humanity.
Those particularly in tune with human comedy may recognize the reference baked into this week’s premise: Guest star Zach Woods and Mark Proksch were both part of the ensemble cast of The Office, so when Colin says that he and Joel worked together “pushing paper around” a few years back, he’s pulling Dunder Mifflin into the world of What We Do in the Shadows. We don’t have many episodes left to build out this shared universe, though — a spinoff, perhaps?
I personally have seen episodes of Sexy City only on mute at the nail salon, so I’m not sure if cuckolding is ever discussed at brunch between Carrie and the gals or on a romantic date with Mr. Bigs. But Nadja picks up on the swinger vibes in Joel’s large prefab suburban home immediately, informing Colin that “I think her vagina is pulsing for you” as soon as Joel’s wife, Becky, says that Colin “isn’t like” other men. Since the camera crew started following her around, Nadja has reined in her hedonistic tendencies; the vampires haven’t hosted their annual orgy since season one, at least not on-camera. But she knows perversion when she sees it — or maybe smells it.
That being said, this week she’s in bestie mode and agrees to make up an excuse and leave rather than encouraging Colin to have sex with Becky while Joel watches. I assume this is at least partially because she doesn’t want to get roped into the situation as well — it’s never good to be a fourth wheel, especially between two unhappy, heterosexual humans and an oblivious bald energy vampire. Instead, they go for a nice little walk. This week, it’s Colin who’s getting drained … eyyyyy.
Craven Mirth
• I thought it was very funny that this week’s episode is rated TV-MA for violence. Language, sure, given all the wife-fucking talk. But violence? I guess they murdered a couple of PAs …
• “What are you up to, you creamy snake? All dressed up like a bowl of millet.”
• The tongue-kissing between Proksch and Natasia Demetriou this week was very silly and must have been very giggly to film.
• In fact, this week Demetriou triumphs over her TV vampire husband to win the line-delivery prize for her attempts at behaving like a normal human woman who loves wine. (Sorry to “succulent Chinese meal.”)
• “Maybe humans are all such weird freaks because, you know, they try so hard to be normal that they repress all their most horny desires and then they just end up squirting themselves to death.” Wise words.