What We Do in the Shadows: The Campaign (5x04)

I'm in a bit of a Good Omens coma at the moment so pardon me if this is rather a brief review!

Cons:

I guess I wanted a bit more of an understanding of where Lazlo was coming from with his behavior towards the people of Little Antipaxos. It seems like he's trying to impress them at first, but he belittles them and thinks they're all primitive idiots. Then, when they don't warm to him, he immediately goes hostile and tells them to fuck off. This from the man who refuses to set foot back in his homeland because they insulted his beautiful and perfect wife Nadja. I wish we could have seen this play out more from Lazlo's perspective, so we could see maybe that he's feeling insecure or strange about all the time Nadja is spending with these new friends, or something.

Pros:

That said, Lazlo and Nadja are still hilarious, and I did love the resolution, wherein Nadja's new friends think that Lazlo is a figure from their old folktales, a particularly foolish and mean-spirited oaf who brings good luck to those who are near him. That would be funny to see more stories about!

Nandor is trying to find new friends because Guillermo has been pulling away from him, refusing to hang out as much as they normally would. Nandor makes friends with a Jewish man named Alexander from the gym, but when the friendship progresses slower than he would like, he decides to get circumcised just to be more like him. Of course, what with vampire healing, his foreskin grows back immediately, so he ends up just flashing his dick at this guy he barely knows at the gym as an overture of friendship, which does not go well.

I'm living for the strange codependent bizarre nature of Nandor and Guillermo's relationship; they really seem to be leaning into it this season. Guillermo is avoiding him because he doesn't want Nandor to find out about the vampire thing, and Nandor is openly admitting how insecure this makes him feel, as he seeks out alternate companionship. Guillermo giving Nandor a circumcision? Are you kidding? They are the WEIRDEST people on the planet. I love that they get to go to a movie together in the end, even if Nandor is back to being super rude to Guillermo in the process.

And then in our main story, Colin is running for Comptroller, but only because giving speeches at meetings is a great opportunity for a mass feeding. He enlists the help of his old flame the emotion vampire Evie, who poses as his wife for his campaign. However, things take an interesting turn when a council of Energy Vampires declares that Colin needs to actually win, because his opponent wants to streamline government bureaucracy and do away with all the extra forms, which is the whole lifeblood of energy vampire kind! Colin doesn't want this, so he "accidentally" flashes and moons a bunch of voters on a Zoom call, meaning he has to drop out of the race. Evie takes over and wins on write-in votes, and ends their relationship.

I mean, Colin has one bit, and he does it really well, and it's almost always extremely funny. Meeting a bunch of other energy vampires and seeing them all play off each other was the best kind of comedic torture. The whole bit about going to the home screen and finding settings on the phone to silence alerts... I could feel my brain leaking out of my nose. I also love that Evie's gimmick is a variation. While Colin aims to bore you to death, Evie aims to depress you to death with her sad tales of woe. It's fun to see those two different vibes bounce off each other.

So there you go! A fun installment. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop with Guillermo's big transformation, but it's a fun ride to get there!

8/10