What We Do In The Shadows recap: Everybody nearly dies in a creepy, hilarious outing
"Urgent Care" teaches us that you really, really don't want to be a sick familiar in What We Do In The Shadows' world
TV Reviews What We Do In The Shadows
Stakes can be a tricky thing for vampires—and not just the ones carved out of wood. What We Do In The Shadows has, over five seasons, mostly made a virtue out of its heroes’ basically unkillable natures, allowing the show to send Nandor, Nadja, and even vamp-murdering wunderkind Guillermo through all sorts of absurdly dangerous situations without having to worry about the peril undercutting the jokes. But what do you do when you want a bit of danger in your vampire sitcom mayhem?
The answer to that question looks very much like “Urgent Care,” a simultaneously hilarious and creepy half-hour of TV that runs our favorite vamps through two tightly delineated plotlines, each carrying a surprisingly serious threat of death. On the one hand, we have Guillermo, whose latest experiments into the nature of his very slow vampiric transformation are finally reaping dividends—and a shattered leg, after Nandor (still not in on the secret) interrupts his first tentative forays into flight. The resulting injury sends Gizmo into the arms of the vamps’ familiar medical infrastructure, producing some all-time dark moments for the series in the process.
On the other side of the episode, Colin Robinson is suffering from a uniquely energy-vampiric affliction: the universe apparently conspiring to make him so g-damn fascinating that he can’t actually drain anybody of their life energy through irritation or dullness. It’s a joke that never stops paying off, honestly, as Mark Proksch expresses ever-escalating annoyance at having one more intriguing detail to add on to every set of events. How’d he pick up that shiner? Well, “unfortunately, it’s fucking remarkable”: a frozen block of piss and shit fell out of an airplane, landed on a sports car, and sent the vehicle’s side mirror right into his kisser.
On almost any other show, a character delivering these kinds of lines would inevitably end up milking them for attention. But Proksch plays Colin’s frustration, and then desperation, totally sincerely here, to the point that, by the time Nandor is coaching him on what to say to royally piss off a convenience store attendant and buy himself a few hours of life, you genuinely feel for the guy. (Said efforts are stymied, of course, as the pair walk in on, and then inadvertently foil, an armed robbery through the power of Colin Robinson’s unstoppable interesting-ness.)
It all builds—after a brief detour into the back of a car driven by Mad Men star John Slattery, gamely playing himself as a man too wrapped up in his own thoughts to ever be drained—to Laszlo’s laboratory, where Nandor ends up serving as an energy donor for Colin. Who then repays the favor, after Laszlo’s whiskey dick machine sucks too much from the poor guy, forcing Colin to give back by revealing that he used to be a man named ASS who used to have sex with Davey Crockett. Such are the building blocks from which heartwarming moments on this series built.
Meanwhile, over the in A-plot: Nadja loads a busted Guillermo into a shopping cart and wheels him into a veterinarian’s office—which turns out to be a front for Familiar Urgent Care, which is actually even more horrific than that sounds. Shot and lit like a horror film, and presided over by a doctor (Wayne Federman) whose advice for any and all familiar ailments is “just put them down,” we see Guillermo briskly sedated and dragged off by cage-headed assistants. Natasia Demetriou is great throughout this whole section, blithely indifferent to the horror of it all—until the doctor reports that there’s something weird going on with Guillermo’s blood, at which point Nadja decides it’d be best for everyone to break him out. (She’s right for the wrong reasons, assuming the issue is the Van Helsing blood.)
The subsequent sequence is the highlight of the episode, as we follow Nadja through multiple grisly scenes in the hospital’s back rooms—including a brief, funny reminder that, yes, Kristen Schaal is main-cast now on this show, now that you mention it—eventually finding a very drugged-up Guillermo strapped to a table. (He won’t stop lovingly describing the vamps as different flavors of “bitch,” which gets a very silly payoff a few minutes later with an Aliens reference.) The doctor-assisted reveal that Guillermo is a vampire now provokes outrage, and, more importantly, a bona fide Nadja fight scene, as she and Guillermo use their vampiric abilities to fend off the doctor, who’s worried that letting an “abomination” like Gizmo out on the streets will lose him his license.
Directed by series vet Yana Gorskaya (who also handled last season’s fight-heavy “The Night Market,” among many other episodes), the end result looks both convincing and nasty. And there’s something almost a little sweet about Nadja putting herself on the line to save Guillermo—even if it’s only so Nandor can have the privilege of killing him somewhere down the line for his “betrayal.”
The great thing about “Urgent Care,” honestly, is that there’s just no fat on the damn thing: The Colin Robinson plotline moves from joke to joke swiftly, while the Guillermo story provides yet another new insight into how hideously dark the vampire-familiar relationship can be. All that and we get the answer to the question on all our minds: “What does a frog injected with Guillermo’s half-vampire blood look and sound like?” The world was demanding to know!
Stray observations
- First and most importantly! Please head over and check out our interview with episode director Yana Gorskaya about her amazing run on this season—including, yes, the mechanics of that sex scene from “Pride Parade.”
- Laszlo is mostly sidelined tonight, but the brief bits we get from him are great—his genuine encouragement of Guillermo is even kind of heartwarming, in a Laszlo sort of way: “Ipso factum, shithead… So can you.”
- To a point, anyway: “What happened to dingus’ foot?” “Who gives a fuck? Tell us what happened to your blackened eye!”
- Colin almost gets a drain off when he reveals that his time in Vietnam was just a biking tour—but he can’t help adding in the moment he saw a dead farmer with an ox’s asshole wrapped around his neck.
- Nadja, proudly, after Laszlo deflects her inquiries into the Guillermo-frogs with a bit of innuendo: “It’s not just a frog… it’s the whole swamp!”
- Demetriou gets to bust out her Matt Berry impression for a moment, mocking Laszlo’s love of science—always a delight.
- Nandor, to the crowd watching after John Slattery runs over Colin’s foot: “Peasants, disperse! Begone!”
- Slattery is low-key very funny as the worst possible victim for Colin to try to drain; for half a second, you suspect he might have some ulterior motive, but no: He just really likes talking about accents.
- Nadja briefly chats with one of the other vamps in the waiting room, commiserating over sending their familiar over the “rainbow bridge.” They confess to taking some comfort imagining her “Having spaghetti, or whatever it is they dream of doing.”
- Harvey Guillén has a lot of fun playing drugged; his little “Hey giiirl” when Nadja busts in is very cute.
- Now that I think of it, Nadja and Guillermo were a great team-up back in last season’s “Pine Barrens,” too; unlike Nandor and Laszlo, she’s just non-delusional enough to occasionally have to engage him on his level.
- Is there an actor on this planet better equipped to declare “Quick, to the laboratory!” than Matt Berry?
- Nandor, after catching one of the Guillermo-frogs and believing he knows what’s going on: “This is precisely what happens when a little birdie sneaks into this house, fucks a mouse, they have a child that grows up that then fucks a frog that looks like you!” (To be fair, he does, in Colin’s words, “have the IQ of a Russian toilet.”)
47 Comments
Guil….er….mooooooooooooo
That croaked out of the way…I’d disagree that Laszlo was truly sidelined. His reaction takes (“That’s how we all learn!”) got some of the biggest laughs of the night from me. He never left the confines of the house, but since a good chunk of the plot stayed there it let him be a presence.And Nadja cares. I don’t care if you try to frame it as “he’s Nandor’s to kill” – that’s Nadja’s bravado doing what it does. I think she actually cares about Guillermo – her reaction when she thinks he’s in danger of being put down due to the Van Helsing blood in him is panic and anger at them doing this to Guillermo. She could have let them kill him and just claimed ignorance of anything. It’s one of their go-tos.
She is one of the only ones to actually know his name and not call him Gizmo.
Colin’s description of his Vietnamese biking trip and the guy blown up into a tree with an Ox’s asshole around his neck like a necklace.
I’m appreciating these little irreverant touches reminiscent of former WWDITS seasons.
It wasn’t quite irrelevant though. It was another mind-blowing story, cramping Colin’s style.
“irreverent”, not “irrelevant”.
gah
I’m trying to imagine anyone else tossing off lines like Laszlo’s arrogant English nobleman. Only this guy could get away with it.
I’m sorry I can’t remember the specific one I noticed last night, but I’m always amazed at how hard Berry works to very slightly mispronounce words that aren’t even the focus of the sentence.
If I re-watch I’ll post it for you. I only remember that it was one of his usual exclamations as he is leaving a room or the scene is about to close
There might be more than one! But let’s see what you come up with.
OK, I checked again, and the one I was thinking of was the early scene where Nandor refuses to be drained into Colin; Lazlo says you’ll do something or other “at your peril”, which he renders “per-EEL”. Before that, he gives us “wonderful” as “hwonderful”, like Stewie Griffin insisting on “Hwil Hweaton”. Just little gifts to the audience and, I imagine, to himself.
Hahaha! Thanks for lightening my day:). I’ll do a quick review myself.
It’s the very first exchange in the episode Lazslo:
Ha!Where’s Nandor?Guillermo: In his bedroom. Lazslo: Ha! Shaking hands with Rosie Palmah and her five
milks maids! Whaaaaat!
Follow
me!Of course, delivered at the top of his melodic voice.
Also that Nandor was “making the pearl jam”. Once can only assume that Laszlo has an endless well of allusions to masturbation.
These lines are getting to college-boy for me. And I tried to ‘star’ you and this site still isn’t working.
My favorite this episode was, “Fuck my old boots. Son of a bitch.”
Ha,,,was looking in the comments to see if anyone else appreciated berry’s delivery on that line, my god so funny, the son of a bitch is perfect!!
His “Newewewew Yohk Citay!” still sends me into a laughing fit, even just by thinking about it.I also have not been able to pronounce ‘Arizonnnia’ properly in years now.
It makes me want to go to New York City.
I absolutely laughed my ass off when he said “Ipso facto shithead”….
John Slattery has been in three of my favorite tv shows, 30 Rock, Girls 5Eva, and now WWDITS, reminding us he was in one of my all time favorite movies “Spotlight”.
Mad Men and Veep are also great.
He went toe-to-toe with Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of my most favourite scenes ever. As the greatest male WASP in Hollywood (the late, great Jessica Walter was, of course, the greatest female) he was the prime candidate to play a blue-blood jingoist up against Gust’s Greek immigrant.Fuck, I love this scene.
I legitimately thought that John Slattery was going to be revealed as an energy vampire. That accent discussion and dissection sounds like something Colin Robinson would do if he ever thought of it. And… everyone who has ever been trapped in a conversation with an actor about his ‘craft’ knows that invoke the sort of feelings that being trapped in a conversation with THAT coworker.The title of the next episode, Hybrid Creatures, really has me anticipating chaos from it.
I thought so too! But yeah, I think the final joke was how boring actors (or anyone to be fair) can be when caught up in the minutiae of their profession.
Good point! I wanted to get out of that cab immediately.
“…for half a second, you suspect [Slattery] might have some ulterior motive, but no: He just really likes talking about accents.”I suspected they were leading to a reveal that Slattery was an energy vampire himself, trying to bore his backseat passengers enough to feed off their energy. I’m kind of disappointed that they didn’t.
We thought so too. Also of note: Mark Prosch is from western Wisconsin. Slatterly was dead on.
So what kind of accent does Colin have? I couldn’t locate it.Edit: Question answered. Western Wisconsin. Yes.
I think they established he is. No need for him to reveal it. That would make him interesting.
The looks Nadja gave to the camera, not to mention her sideways mouth face were Emmy gold! GOLD I SAY!
Ok, Banya. Calm down
weird
weird
This show will need Emmy nominations for best comedy and
for Matt Berry and Harvey
Guillén at minimum. Enough snubbing this great show for
sorta-kinda comedies you never laugh at like White Lotus.
So Colin Robertson’s the one atop all those arcade game leaderboards.
As God is my witness: I thought Pearl Jam was just a band.
I now seem to recall hearing that was where they got the name from (it being the 90s and all) but I’d forgotten it when that line came up.
That line and the whole Frog and swamp combo both fascinated me and grossed me out.
Wait until you hear about Limp Bizkit
“ —including a brief, funny reminder that, yes, Kristen Schaal is main-cast now on this show, now that you mention it— “Blehhh. What was so funny about it escaped me. All I got from it is that they’re struggling to get Schaal in any way they can, but she doesn’t fit. Regular schmegular, get her off the stage!
How do you keep managing to have spoilers without me even reading the article? Virtually every TV review of every show reviewed on this site manages to give away too much.
This season is shaping up to be the
best of the entire series. Bless Gizmo for smacking the plotline upside its
head and investing it with new energy. Even Colin, who I originally couldn’t stand, is much
improved now even though he has nothing to do with Guillermo’s plotline.Guillermo
and Lazlo make a great comedy pair, as do Guillermo and Nadja. We need more of
this, please! And why not give the Guide more to do besides whine that Nadja is
ignoring her. Bring back her icky lust for Guillermo the slayer (like the poor
guy doesn’t have enough to deal with).I’m still puzzled that Guillermo and Lazlo (and now Nadja) can’t
figure out that Guillermo’s transition is likely being thwarted by his “Van Helsing
muck.” If you’re a slayer, why wouldn’t one of your genetic talents be,
resistance to vampirism? Some aspects get thru, but the negative ones,
especially needing to feed on human blood, don’t. Lazlo in particular is a
sharp guy who should have thought of this angle. The fact that the writers
aren’t letting the characters come to the obvious conclusion tells me they’re
holding it for some big shocking reveal.
Guillermo’s too stuck on the idea that he might be a Daywalker
“We see Guillermo briskly sedated and dragged off by cage-headed assistants.”Can I be proud of myself for spotting the Bram Stoker’s Dracula reference or was it just too obvious and/or trivial for anyone else to mention?
I hope the Guillermo frogs stick around like the Nadja doll (and also that one can purchase plush versions).