What We Do in the Shadows – Season 2 Episode 8 Recap & Review

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What We Do in the Shadows is one of the funniest comedies on TV right now and even when it has an off-day, the series still manages to produce the goods. This time around we receive an episode that does well to progress the main narrative of this second season while allowing more character-building for our familiar to seep into the story. With a nice resolution at the end and a decent amount of screen-time for Guillermo, the series leaves things open for where the final two episodes may go from here.

Episode 8 of What We Do in the Shadows begins with Laszlo realizing to his horror that someone has stolen his song and rewritten it as Come On Eileen. With Nadja by his side, he decides to start playing instruments again and as Colin catches wind of this, he encourages them to take it to a live audience. With his own motivations coming from using the crowd energy to feed, Colin takes them to an open mic night and feasts on the dwindling energy… until the pair find their groove and end things on a high.

At the same time, Nandor’s old familiar Benji arrives wanting to be turned into a vampire after all these years. Having served Nandor for years and now a shriveled old man, Guillermo tags along with Benji to the Monthly Familiar mix-up where he sees Celeste has been turned into a vampire. She’s creating a vampire community which entices Guillermo to weigh up his options. After asking Nandor whether he’ll make him a vampire and receiving a less than helpful response, he decides to take up Celeste’s offer. He says his goodbyes to Nandor and leaves, tears streaming down his face.

Things with Celeste don’t go well though as it turns out she isn’t a real vampire – she was just pretending given her master never intended to turn her into a vampire. Hurrying outside when Celeste’s master returns, Nandor allows Guillermo to return after admitting how much he’s missed him. Content that Nandor will one day turn him into a vampire, they head back home.

While the Laszlo and Nadja story doesn’t do a lot other than keep the pair busy for the duration of the episode, the real meat of this 22 minutes of comedy comes from Nandor and Guillermo’s story which helps to advance both characters and bring them both closer together. It’ll be interesting to see if the truth surrounding the extent of Guillermo’s vampire hunting or his lineage to Van Helsing is revealed to the family over the coming weeks.

The series continues to deliver the goods comedy-wise though and the song about the Olympics along with the cat familiar are easily the strongest bits of comedy here. Although not quite as good as some of the other episodes on offer, Shadows continues to conjure up a decent slice of comedy.

Published: 24 May 2020 at 12:39 pm on TheReviewGeek.com