What We Do In The Shadows Season 5 Review: An Amusing Yet Glitchy Gizmo
In season 5, "What We Do in the Shadows" has run up against a challenge that vampires often face: how to keep long life from slipping into boredom. By its very nature as a sitcom, the show relies on funny scenarios, and immortality would seemingly necessitate an endless supply of them. Keeping them fresh and free of the weariness that troubles some immortals is another matter.
It's only been four years since "What We Do in the Shadows" premiered on FX, and in vampire years, that's no time at all, but given everything that's happened in human society in the 2020s, it feels more like 28 long dog years have passed. Fans of the original 2014 mockumentary film on which the show is based have also been living with this idea of vampire roommates for almost a decade now.
The foundational joke of the title, "What We Do in the Shadows" is that what these vampires do is bicker with their roomies and vacuum the ceiling. In other words, it's not so different from what humans do. Never mind the fact that vampires drink humans dead. In season 5, the original virgin LARPers and other would-be victims of Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) have faded so far into the background that it's as if their offscreen deaths are the real shadows. Someone's got to die to put liquor blood in the goblet, but there's no more horror in this comedy, just harmless hijinks.
Were it not for the way they gang up on Nandor's familiar, Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), you'd never even remember that these vampires are mean. To keep the laughs guilt-free, their nature as bloodsucking baddies is deliberately downplayed, in sharp contrast to, say, Nicolas Cage's vein-chewing version of Dracula in "Renfield." They do tend to tease Guillermo, or "Gizmo," and make him feel bad about himself, but little do they know that he's now a vampire, too.
Does this Gizmo still work?
"What We Do in the Shadows" season 5 picks up with Guillermo relating in flashbacks how he got the convenience store vampire Derek (Chris Sandiford) to bite him. It turns out going over his master Nandor's head was a big no-no, so Guillermo finds himself in a dicey situation where he must live closeted as a vampire among other vampires. The catch, as the season 5 trailer shows, is that his transformation is stunted for some reason (maybe because he rushed into it and wasn't 100% prepared mentally). Without fangs, the malfunctioning vampire Gizmo still retains the look of our humble human entry point.
This is an interesting strand of character development for Guillermo, who has long been the butt of vampire jokes, and who ended season 4 saying things like, "Don't you feel like nothing ever changes around here?" and, "Nothing ever changes in this house. Nothing is ever going to change unless I change it." It's a commentary on his plight but also how the sitcom model keeps characters in stasis, sometimes doing more "sit" than "com."
In "What We Do in the Shadows" season 5, Guillermo has a new footlocker to sleep in, but he continues putting Nandor to bed in his coffin, as he did back in the series pilot. Even after getting what he's always wanted, he still can't seem to spread his baby bat wings and fly. Meanwhile, his caped companions continue learning about the modern world, with a trip to "The Mall" giving the season 5 opener its title.
Based on the first four episodes made available to critics, "What We Do in the Shadows" season 5 proves there's still some life (or undead humor) left in these old vampire bones. The show hasn't run out of good ideas, but amid comptroller elections and other Staten Island mundanities, it also finds time to dial things up to 11 and disrupt a Pride parade rally with outrageous happenings. At times, Nadja's season 4 admission, "We're really scraping the bottom of the old desperate barrel at this point," does hang over season 5's zanier moments.
Welcome back to adulthood, Colin
Our review of "What We Do in the Shadows" season 4 called it a return to form, but the season also marked a return to the status quo, quickly reuniting the central characters under one roof. Another example of that is the Baby Colin storyline, which resolved itself in the season 4 finale, with Mark Proksch's energy vampire now bald and bespectacled again, wiped of all memory of his Baby Groot-like rebirth.
In "What We Do in the Shadows" season 5, the adult Colin Robinson has a new job that takes him outside the office, where he's greeting tables and pushing jalapeño poppers as a server at a steakhouse. As someone who waited tables at more than one steakhouse while working his way through college, this, to me, is the funniest bit of the season's first half.
"The opportunities to feed in the service industry are incredible," Colin observes. It feels like a missed chance when season 5 moves past those incredible opportunities after the first episode. You could probably squeeze enough hilarity out of them to devote an entire standalone, Jackie Daytona-esque episode just to Colin's misadventures as an energy vampire waiter.
In a show that can wave away any remembrance of embarrassing stumbles with hypnosis (Nandor does it at a basketball game), Colin remains most attuned to the spirit of dry mockumentary humor. Otherwise, the trajectory of "What We Do in the Shadows" somewhat recalls "Seinfeld," which famously started out as the "show about nothing," only to get wackier in its later seasons after the departure of co-creator Larry David (who has since entered his own sitcom limbo, in 11 seasons and counting of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," spread out over 23 years.)
Creator Jemaine Clement, who co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred in the original "What We Do in the Shadows" movie with Taika Waititi, left the show's writers' room after season 2, so although he and Waititi are still credited nominally as executive producers, they've long since remanded the day-to-day responsibilities of running the show to Paul Simms.
Return of the living doll
"What We Do in the Shadows" does a great job with its (practical) special effects, Emmy-nominated production design, and Emmy-winning costume design, but in the same way that Nandor gets a little carried away with his powers in season 5, the show has sometimes punched above its weight class in terms of visual effects. Granted, even on a channel called FX, it's still operating within the limitations of a TV budget, but the cheap CG look of the talking gargoyles and giant inflatable rat in season 3, for instance, began to detract from the show's cinematic, pseudorealistic aesthetic.
Those kinds of shenanigans have been toned down so far in season 5, though you will glimpse a wobbly pair of bat ears, while Nadja's gaudy possessed doll continues to rear her head and lift her skirt long after the joke has worn thin. That the doll has carried over from season to season while other promising ideas (like the energy vampire waiter) fall by the wayside sometimes casts doubt on the show's judgment, as if it's latching onto the wrong things creatively. This season, a body-swap scenario, complete with a "Freaky Friday" joke (and even a riff on "Malignant?") is in the cards, as the doll and Nadja trade places and the doll begins speed-dating in the hopes of losing her virginity.
Nadja also reconnects with her heritage in Little Antipaxos, while Laszlo notices "something is wrong with Gizmo" and just generally remains the series MVP. Though the Guide (Kristen Schaal) has been bumped up to a series regular, she doesn't show up until the second episode, and playing the fifth wheel is hard for her, just as it's hard for Nandor to fit in with Laszlo, their human neighbor, Sean (Anthony Atamanuik), and his buddies.
The dangers of double-dipping
When Baron Afanas shows up in season 5, and it's just the face of Doug Jones again (thanks to his humanizing makeover in season 4), one can't help but be reminded of how cool he looked back in season 1 when the creature effects were firing on all cylinders. It wouldn't be surprising if the Baron's makeover was a simple cost-cutting measure. Whatever the case, seeing him test what happens if a vampire double-dips (or is double-bitten by another vampire) has possible implications for the show itself as it quintuple-dips.
"What We Do in the Shadows" season 5 still elicits chuckles as it steals cop cars and has fun with genre tropes like the OCD need for vampires to count every single grain of spilled rice. Like the self-help book Nandor is reading, they're OK, he's OK, and it's OK as a show. However, to steal a quip from "Blade" (which Guillermo references this season, in the hopes that his imperviousness to sunlight might mean he's a daywalker), "What We Do in the Shadows" is getting a little long in the tooth.
The show remains at odds with its original premise sometimes, as it contrives new, increasingly outlandish comedy situations for its innocuous vampires next-door to inhabit. You know how long-running film franchises like "Friday the 13th" and "Fast & Furious" eventually go to space, once they've cycled through all their other down-to-earth ideas? Well, there's a long tradition of vampires in space, so don't be surprised if "What We Do in the Shadows" dabbles in such tomfoolery this season. Viewers who know and love these characters may be willing to go along for the ride indefinitely, like good familiars, but in terms of humor, the mockumentary well is now running more absurd than dry.
/Film Rating: 6.5 out of 10
The first two episodes of "What We Do in the Shadows" season 5 premiere Thursday, July 13, 2023, on FX.