‘You people are as much fun as the plague…’
There famously aren’t many examples of great TV shows that started life as feature films. You’ve got M*A*S*H, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Fargo… after that, you’re scraping the barrel. Although, as a horror fan, I will also shout out Ash vs Evil Dead and Chucky in recent years. What We Do in the Shadows started life as a feature-length parody of workplace, mockumentary sitcoms written by and starring Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement and Rhys Darby and then morphed into a six-season sitcom, still with Waititi and Clement on the production side but with a whole new cast. This sixth and final season served as a suitably odd send-off for a show that always embraced its inner strangeness…
Season six begins with the introduction of Jerry (Michael Patrick O’Brien), a previously unmentioned fifth housemate who has been asleep for many years after the gang forgot to work him up in 1996. He soon upsets the dynamic, however, mainly because he forces the vampires to confront the fact that they haven’t made any progress in their quest to take over America. The episode ends with Jerry discarded and Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) living in a garden shed behind the main house.
From there, we take in Guillermo’s attempts to become successful in the corporate world (hilariously hijacked by Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) rocking up to Guillermo’s office and installing herself as the office comedian), Lazlo’s (Matt Berry) quest to create ‘Cravensworth’s Monster’ (he is inevitably joined in this pursuit by energy vampire Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) and Nandor’s (Kayvan Novak) burgeoning (if one-sided) romance with The Guide (Kristen Schaal). Of all the characters, Nandor’s arc feels the weakest here and even the resolution to his relationship with Guillermo feels a little forced. Indeed, since Nandor turned Guillermo into a vampire way back in season four it has felt like the relationship between the two characters has been a case of diminishing returns.
Perhaps the highlight of the final season comes in episode six in which Steve Coogan guest stars as Lazlo’s intensely sexually charged father, Lord Roderick Cravensworth. He’s a ghost, of course, and this allows the writers to make all sorts of insightful cracks about the portrayal of ghouls and spirits across popular culture. The episode is a reminder that at its best, What We Do in the Shadows is still one of the best TV comedies out there. That being said, this does feel like the right time to wrap up the show. While the quality has remained high, there is only so much the writers can do while the vampires remain in Staten Island, and once you start moving primary characters to different locations, jumping the shark is never far away.
And so, this weird, quirky show bows out with an episode that features hypnosis, a monster repeatedly ripping off its penis and presenting it to a character called ‘The Guide’ and several parodies of other famous (or infamous) season finales. It’s as good a way as any to say goodbye. It’s been a pleasure.
