Here’s an irony for you: After 15 years of longing to become a vampire, Guillermo has finally become a bloodthirsty parasitic monster who views humanity as little more than, as Nadja puts it, “grease for the filthy wheels of commerce.†And he did it by getting a job at Cannon Capital. A trite observation, perhaps. But in this week’s episode, What We Do in the Shadows makes this exact point about venture capitalists without beating us over the head with it. A rift has been growing between the show’s literal sanguine vampires and the human money-grubbing ones, implying that the obnoxiousness and insatiability of the latter is a bit much, even for the creatures of the night. Vampires have tact, decorum, and a code of honor, which may be the most old-fashioned thing about them. They also value loyalty, which is what made Nandor lose his shit so thoroughly when Guillermo fired him from his janitor job at Cannon at the end of last week’s episode. That means the once-mighty warrior’s power, even over his former familiar, is completely gone.
So yeah, there’s some heartbreak when Nandor goes all Colonel Kurtz and runs off to plot his revenge in the burned-out husk of the Hancock & Sons factory in the Apocalypse Now homage “Nandor’s Army.†(Dig that Doors-style cover of the theme song up top.) This turns out to be a good thing, and not just because it contained the single most successful Alexa joke I’ve personally seen in a TV comedy. (Those are tough to pull off!) It also forces the characters to have some long overdue check-ins with each other.
Nandor and Guillermo definitely need to talk. This confrontation has been building ever since Guillermo first left Nandor’s service back in season two. At the end of season five, he made a more definitive break — if you can call peeing in a bucket in a shack behind the mansion a “break.†(Given his attempts to convince himself that leveraged buyouts are good, denial is still one of Guillermo’s superpowers.) He denies abandoning Nandor for Jordan, but that’s just part of the game these two are playing with one another. However, with only six episodes left before the series finale, the time for games is running out.
With that in mind, I’m glad that “Nandor’s Army†also took the time for a sweet moment between my personal favorite couple in this series (and one of my favorite TV couples of all time). As Nadja points out as she and Laszlo stroll the boarded-up streets of a small New England town decimated by the Hancock & Sons buyout — again, the monstrousness of venture capital forms a literal backdrop — they haven’t had much time alone recently, either. Over the past few seasons, they’ve largely been off pursuing separate interests: Embezzlement, curses, blood alcoholism, weird dad issues, spitting in the face of God … you know, hobbies.
The last time Laszlo and Nadja went on a big silly lark together was also back in season two when they revived their nightclub act in the same episode (“Collaborationâ€) where Guillermo first ran off. Regardless, they remain goth couple goals. And I thought their declarations of love for one another in “Nandor’s Army†were sweet, in a very Nadja-and-Laszlo kind of way. The “10/10 pussy†comment might not have landed as well if he hadn’t prefaced it with how funny and sweet and beautiful she was, but Laszlo’s a pro … though not slick enough to avoid the rookie mistake of asking a woman if she’s on her period. He totally deserved to get blown across the street with Nadja’s sonic scream for that comment.
I haven’t talked much about Colin, but all the bad vibes and hurt feelings going around seem to have created the exact type of environment in which he thrives. Last week, he was all in on the railroad scheme and this week he’s taking especially well to being a footsoldier in Nandor’s sorta-righteous crusade against Cannon Capital. (“Sorta†only because it has selfish motivations. Fuck Cannon Capital.) Nadja and Laszlo, predictably, don’t like being told what to do almost as much as they don’t like doing push-ups. I’m the same way, so I get it.
Amid all the drama, one thing that’s been forgotten by pretty much everyone (except for the ever-faithful Guide, who loves a lost cause) is Jerry’s plan to conquer the New World by good old-fashioned supernatural force. This is another point where season six subtly underlines what I’ll refer to as a “vampire squid†moment in honor of Matt Taibbi’s famous characterization of Goldman Sachs. Jerry’s shock-and-awe ground invasion is positively inelegant compared to
Cannon’s method of subjugating populations. As we’re learning from the human bloodsuckers of season six, if you really want to suck the life out of someone (or someplace), you can’t be too obvious about it. A thousand cuts is how you really drain the New World dry.
Craven Mirth
• Eyyyyyyyyyy, finger foods. Get it?
• Raising the reward for information on Nandor from $3 to $5 — they must really miss him!
• “Shutter Island rules. Got it.â€
• Is Nandor naming his right-hand man Major Briggs a Twin Peaks reference? That would be interesting, given that Briggs is a key locus of paranormal activity on Lynch and Frost’s show.
• “What I meant to say was something with the identical sentiment that wouldn’t piss you off!†Spoken like someone who’s been married for centuries.
• Lore alert: “Nandor’s Army†establishes that vampires are unburdened with menstruation, implying that vampire pregnancy is also impossible.
• “My large wet bosom won’t stop sloshing around!†I appreciated the vampires’ ACAB spirit this week.