What We Do in the Shadows: A Rewatch Part 1

I am an excellent TV nerd. Cuz I have no life. So since tumblr has been giving me joy on What We Do in the Shadows (1 ep left this season) I thought I’d share some things I caught on a quick rewatch cuz I’m coping well. If its not obvious spoilers spoilers spoilers. For the purposes of whats went down this season I think the first ep to foreshadow any of it was 1X04 Manhattan Nights, where they go to Simon the dicks club in hopes of an alliance. Colin Robinson mentions hes a little gassy, so he’ll stick with Nandor. You’re like ‘oh ew poor Nandor’. Now Im thinking his end of life cycle began. When Simon spots Nadja he gloms on to her and muses quote:

“You know i worry about you cuz I hear all these stories about these vampires who you know slowly spiral out and then they get stuck in this real complacency and eventually they just fade away.” That again seemed like an easy reference to just then (they’d all been farting around doing nothing for 200 years easily) but now it seems to reference the crisis Nandor finds himself in. Could also reference Colin Robinson.

I was really blown away by Matt Berry this season. Like a lot of people I just thought ‘oh he must be having a rough time or something he just seems like a shadow of himself here’...can almost picture him going ‘and thats acting!’ I did a end of 2 start of 3 rewatch after the first few eps and I didnt catch it then but watching it now you can see Laszlo is just pure Laszlo up to the start of ep 2. He cant be fucked, he doesnt care at all, hes literally jacking off once they set up in the library. From there you get distracted cuz Kayvan Novak fucking brings it (HE DID THOSE VOICES TOO!!!) but rewatching it now it makes more sense if you pay special attention to the Laszlo parts.

After ripping the page out, Nandor finds him napping and asks him to pull Meg for him. Laszlo drops it on Colin Robinson, cuz (complete with gesture) he cant be fucked. When we next see him he seems to be fake reading erotica. He leaves, fails, returns. When we next see him, Colin is gone and Guillermo has literally keystoned in. We cant see what hes reading, but he seems to be genuinely studying it and kinda absorbed in it, as he has to kinda rethink Guillermo being there and says hey do Nandor a fav if u take that. Many fans correctly noted all we seen in the last ep he just rips the page real quick and it was at least two pages, we dont know if he ever read it again or looked closer to see if there was some more info on energy vampires. BUUUT rewatching that ep I think once he had found that page, he covered for himself with Colin coming back (he could’ve been reading the page hidden in the erotica book)...I mean he was jacking off next to him an hour ago I dont think he’d just be quietly reading if left to himself. Once Colin is gone and he’s back from failing at Meg he had some amount of time to read without anyone and again wasnt jacking it...just reading. I think since he knew that one book mentioned energy vampires off hand he prbly had a good idea what other books had mention of them...my theory is he was genuinely researching any solution for energy vampires after learning the 100 year death. Laszlo isn’t as naive as Nandor, and he clearly had a solid head for vampire literature. So I think there isn’t actually a secret solution he was just too busy to find. He really looked, and found nothing, and thats why he set out to not only spend time with Colin but keep him from finding any real info on energy vampires. In this ep Colin also muses to Dave(?) the young energy vampire that he doesn’t know where he came from, does this guy have any idea on their origin? CBD boy has no idea either. While there might be benefit to lying while Laszlo is around, he wasn’t in this case. So I think Colin genuinely doesn’t know a way out or that this death was coming. BUT I am a firm believer that we have seen on this show death for humans and vampires isn’t what it seems (who seen Barren come back?!) If they want to bring him back they have plenty of outs between ghosts who can go into anything (like ghost Nadja/Dolly) or his dead dupes in the backyard. Im almost afraid they may string us into next season without a resolution. They could! Then we’d be really thrilled when resolved. But I kinda think they wont...when he ‘died’ as the C man and co they did hold a funeral for him and bury him with his painting (thus face crushing). Nandor referenced him doing this ‘like 5 times before’ but while fans have taken that to be literal, they didn’t seem to think he ( plus two) was faking. They were annoyed when he woke up, didnt accuse him of doing it before or anything. I think Nandor was just being a dick cuz he was angry about being woken up, and he seemed to genuinely think this was a trick too, which to his credit he’d been woken up twice at that point. So I think he was just counting the two dead clones and one faked death, making 3 with this in his mind being 4. Back when they took the Barren out (1X6) the Barren asks if they know what hes always wanted to try, Laszlo says corprophilia lol. But by the time we get to 3X1 Colin has...a creepy obsession with Guillermo’s poop bucket. In 3X7 the Siren poops on his shoe and apologizes, he says its not the first time its happened to him. This stuck squeeks me out, buuut I almost wonder if there is a vampire legend tied to sewage/human waste that might be tied to the energy vampire. I tried googling it and theres a few obscure ones that were said to live in sewers (incl a Richmond vampire) almost all are ‘daywalkers’ but the majority are women. So considering they buried all that writing in fart jokes, I wouldn’t put it past them to have dug up something obscure to tie to his legend. Back to lighter topics...I noticed right before Laszlo finds the energy vampire page he flies down to Colin Robinson passing this sign in the library. I think its sumerian but haven’t had success in translating it. I wonder if theres a sign in there.