REVIEW: ‘What We Do In The Shadows’ Season 5 Continues To Deliver On Laughs

What We Do in the Shadows Season 5 delivers a superb, wickedly funny season that doubles down on the horror of the series. After four seasons that have seen these Staten Island vampires, Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), and their familiar, Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) land themselves in every sort of mundane mess imaginable, Season 5 still manages to up the ante. By leaning into the strange, the series, created by Jemaine Clement, delivers some of the biggest laughs of the show thus far as well as some of the darkest imagery and plot lines. This is a story about bloodthirsty vampires, after all, and the writing is best when it remembers it. 

Following the Season 4 finale where Guillermo, fed up with waiting on Nandor, went to another vampire to bite him, What We Do in the Shadows Season 5 follows his stunted start in the turning process. Because despite having been bit, he’s yet to turn into an actual vampire, still able to eat food and go out during the daytime, impervious as always to the sun. As more and more of the household begins to realize what he’s done, starting with Laszlo, the main objective of the season becomes to withhold the information from Nandor, as the revelation would be his greatest shame. If Nandor were to find out, he’d likely kill Guillermo and then himself due to the humiliation. 

The Season 5 finale isn’t a reset, even if things seem to resume the status quo, with Guillermo finally rejecting the want to become a vampire. Nandor does find out and while his first impulse is to kill Guillermo, he ends up sharing that really he never turned him because he could tell Guillermo didn’t have it in him to truly be one of them, to kill innocent people with his own hands, even if he’s killed many a vampire due to his Van Helsing blood. By allowing Guillermo to make the decision himself to remain a human, and by having Nandor be the one who puts him on that path, the finale further develops the shift in the group dynamic that’s been shown throughout all of Season 5 so far and proves that the series is beyond simply resetting. 

All of the vampires have changed a little, most notably in their treatment of Guillermo. Laszlo’s eager desire to help Guiellermo find what’s been keeping him from changing fully into a vampire is one of the strongest comedic bits of the season and produces some of the most disturbing imagery. Using Guillermo’s DNA on his test subjects, he creates everything from flying frogs to talking pigs. Later still,  he ends up being the one to protect Guillermo by giving him a head start to runaway while Nandor is trapped in a silver cage. 

Even Nadja, who so often is the cruelest of this group of vampires, has a level of aggressive care. In Season 5 Episode 6, Nadja is forced to bring Guillermo to urgent care after he breaks his leg. This urgent care ends up being essentially a clinic vampires use for their familiars, demonstrating how often familiars are seen as little more than pets, with the clinic’s doctor advising Nadja they should simply “put Guillermo down.” The episode is another reminder of the inherent darkness of this story which helps elevate the humor, laughing through the horror of the moment as we see other vampires leave their familiars behind. Nadja of seasons past would’ve left Guillermo too and while some of her saving him is self-serving as she doesn’t want the Vampiric Council to realize they’ve been living with a human that has Van Helsing blood, it’s still crucial to show that these characters are capable of change. 

“Hybrid Creatures,” written by Jeremy Levick and Rajat Suresh and “Urgent Care,” written by Sam Johnson and Chris Marcil best capture the tone of the series, striking the perfect balance of broad humor mixed with hints of horror. This is essentially a hang-out comedy, even with the mockumentary format, and it’s made better when the show plays fast and loose with the rules of vampirism. Sometimes, this means that Laszlo can make sunscreen out of Guillermo’s sweat and enjoy a day at the beach, and in other instances means creating an animal and human hybrid. It’s this chaotic energy that’s made the series so consistently hilarious since it’s impossible to guess where it goes next. 

There’s a tendency to forget that What We Do in the Shadows is a comedy, first and foremost, and therefore is structured as such. No, Guillermo and Nandor don’t confess their love to one another but Nandor did bare his neck to Guillermo, and the two’s affections continue to manifest in ways that don’t require a standard declaration. To do so would be out of character for the series in general. This is a show that loves its broad, physical comedy and toilet humor, where there’s an entire episode dedicated to Nandor trying to convince others he can fly to outer space. It’s pure absurdism anchored in how well-written and fleshed out these ridiculous characters are. 

After a relatively lackluster Season 4, What We Do in the Shadows Season 5 is a welcome return to form, delivering some of the funniest episodes of the series to date. The characters may be back in their expected places by the season finale but that doesn’t negate the growth and change they’ve gone through, even if they’re still the idiotic and self-centered vampires we’ve grown to love. With one of the strongest ensemble casts on television who continue to find more outlandish ways to play their characters (with Berry in particular a continued highlight), the series continues to be an annual highlight as it ups the ante to put its ensemble in increasingly weird scenarios. 

What We Do in the Shadows Season 5 is available now to stream on Hulu.