'What We Do In The Shadows' Shuts Coffin Lid Still At Blood-Sucking Best

by Julian Spivey

Photo: FX

FX’s “What We Do In The Shadows” closed its coffin lid for the last time on Monday, Dec. 16, after six excellent seasons of hilarious vampire hijinks.

“The Finale,” written by Sam Johnson, Sarah Naftalis and Paul Simms, began with the season-long storyline of Laszlo’s (Matt Berry) Monster, in a spoof on Frankenstein, before revealing a few minutes in that the documentary crew that had been following our favorite Staten Island vampires around for six years had gotten enough footage to call it quits.

This immediately sets Guillermo (Harvey Guillen), Nandor’s long-time familiar and friend, into a tizzy as the end of the documentary immediately sets off a bomb of sorts in his head that maybe this should be the end of the road for him in this aspect of his life, as well.

In typical ‘WWDITS’ fashion, while Guillermo is all up in his feels, the vampire crew is up to their usual bullshit of not taking much at all seriously, which is perfectly surmised in Laszlo’s monster, now reached his horny teenage years, having sex with a taxidermized bear in the background while Guillermo gives a heartfelt speech as to what his time with the vampires has meant to him.

It’s hard to end any TV series. Still, I can’t imagine how doing so with a mockumentary of vampires that rarely, if ever, took itself seriously could be while trying to stay true to itself while also paying service to the fans.

I think ‘WWDITS’ did about as well as it could with this – poking fun at things like a large swath of the fan base wanting Guillermo and Nandor (Kayvan Novak) to be a couple in the end and giving Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) a great monologue about how they’d been doing this for so long and never grew as people in a nod to “Seinfeld.”

One of the finale’s highlights was Guillermo wanting the documentary to have a good ending and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) hypnotizing the audience into imaging the perfect ending for the show, which saw Nandor and Guillermo spoofing the memorable ending to “Newhart” (and the fans wanting the two together) in a dream sequence where Nandor memorably explains all the other vampires that were in his dream.

The show shot two other scenes for this sequence in the episode. It aired the alternate scenes – spoofs of the endings to “The Usual Suspects” and “Rosemary’s Baby” – in re-runs of the episode later that night (which can also be seen in the extras section of the show’s Hulu page). It was the right decision for the showrunners to go with the “Newhart” seen in the actual episode, as the other two are movie endings, and it seems right to mock TV in a TV show.

Despite the fact that ‘WWDITS’ is a show that doesn’t get deep and doesn’t feature mushiness I did, in fact, tear up with the ending where Guillermo tucks Nandor into his coffin for the final time and tells him he’ll be moving on with his life. However, that’s quickly preceded by the realization that it’s just Guillermo’s way of giving the documentary a good ending.

Among other things I enjoyed about the finale were some quick Easter eggs, like Laszlo breaking out the old toothpick for Jackie Daytona in a previous decade’s documentary—apparently, being filmed is old hat for these guys.

“What We Do In The Shadows” always provided hilarity and the most insane storylines, gags and jokes, and unlike many shows, I can honestly say it was still clicking on all cylinders at its end. This group of blood-suckers is going to be missed. BAT!