4x01 Reunited

[6.9/10] This is a perfectly fine episode of What We Do in the Shadows. There's some decent gags, some hints of interesting things to come, and a few new spins on familiar relationships to add new wrinkles as the show embarks on its fourth season.

But I can’t help being somewhat disappointed in it. Last season portended some big changes. Nandor leaving to find himself by backpacking around. Nadja joining the world vampiric counsel. Lazlo abandoning her to look after Colin Robinson’s offspring and trapping Guillermo into following her. All of these choices portended big consequences and interpersonal issues between them.

And now....everything’s back to normal? Pretty much? Sure, we’ve jumped a year later, and maybe there's flashback ground to cover. But we get the gist of Nandor’s misadventures in some voiceover and less-than-convincingly photoshopped pictures of his journey. We get one snippet of Nadja’s time on the vampiric counsel that doesn’t add much. We get one slap from Nadja to Lazlo to account for the abandonment. And we get one “dead to me” declaration from Guillermo before he’s back looking after the vamps again.

I get that they probably weren’t going to radically retool the show at this point, but if they’d even taken a single episode to show more of how things went in the year apart, or how the main characters reacted to all these big changes and being separated, it would be more meaningful than effectively pushing a big giant reset button and restoring the status quo at the start of a new season.

I do appreciate the one major change and two minor ones this episode introduces. The major change is Colin Jr.’s arrival. Lazlo as surrogate dad to a weird little energy vampire boy is an amusing setup, and the concept of him being more mischievous and evil than dull old Colin is an interesting concept. I like that Guillermo feels compelled to stick around to look after him as well, because his mom worked and so he knows what it’s like to have to get by on your own. That’s a good emotional beat.

But I have mixed feelings about Guillermo’s start to the new season. Again, they’re unlikely to disrupt the central conceit of the shows, which is a put upon mortal having to care for a group of self-involved vampires. But it’s tiring to be in year 4 and see Guillermo yet again sacrificing his self-respect and agency to take care of these (admittedly entertaining) jerks, without demanding certain concessions or recognition like he did last year.

The other minor change I like, though, is that Nandor is at least showing him some respect, standing up for him in house meetings and rescuing him from a fall. It’s not perfect. Nandor’s attempt to get Guillermo some water and nevertheless laughing at certain requests from the poor human show he has a long way to go. But he’s trying, at least some of the time, and I appreciate that as a reason for Guillermo to try sticking around rather than the more tangible lure of being Nandor’s best man.

I also like the house falling apart in the absence of everyone besides Lazlo and Colin Jr. It creates some opportunity for visual gags, promises the prospect of a gas explosion any day now, and makes possible the amusing runner of the vamps mixing up Colin Jr. and a raccoon. It’s a nice demonstration of how quickly things go to pot without the usual arrangement.

Otherwise, my main beef with this one is that it’s scattershot. We spend a decent amount of time recounting what everyone’s been up to in the past year. We spend a decent amount of time setting up everyone’s interests for the new season (raising Colin Jr./vampire nightclub/finding a spouse). But there's not much in the way of story, just table-setting.

Overall, some of this was probably necessary. Reorienting viewers after a hiatus is part of the standard block and tackle for a show. But the reflexive restoration of the status quo, and the lack of any driving force or strong idea to kick off the new season makes this one a bit of a disappointment despite being solid enough on a scene-to-scene basis.