What We Do in the Shadows, season 2

TV #38 of 2022:

What We Do in the Shadows, season 2

Another great yet too short season of this hilarious undead mockumentary. (Ten episodes may not be enough space to develop and deliver a truly superb storyline, especially given how meandering this series tends to be. I love the characters and laugh a lot at their antics, but I’m holding off a five-star rating until we get a run that impresses me with the plotting just a bit more.)

The main throughline here, following up on a clear strength from the previous year, is Guillermo the familiar, who is under-appreciated by his master and now learning that he has an unfortunate talent for vampire-slaying to boot. His dynamic with Nandor is not quite romantic, but it does read as a marriage of sorts, particularly as things get increasingly rocky and the servant starts standing up for himself to ask for better treatment. I wouldn’t call this queer-baiting exactly — there’s a few totally casual remarks about Nandor having sex with his housemate Laszlo, and the whole vibe of the program feels pretty open-minded on that front — but I’ll be interested to see whether or not that central relationship gets reframed as explicitly non-platonic at some point later on.

Regardless, this is a comedy first and foremost, and the jokes remain fantastic. Haley Joel Osment and Mark Hamill each turn in some uproarious guest spots, and the regular cast easily matches them. The energy draining Colin Robinson is promoted at work and gains unfathomable power over everyone. Nadia acquires a creepy doll possessed by her own dead spirit. Laszlo runs away by donning the disguise of blue jeans and a toothpick in his mouth, which seems to honestly fool other vampires into accepting him as “normal human bartender Jackie Daytona.” Such absurdities fuel perfectly fine individual half-hours of sitcom television, but they’re not on the level of the arcs being drawn for Guillermo (and to a lesser extent Nandor), which I’d say is a slight weakness in the writing. Still, I am enjoying this show and would continue to recommend it for anyone who can handle the occasional splash of gore.

★★★★☆

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