What We Do in the Shadows – Season 1 Episode 9 Recap & Review

The Vampire Orgy

What We Do In The Shadows returns this week following its amusing episode about Nandor’s citizenship to see the vampires preparing for the bi-annual vampire orgy. With their house set to host, the pressures of this illustrious vampire event take hold as tensions run high. As the vampires all busy themselves, readying the house for the big day, Guillermo becomes uncomfortable around the whole idea and storms off, only for Nandor to follow him and eventually talk to him about this.

Pretending to listen, they eventually go shopping together for items for the orgy. After quizzing the shop assistant on sexually explicit items, they run into Guillermo’s friend Jeremy who is definitely a virgin. Initially hesitant about his friend being used as a vampire snack, he tries to hide this from Nandor. Torn between becoming a vampire and remaining a loyal friend, his desire to be a vampire is too much and he succumbs, eventually letting him come to the party.

Prepared to get Nadja fired up for the orgy, Laszlo convinces her to watch his pornos. After cycling through various hilarious skits through the years, she quizzes him over certain aspects of the tapes before admitting to him that she found them boring. In silence, Laszlo walks away defiantly stating his pornos aren’t boring but still clearly hurt by her comments.

The big day then finally arrives and the orgy gets underway. While Colin entertains some guests with stories about raccoons, Laszlo decides he doesn’t want to join in. However, Jeremy arrives and all the vamps take kindly to his arrival. Everything appears to be going well until Laszlo seizes this moment to profess his love for Nadja, giving everyone a “boner killer” moment. With the orgy hanging in the balance, Nadja attempts to convince them to chow down on the virgin…who happens to be having sex when she presents him to them. As the vampires leave in disgust, the episode ends with the house having to deal with the bad orgy vibe hanging over the night.

More crude and explicit than the previous episodes, What We Do In The Shadows tries its hand at more provocative material to mixed effect. The humour does work quite well but it also feels a little misplaced compared to the other episodes. Still, What We Do In The Shadows’ penultimate episode before next week’s finale does feel a little bit like filler, despite some good jokes and a continuation of the vampire lore here. Quite what next week’s finale has in store for us is anyone’s guess but for now, the show does enough to keep things unpredictable, even if it isn’t quite as good as last week’s episode.