What We Do In The Shadows recap: Laszlo gets roasted
Guest star Doug Jones reminds us that Baron Afanas is actually scary when Guillermo's secrets are revealed
TV Reviews What We Do In The Shadows
What We Do In The Shadows can be a bit of a tease at times. The show’s short-term storytelling is some of the best, and the swiftest, in all of TV, with individual episodes jumping from plot point to absurd plot point as quickly as its writers and stars can spew them out. Hand that same crew a bit of season-long narrative content, though, and one of TV’s fleetest comedies gets sluggish way faster than you might expect
Which is to say that “The Roast”—which goes in hard on the fifth season’s Guillermo-focused myth arc—is a funny and effective episode in the short term (with a fantastic central performance from regular guest star Doug Jones), but basically inert in the long. Which wouldn’t be half so frustrating if the show wasn’t constantly invoking the language and tropes of serialized storytelling to create an illusion of something a bit more meaty, before dipping back to the exact same “Nandor acts like he knows Guillermo’s secret but he’s just being an idiot” joke that finished out “Urgent Care.”
But we’re tackling this backwards, so let’s rewind: The Vampire Residence is up in arms this week over Laszlo, who seems to be trapped in an inescapable funk. (In one of the episode’s best exchanges, Nadja asserts that “We are down to like only 16 fucks a week!” with Nandor chiming in with “We are down to just 3.” The best touch is Nadja reaching out a hand to him in saddened solidarity.) Everyone in the house assumes it’s because of their own particular stressors taking their toll on Lasz, whether it’s Nadja’s hex, Guillermo’s slow transformation into a vampire, or, in a very funny callback, Colin Robinson revealing that he’s been having bizarre dreams of Laszlo being his daddy. (“Oh, that is actually because that did happen, Colin Robinson.” “I think I would remember Laszlo wiping my bottom.”) After a very short run-up, everyone decides that the best solution possible is to organize The Roast Of Laszlo Cravensworth, inviting everyone they know—most importantly, Jones’ Baron Afanas—to get in on the fun.
A weird thing about “The Roast,” though, is that The Roast itself isn’t really either the point or the episode’s highlight. WWDITS isn’t exactly a show where the characters make jokes as jokes—and if they do, it’s usually to set them up to look silly—and watching Nandor, Nadja, and Colin work through the mechanics of awkwardly roasting a nigh-comatose Laszlo, tossing out “You Might Be A Laszlo Cravensworth” gags, and Colin’s typically painful butchering of The Aristocrats, isn’t as fun as it seems like it should be. (Ironically, it’s not hard to imagine Matt Berry absolutely killing this stuff; “The Roast” suffers a bit, throughout, by having a basic premise that neuters so many of Berry’s comedic gifts.)
Things only pick up once The Guide—who gets to talk in this one and everything—spills a whole bunch of secrets to Afanas, including the fact that Guillermo is the one who accidentally burnt him up in the pilot, and that he’s got that pesky Van Helsing blood lurking in his veins. Afanas promptly flips out, wrecking the roast, going on the hunt, and reminding us for a few minutes that this guy—and vampires as a whole, in this universe—can be genuinely scary when they’re not out playing Suburb Dads to a flaming poop-dispensing hellhound.
The episode’s best scenes come from that ensuing confrontation, first as Afanas stalks Guillermo around The Residence and then after, when the two of them both get captured by the rest of the crew and are forced to resolve things fang to fang. Jones is genuinely great in these scenes, mixing Afanas’ charm and menace in unpredictable and enjoyable ways, while Harvey Guillén is good as ever as a voice of reason. (Guillén, Jones, and Kayvan Novak do a great job of tapping in to the episode’s more heartfelt moments amidst the violence.) We also get some ace and grotesque visuals, as Afanas dumps a dead Guillermo on the foyer carpet—only for Laszlo to reveal, via an on-the-rug autopsy, that it’s one of the Frog-Gizmos (and a pregnant one, at that). It’s all humming along nicely, with that blend of heart, horror, and humor that this show can easily whip up when it’s in top form.
The upshot is that “The Roast” absolutely works—in a vacuum. It’s only when viewed as part of a piece of lightly serialized storytelling that certain elements start to grate, especially the frequent, insistent reminders that Nandor will kill Guillermo, and then himself, when he finds out the truth—which he’s clearly not going to do until the last possible moment of the season. The fact that Laszlo’s depression turns out to have nothing to do with all this season-arc bullshit feels like at least a wink to how silly caring about the long-term plot on this show is. But that doesn’t make the repetition any less of a drag, or make us wish for a show that would stop teasing and just apply its same bold principles to its long-form storytelling as it does to its hilarious, shocking in-the-moment work.
Stray observations
- While Nadja tries to lure Laszlo back with sex, Nandor appeals to his love of history and mansplaining, asking him to explain the difference between old British warships. (For the record, an Endymion-class frigate was significantly bigger than a brigantine, sporting three masts to the brigantine’s two. Never let it be said that reading parentheticals didn’t teach you anything.)
- “Look what I found! A big box of ships and pornography!”
- “We’ve known each other for so many years. We can practically finish each other’s handjobs.”
- Even Afanas, in full anti-human diatribe, is a fan of Sean.
- A sad, funny beat: when Nandor points out the bit of vampire myth that says they’ll die if Guillermo kills Afanas, since they’re descend from him, with Nadja replying, “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we ended up dying?” She’s been going through a lot lately.
- “It’s like he doesn’t even want this to be resolved…by my killing him…”
- “And a flat Pepsi for Guillermo.”
- We do get one good Laszlo “If you’ll excuse meyyyy,” at least.
- Laszlo, autopsying Frog-Guillermo: “Does he have an amphibious eggsac?”
Nadja: “Maybe?”
Nandor: “He never said… I never asked.”
Colin: “He wore a lot of layers.” - “At this point, we are more like roommates than roommates who viciously murder humans together.”
- “To be a vampire is my dream. But to be your familiar will be my honor. Thank you for this opportunity.” Aww…
- The visual of the Baron flushing one of the frogs down the toilet with a sad “so it goes” expression is a delight.
- Obviously, the actual answer is to order alphabetically by subject, but who are we to say?
46 Comments
I’m kinda bummed the Baron is all crispy again but dammit if I didn’t laugh my ass off when Gizmo opened that door
I saw it coming and I still laughed my ass off!
They should contrive some way to get his pretty face and flaxen locks back, and then have Guillermo screw it all up all over again. Nice recurring gag.
I don’t think I laughed that hard since Baron ate pizza and flew around propelled by his vomit. Hell Hound!!!
I’ve missed too much this season. What is Nadja’s Hex?
Some bad stuff happened—her night club burning down last season, her accidentally crushing doll-Nadja’s legs, etc—as a result of frequent bouts of blood-drunkeness, though she is convinced it is due to some external cause, which the Guide traces to a hex on her. I was convinced early in the season that this was a ruse on the part of the Guide in order to get Nadja to acknowledge her/become her friend, but if that’s the case, she hasn’t revealed as much yet.Really, it just feels like to move Nadja off to a inconsequential side-story. What Mr. Hughes said above about sequential story-telling holds true here; it mostly seems to become a season-long running joke that never really evolves that far past its central premise. I think the writers on this show sometimes forget just how weird they can get with this show. They need to either move the joke forward in a weird way or just resolve it quickly; there’s no reason to run the characters in these go-nowhere holding patterns.And shame on the show for putting Kirsten Schall into the main cast, only to waste on the same “the others forget about/don’t acknowledge the Guide” joke.
I missed all of this being attributed to a hex. The show really has gotten lax. Whatever central themes and stories that existed have devolved into a sort of continuing drunken tale told at the pub after work by the same co-workers over the course of a few months. It’s just a reflection of ‘the times’ it seems. Nothing much is funny and no one seems to have much energy. It’s getting darker even for us who live in the daylight.
While they haven’t done a great job referencing it the past few weeks (usually just a throwaway line here before Nadja’s story starts), they did very heavily focus on the hex in the first few episodes. Its what lead Nadja to finding Little Antipaxos, its why she taught the night school, its why she worked at the Antipaxan diner. Its also been pretty heavily alluded too that the Guide is actually behind the hex, either as a way to punish Nadja for everything involving the nightclub/council or as a way to try and get the two to hang out more. Or both. It hasn’t been a very good storyline, but its still been focused on a lot.While the whole Nadja/hex thing has been pretty terribly handled, the other storylines are going pretty well, even if the jokes don’t land quite as often. The whole “what do vampires do to keep busy for eternity” theme is still driving the show, and you’re seeing surprising amounts of growth in the characters as the main Vamps seem to be treating each other a lot better and being genuinely supportive of each other, just in their own idiotic way.
All good points. Just not feeling it, I guess. If this is the last season I hope they make the most of it.
There’s at least one more season, it was renewed for several (3 I think?) a few years ago
Thanks. A whole season of Guillermo as a vampire sounds daunting, tbh.
I think they’re gonna reveal the Guide put the hex on her.
Apparently someone thought there must always be a character that everyone treats like shit. For a long time it was Guillermo, but since gaining begrudging respect from the vampires the role of shit-upon has been vacant. I don’t understand why the guide was slotted there when they could have done more with the character.
The Guide is a total waste of a character. Either they need to find a good role for her or just lose her entirely.
If they don’t have something better for The Guide to do besides be an irritating Gilligan character whose role is to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, they should drop her from the cast. The one and only interesting portion of her persona was her icky obsession with Guillermo as a slayer but that seems to have completely vanished. That would be uncomfortable and funny on a number of levels if they brought it back.
There’s just something to the entire arc that isn’t holding together for me. I know part of it is that there are elements – Nadja rediscovering her Antipaxos heritage, f’r instance – that could easily have been great stories on their own.As it is, I keep getting the feeling that they’re burning through plot to distract from the general lack of direction for most of the season. It’s been pretty obvious we’re heading to the finale to see how Nandor takes finally learning/revealing he’s known all along about Guillermo. Everyone else has been either handed fragmentary bits of an arc (Nadja), left off more or less but at least with their own focal episodes (Laszlo, Colin), or just plain forgotten to the point it feels like their inclusion in the credits IS the joke.
Something that I wonder if it will come up – Guillermo’s ‘heritage’ via Derek.Is the now-deceased vampire family that turned Derek waaaay back when part of the Baron’s lineage? I don’t believe they really went into much detail beyond the pictures.
They also never 100% established that killing a vampire kills all the ones it has sired. They keep treating it like a superstition, even though it would be something pretty easy to check. But of course vampires are idiots. If it was true I think its one of those things that most vampires could probably be connected to the Baron somehow.
With the number of vampires who have been dusted by Guillermo alone, certainly there would be a lot of sudden deaths/disappearance to explain. Also, how come our vampires didn’t realize the Baron was still alive if they honestly believed the superstition and thought they were of his line? (I know, they’re idiots, but still.)Spoiler for WWDITS movie…Unlike the Baron, Petyr was reduced to bones and ash but was survived by at least two vampires he sired.
If I remember, the episode ended with them realizing it was a superstition, then a few years later the Sire got out and the Guide was telling them how dangerous it would be if he was killed because all vampires are connected to him. They realized that would only matter if the Baron was still alive, and that’s when they dug him up and resumed believing in the whole “death of the sire” thing. I really think in the lore of the WWDITS world the whole concept is just superstition, but it is one a lot of vampires still believe in. It was likely only brought up as a convenient plot excuse as to why they wouldn’t just let Guillermo kill the Baron and try to take him down non-violently.
They realized that would only matter if the Baron was still alive, and that’s when they dug him up and resumed believing in the whole “death of the sire” thing.
Ah, clearly I had forgotten that part. I apologize for unfairly calling our vampires idiots. (I mean they are, but not for that reason.)
Doug Jones rocks and it’s always nice seeing him without 3lbs of prosthetics on his face.I’m guessing Nandor’s naiveté about Guillermo’s transformation will turn out to have been an act and he was just waiting for Gizmo to admit it. Nandor has given him plenty of opportunities with the “are you keeping a secret?” teasers throughout the season.
I’m going to forgive this episode for sidelining Lazlo, of only because they clearly needed all that time in the episode for Doug Jones’ great performance. I particularly love his face-acting. Presumably, the costuming and makeup for the Baron must be very restricting, because he throws so much of his performance into his face.
We’ve also gotten a LOT of Lazlo compared to the others this season. Which I do love, especially since for the past couple seasons we’ve seen him grow and become a really supportive (in his own way) friend to Colin, Nandor and even Guillermo. But this definitely helped give some of the others chances to shine again.
yesyes verygood thank youUUUU
This is the second review of the episode I’ve read where the writer says that Guillermo burned the Baron in the pilot. That did not happen until episode six “Baron’s Night Out”.
Was the other on Vulture? Because I just stumbled on that and I’m fucking delighted to find Katie Rife again!!! Also, Baron’s Night Out is my very favorite episode. 🙂
It is probably the best episode for capturing the original premise of the movie and show of just showing how vampires function in the modern world.
I concede fully the points about serialized story telling (and lack thereof) and cheap jokes….but this is exactly what I like about this show. Its amusing, low impact, and weird. A bigger swing could be a better show…but it could also…not be. I’m content with what I’m getting.B+ is a good rating
Oh, I don’t know, I think the episode was really all about roasting, though mostly the roast of the Baron.
No mention of the fart joke? I love a good fart joke, especially when it comes from Nandor.I was a little disappointed by not much Matt Berry, but he still killed it with his repeated “Yes, yes. Very well. Thank you!” and I loved the end. If I were going to live for eternity, I think I’d spend at least 3 weeks thinking about how to organize my books too (currently by author and somewhat by genre).
Slight correction: Gizmo did not initially fry the Baron in the Pilot, that was a couple episodes later (remember them going out getting the drug blood and pizza?)
This was better than a B+, you vondrook.
More stray observations:Jackenapery?
I’m begging the writers and producers of this show to PLEASE flesh out why the Guide is there, resolve her role, and get rid of her. What a waste of time that character is, and she’s an annoying distraction from the other’s storylines. Schaal is simply not that good to start with, and worse doing her customary shrill baby-voiced cipher with no real place within the domestic routine of that little group.
A weird thing about “The Roast,” though, is that The Roast itself isn’t really either the point or the episode’s highlight.
Laszlo’s roast wasn’t the point or the highlight, but Baron Afinas’ was.I’m pretty sure the whole killing a vampire sire kills their descendants thing is wrong since in the movie, Petyr dies but Deacon and Nick were fine.And I don’t think Nadja’s hex is real either. She got the hex when she was still human but we know that vampires are dead and their souls have moved on. Nadja’s human soul is in a doll.
There’s also the question of Derek’s sire(s) being listed as killed, which would also now link to Guillermo.
They openly talked about killing the Baron in the first season.
Shaun with the “Women can be funny!” line killed me.
I’m enjoying Guillermo’s ploltine
but at this point they are stretching it out too far. Okay I think we’ve all
figured out that it’s the “Van Helsing muck” in his blood that is preventing
him from ever really becoming a vampire although he can develop some (largely
useful) vampiric traits. With two episodes to go in the season, I hope they get
on with it soon.I would have expected more focus on Lazlo in an episode where
Lazlo gets roasted. Missed opportunity. OTOH, great seeing Doug Jones able to
finally let loose. I’ve seen him under copious makeup in so many roles, but has
he ever had a role where he gets to just act like a regular actor?
I keep wondering if Gizmo’s van Helsing blood is eventually going to cancel out the Vampire blood resetting the status quo by the end of the season. (the way Colin Robinson died, was reborn, and is now back to “normal”) and I’m trying to decide if I am going to be disappointed if they go that route.
I think making The Guide a series regular than giving her nothing to do is a sort of meta joke. I’m not sure it is landing, but I think it is intentional. They tangentially made a joke about it at the roast.
everybody raves about this show, am i the only one who thinks its not that great anymore? And everybody is TOO NICE. They hold off on showing these characters do anything REALLY evil because they want people to like them. Every time theres a chance for them to lean into that, they make a joke and back off. I dont believe for one second that if Nandor finds out about Gizmo that hes going to kill him. No way.
I think the show, while still offering moments of hilarity (usually involving Lazlo or Nadja getting angry at Lazlo), is past its prime. Seems to be struggling with storylines and characters when they came naturally in prior seasons, like stretching out Gizmo’s mystery across the entire season and having no clue what to do with Kristen Schaal’s incredible talent, despite upgrading the Guide to series regular status. It’s spinning its wheels. This episode was good, but the previous one with the hybrid monstrosities was just offputting and not funny. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope this is the last season for the show.
theyve said they want it to go on forever, i guess like family guy or south park. if the ratings are good itll probably get another few seasons, at least, before a lot of the cast members want to leave.
“before dipping back to the exact same “Nandor acts like he knows Guillermo’s secret but he’s just being an idiot” joke that finished out “Urgent Care.””I think what’s going to happen is they’re going to do it a third time, and Guillermo this time won’t be worried (assuming Nandor will again talk about something dumb like farting) and that’s when Nandor reveals he knows the truth. Long con!