The Superb Owl Party
After establishing the characters and mood last season, What We Do In The Shadows has become a much more serialized comedy this year. It’s a fascinating transformation too and it’s something that started to materialize a lot more toward the back-end of the previous season. This episode progresses the narrative forward nicely, with Guillermo stumbling upon a group of vampire hunters and our trio of vampires getting caught up in their own misadventure at their next door neighbour’s house. It’s super-bowl day and episode 3 of What We Do In The Shadows begins with Nandor and the others excitedly preparing to head next door for the festivities. With a strict no-killing rule in place for them, the vampires hilariously believe they’re going to a Superb Owl celebration instead. When they get to Sean’s house, he jokes about them being vampires but Nandor and Laszlo take it a little too seriously. After hypnotizing Sean into forgetting they’re creatures of the night, they accidentally go one step too far and give him the “brain scramblies” as he forgets who he is. While this is going on, Nadja goes searching for her jade necklace which happens to be in the house somewhere. As she turns the place inside out, she stumbles upon Nandor and Laszlo who ironically do the family a favour as Sean looks at his wife with new eyes. Nadja watches in horror however as Sean hands over the jade necklace as a token of his love. Meanwhile Guillermo ends up trying to find virgins but stumbles upon a vampire hunting group instead, posing as mosquito hunters. They sit him down and initiate him into their cult, including a PowerPoint presentation about familiars and vampires. One of them happens to be Shanice, the roommate for the virgin Nadja turned into a vampire last season. As Guillermo leaves and heads home, so too do the vampires after Colin Robinson has his fill from the poor Superbowl party attendees. With some great jokes throughout and a continuing narrative surrounding Guillermo’s heritage and ties to Van Helsing, there’s a lovely juxtaposition starting to grow in the series now as our familiar finds himself torn between his destiny and being the vampire he always wanted to be. He’s easily the most interesting character here although the vampires themselves easily have the best lines. Nadja definitely steals the show though with her rants and seeing her observe the marriage of the different women and picking them apart is one of the highlights of the episode. Shadows has settled in nicely to its role again this season and if this episode is anything to go by, we’re in for some real treats ahead.
