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[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “What We Do in the Shadows” Season 6, Episode 11, “The Finale.”]
Not that long ago, “What We Do in the Shadows” showrunner Paul Simms had a casual conversation with his son — one that could have easily been cast aside as the common, curious musings of a young, growing mind. Instead, it got the writer and producer thinking, once again, about the peculiar perspectives guiding his FX vampire comedy. “My son said to me, ‘You’re 56,'” Simms remembered during a past interview with IndieWire. “He’s like, ‘So you’ve lived five decades?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, more than that.’ And he goes, ‘Doesn’t it get boring?'”
“I didn’t know how to answer,” Simms said. “First, I gave the dad answer, which is there’s something interesting about each age. But then I thought back on the times of my life when I’d think, ‘This is boring’ and [how] we just get used to things happening. That’s part of the fun of writing the show with these sort of eternal characters, who’ve been around forever. It just highlights, as humans, how we have so many opportunities to change and never really change. Then when we do change, we don’t really notice it.”
Simms’ comments kept rattling around my mind during the “What We Do in the Shadows” series finale, as Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) scrambled to find closure before the documentary crew wrapped for good, and his vampire roommates lobbed up absurd ending after absurd ending in a dismissive attempt to placate their riled-up little human. To Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), and Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), participating in a six-year movie shoot barely registers as a moment. They’ve been roaming the greater Staten Island area for so long this isn’t even the first time someone found out who they were and made a documentary about their lives.
(In one of the episode’s best jokes, “Grey Gardens” directors Albert and David Maysles apparently spent 10 years making their own documentary about North America’s would-be conquerers, only to abandon it because, as Colin puts it, “It’s just a bunch of boring people doing the same old shit day after day, nothing changes, no one ever grows, it’s pointless, yada yada.”)
But for Guillermo, this ending is momentous. The “same old shit” to eternal beings is different and wild to him, making the last six years anything but irrelevant. Guillermo has gone from a sycophantic servant, dreaming of the day his master would turn him into a mythical creature of the night, to an out-and-proud vampire hunter who lives alongside his former lieges. It’s only natural for him to fear change because he’s become happier since the documentary started. Plus, no matter his attachment to this particular stage of his life, any era that comes to a close invites broader concerns about more definitive goodbyes. “The ending of this documentary is giving him a preview of his own frail, human life,” Nadja says. “Does that sound right, Gizmo? Does that resonate?”
It sure does, and not just for Gizmo. The brilliant challenge Simms sets for himself in “The Finale” (along with episode co-writers Sarah Naftalis and Sam Johnson and the full, marvelous “Shadows” team) is positioning the audience in Guillermo’s point of view and the series itself as the vampires’ perspective. The former is desperate for a big, meaningful goodbye, and the latter knows better than to make one up. “What We Do in the Shadows” isn’t “Breaking Bad” or “The Sopranos.” It hasn’t been building toward an ending that involves a singular, life-changing event. It’s also not “Mad Men” or “The Wire,” shows that consistently craft grand statements about the meaning of life. Heck, it’s not even “Friends,” where a long-lingering relationship demands a heart-stirring resolution.
“What We Do in the Shadows” is a mockumentary-style sitcom that’s as silly and imaginative as it can possibly be. Its penultimate episode, typically pivotal to setting up the encroaching climax, is spent at an office party where Guillermo doesn’t get promoted. He quits, and the job doesn’t factor into his finale one iota. Rather, the last episode begins with Cravensworth’s Monster (Andy Assaf) trying to fuck anything that moves (including, hilariously, the Doll), while its emotional crescendo is snarkily overshadowed by the Monster mounting a taxidermied bear. Despite Guillermo’s wishes — wishes most likely echoed by fans who’ve been conditioned to expect such sweet and/or serious endings from series finales — “What We Do in the Shadows” refuses to fabricate a farewell that ties a neat little bow on everything we’ve seen in the last six seasons.
Instead, it fabricates fake farewells that mock Guillermo’s/our sentimentality, getting more giddily ludicrous as they go, while still offering reverential nods to the show’s history. There’s the house meeting that doubles as a callback to the house meeting in the series premiere, complete with Nandor asking his roommates to finish their “whole victims before moving on to the next one.” (But even that “nod” to the show’s beginnings is usurped by the Maysles’ documentary, which shows Nandor making the same request decades earlier.) There’s the “Usual Suspects” spoof that plays after Nadja hypnotizes our “simple little human minds,” which not only prompts a highlight reel featuring nostalgia-laced footage and quotes, but also brings back fan-favorite Sean (Anthony Atamanuik) as Detective Rinaldi and reveals actor Andy Assaf outside his Monster makeup as the uniformed cop who sends Colin on his way.
Kayvan Novak and Harvey Guillén in ‘What We Do in the Shadows’Courtesy of FX“The Finale” even offers each series regular the opportunity for a heartfelt sendoff via their own moving monologue about what they’ve learned. The Guide (Kristen Schaal) expounds on America as a country of immigrants, before being quickly ushered back to her seat when she goes full MAGAFV (pronounced like “MAGA forev[er],” but meaning “Make America Great Again — For Vampires”). Then Colin Robinson honors his “chosen family” who, it turns out, aren’t the vampires he’s been living with but some old friends who “died in a steamboat accident in 1906.” Nandor, always the simpleton, can barely get started on any kind of significant reflection before circling back to his most recent idea: fighting crime as a “half-man, half-bat” who goes by… The Phantom Menace. And although it’s immediately dismissed, Laszlo’s simple song is the most appropriate: “We’ve had lots of laughs, sucked lots of blood, and then fucked each other senseless — how’s that?”
That’s great, actually. Brilliant, even. “Fun” is an undervalued commodity these days, at least at this level of towering talent. Too many shows are happy to settle for bad and fun, and too many audiences are happy to settle right along with them. “What We Do in the Shadows” never settles, whether it’s in pursuit of zany-jubilant ideas or an extra few chuckles. During the finale alone, I can’t tell you how many times I thought, “That’s so stupid,” while holding back laughter — truly, the highest compliment I can give a show as outrageous and clever as this. Over six seasons, Simms & Co. just kept swinging for the proverbial fences, and they ended their run with Hall of Fame numbers. Choosing to build the finale around not saying goodbye, to instead create as many hilarious fake goodbyes as possible, is in perfect harmony with “What We Do in the Shadows'” broadest ideology: to have fun while we can, because the end may come at daybreak or it may never come at all.
Plus, amid all the delightful teasing toward emotional adieus, “The Finale” actually finds a fitting end — a real one — with just enough heft and just enough silliness to make everyone happy. While Laszlo, Nadja, and Colin Robinson are left to keep going about their business, same as they ever were, the two characters who’ve actually changed take another meaningful plunge forward. No, not when Guillermo delivers his fake goodbye for the cameras (always the ac-TOR, our little Gizmo). Only during his return does the show come full circle, when he wakes Nandor, gets invited into his coffin, and suddenly, thrillingly, the two best friends disappear down a surprise elevator shaft to The Phantom Menace and The Cowboy Kid’s underground lair, which Nandor completed himself. Given the series begins with Guillermo the Familiar inviting the documentary crew into Nandor’s inner sanctum to witness him rise from the coffin in god-like glory, seeing the two of them descend into a new adventure together, on equal footing (so to speak), provides a sweet, silly endpoint. The circle closes gently, rather than slamming shut, and we’re free to imagine what’s next, all on our own.
You know, as soon as we’re done laughing.
“What We Do in the Shadows” is available to stream in full on Hulu.
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