How many times can you reanimate a corpse? During an early arc of What We Do in the Shadows Season 6, Lazlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry) discovers he can do it as many times as he likes, provided he doesn’t care about its agonized screams (he doesn’t). Still, it’s kind of astonishing how many times you can bring a mound of flesh to life, only to destroy it again and repeat the cycle.
It’s a fate that could’ve easily befallen FX’s What We Do in the Shadows, the spinoff of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s 2014 vampire mockumentary film. After all, how much comedy can you mine from the premise of a group of eccentric vampire roommates in Staten Island? The miracle of What We Do in the Shadows is that the answer has been a lot.
For six seasons, What We Do in the Shadows has been consistently funny, smart, and surprising as it goes down alternatively dark and absurd comedy avenues. There’s a certain elasticity to its brand of comedy, one propelled by its cast’s acrobatic comedy chops, with stars Berry, Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetriou, Harvey Guillén, and Mark Proksch game to do everything, from impressions to pratfalls. Six seasons in, it feels like neither the cast’s energy nor the quality of the show’s sharp writing has waned, so perhaps it’s best to end on top.
The sixth and final season of What We Do in the Shadows (of which critics received the first three of 11 episodes) begins like all the others: the vampire roommates are up to new shenanigans, while Guillermo (Guillén) is back to being human after his short-lived stint as a vampire. The biggest change, however, is that after years of being bossed around by Nandor (Novak), Lazlo, and Nadia (Demetriou), a fed-up Guillermo has moved out… into Lazlo’s old garden shed.
Despite how much the group would deny it, this throws the house’s whole dynamic off-kilter, leading to a few amusing stories like the group arguing over who gets Guillermo’s old room under the stairs, or inserting themselves into Guillermo’s new office job. Regardless, the group’s codependent relationship is on full display in all its hysterical glory this season, with a healthy dose of gory, dark humor involving Lazlo’s aforementioned corpse experiments.
The cast slips so easily back into the same old hijinks that it’s hard to imagine how the show will bring everything to a satisfying end. We could watch Nandor and Guillermo’s sweetly toxic will-they-won’t-they relationship forever, or discover yet another wildly unique way for Matt Berry to deliver a line. For a show that consistently returns to the status quo, could there be some kind of narrative satisfaction in store for the group at the end of the road? It’s difficult to say, though the season's early episodes nod to how far they’ve actually come, such as in a scene where Guillermo briefly reverts to his pre-familiar personality.
But a dramatic resolution doesn’t feel quite right for What We Do in the Shadows, a show that’s always thrived in the absurd. The group seems fated to get into shenanigans for eternity, their goal of dominating the New World just out of grasp as they get distracted by yet another stupid curse or ill-fated business plan. For now, all we can do is cherish the fact that we have one more season with Staten Island’s goofiest residents.
