It’s kind of fantastical that Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s “What We Do in the Shadows” has held up as long as it has. It sure seemed like all the gory laughs possible from a quite specific, vampire mockumentary concept were drained by the movie that started the franchise in 2014.
A decade later, though, we’re at the sixth and final season of FX’s series adaptation. If the five previous runs are any indication, this kind of comedy can never die.
Things may be getting a bit anemic, though. The network only provided critics with the first three of Season 6’s 10 episodes, and while they scare up gasps and absurdity with rewarding regularity, nothing yet reaches the brilliant heights of Season 4’s meta reality TV satire “Go Flip Yourself” or the horny hilarity of the “Pride Parade” episode from last year.
But the centuries-old vampires have earned our patience, and these last outings require some time for resetting and (hopefully) thematic scene-setting. With luck, that’s what the early chapters are prioritizing as they build to a climactic comic bloodbath.
As has so often been the case, Harvey Guillén’s Guillermo becomes a main focus of concern. Not only has this mortal been the primary audience identification figure in the Staten Island nest of ancient undeads; Guillermo has also gone through the most interesting — and sometimes harrowing –— transitions of any of the show’s core characters. From submissive familiar to congenital vampire slayer to, finally, the bloodsucker he’s always aspired to be, Guillermo has been the beating heart of “Shadows,” and Guillén has made him its wryest commentator along the way.
But after discovering he just wasn’t cut out for his neck-biting dream job, Guillermo returned to human form at the end of last season and is absent for most of S6’s opening episode. It turns out he hasn’t gone very far away, but his self-absorbed bosses — Vlad the Impaler-inspired Nandor (Kayvan Novak), sybaritic pseudo-scientist Laszlo (Matt Berry, who this year became the cast’s sole Emmy nominee), Laszlo’s loud and sometimes equally libidinous lady wife Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and boredom-emitting energy vampire Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) — couldn’t check at his day job. Or be bothered to, if you want the truth.
Once circumstances force the vampires to seek Guillermo, however, his career prospects become of major interest. He’s made a lateral move from Panera Bread to a menial position at a financial firm, where the vampires believe his contentment is crucial to their safety. So Nandor and Nadja get jobs there too, and take steps to eliminate anyone who could stand in the way of Guillermo’s rapid rise up the corporate ladder.
Characterizing Wall Street types as both monsters and deserving victims thereof is not a new black comedy gambit — key portions of Christian Bale, Nicolas Cage and others’ careers were built on it — but the “Shadows” writers still manage to squeeze the cliches for grue and giggles.
Back at the haunted house, Laszlo’s fascination with reviving dead things has gone full Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Corpses and bags of body parts strewn everywhere show how much the daysleepers needed a Guillermo to clean up their messes. But Colin Robinson, more acutely aware of his friendless state than ever, feels his best strategy is to play Igor in Laszlo’s lab; hunting for unsuspecting organ donors beats trying to find a new place in overpriced New York.
Most of this season’s atypically unselfish behavior is triggered by the return of a former roommate, Jerry (“SNL’s” Mike O’Brien). He’s been in a “super slumber” in a basement coffin since 1976. The housemates forgot, until just now, that they were supposed to awaken him within 20 years.
A real go-getter, revived Jerry wants to know if their plan for conquering the Western Hemisphere is completed. Having done little more than hypnotize some neighbors, Nandor and company re-evaluate the purpose of their afterlives. Like every viewer of the past five years, Jerry also questions the constant presence of the human documentary crew. This gets at least Nadja thinking about it too, so can we pray to all that’s unholy that the intrusive filmmakers’ fates will be integral to a Jerry-led vampire apocalypse?
Any of that depends on how satisfyingly the writers’ plan to end the series. In the meantime, the ensemble works their schticks with the smooth confidence of steampunk Dean Martins. The vamps’ dismissive yet archaic attitudes are so sharply honed, every biting comment comes off with the deftness of a well-stolen kiss.
Laszlo doesn’t care how many humans die for his experiment to succeed, while denying any knowledge of a certain Mary Shelley literary creation. The Guide (Kristen Schaal), who’s proven more needy than Guillermo or Colin at their most vulnerable moments, instantly crushes on Type-A Jerry like a trailer-dwelling Trump groupie. Nandor, aka The Relentless when he was a living warlord, digs the new office janitor job, continuing his series-long journey toward a more humble headspace.
Much of this does seem like low-hanging comic fruit. Whether that means the “Shadows” producers are pulling the plug because they’re running out of ideas or that, more to form, they’re laying carefully designed plot steps toward a spectacular finale is, at this point, a mystery akin to what happens after we die. All we can confirm is that it still manages to be quite funny, and light on the horrors usually associated with creative exhaustion.
That we can’t really guess how it’s going to end looks like a good omen.
“What We Do in the Shadows” Season 6 premieres Monday, Oct. 21, and streams the next day on Hulu.
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