Highlights and review of What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 4: The Campaign
On the fourth episode in the fifth season of the award-winning vampire mockumetary series What We Do in the Shadows, the energy vampire Colin Robinson tries to run for comptroller and finds out that he really really needs to win the position for local office.
Highlights and review of What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 4: Mr. Robinson for comptroller
Everybody’s got a boss and every so often, the team behind this show likes to show us that, hey even immortal and monstrous vampires have bosses that need to be pleased so they can continue their, uh, “unlife.”
It turns out that Colin Robinson has decided to run for comptroller and he opens the episode sitting in the middle of his campaign office.
This is in the wake of their neighbor Sean, after events in episode three, needing to drop out of the comptroller race because of the totally unfair and tyrannical law that says Staten Island candidates can’t have “more than nine DUIs. Most Staten Island officers only have two or three.”
Of course Colin isn’t running to win, rather it’s because every campaign sortie is a great opportunity to feed, draining spectators and voters of their energies.
He’s up against human politico Barbara Lazarro, stiff competition since she’s prime Staten pedigree but nevertheless the opportunity for a “mega drain” is extremely motivating to our usually blasé energy vamp.
Highlights and review of What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 4: Nandor and a tandem feed
Meantime, Guillermo has been avoiding Nandor so the vampire has taken to going to the gym alone to ostensibly work out, but really to meet new friends because he’s been pretty obviously lonely.
In this hunt for a new companion, he ends up befriending a Jewish guy. Next night he’s flexing his Hebrew to the rest of the house. But Alexander isn’t really into Nandor, as we see when they both go to movie night, mostly sensing the loneliness of the vamp and taking pity on him.
Back to Colin’s campaign, he needs a trophy wife to present a more reasonable human front. So he reunites with his emotional vampire ex-girlfriend Evie at a local break-up support group.
The reunion scene is pretty over the top. The two vamps delight in draining the attending patients by playing out every hackneyed fantasy there ever was in any kind of toxic ex reunion. It’s a like a tandem feed with these two in the trough of romance movie cliches.
Highlights and review of What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 4: Antipaxan fam blues
Meantime, Nadja has been ingratiating herself with a family in Little Antipaxos. Laszlo is jealous of all this and exerts efforts to ingratiate himself with Nadja’s little mortal fam project.
After a great feeding time at debate night for the comptroller campaign, Evie and Colin get kidnapped by brown-clad dudes from a white van.
In what’s so far pretty lackluster episode the story takes a turn for the better when the two vamps are presented to the Supreme Council of Energy Vampires.
This is the best scene and plot twist! Not only are the council members great comedians like Gregg Turkington, Aparna Nacherla, and Hannibal Buress but they display a masterclass in draining by feeding on their fellow vamps Colin and Evie.
Colin is torn between admiration and enervation.
Highlights and review of What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 4: Meet the energy vamp big bosses
Inside a basement office space among hundreds of filing cabinets and under awful flourescent lights, the council holds court, a stark contrast from the bloodsucking council that presents themselves in Old World trappings of royalty and wealth.
What the council want is for Colin to actually win the race for comptroller since his enemy Lazarro is jonesing to replace the local bureaucracy with the effectiveness of the interwebs.
She’s got to go since she’s threatening to destroy bureaucracy aka “the lifeblood of energy vampires” aka “the gum that clogs the gears of every human endeavor. “What follows is a hella funny attempt by the blasé Colin Robinson to become a pleasant and passionate JFK.
Highlights and review of What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 4: Colin gives up
The other gags that fall just dead end short on this episode are Nandor getting circumcized for his new Jewish friend and Laszlo trying to wee Nadja’s Antipaxan adopted family. It’s only Colin screwing up accidentally on purpose his campaign that elevates this episode.
What does Evie do when Colin reveals little Robinson on a Zoom meeting (“Oh, it’s not what it looks like. I was just beating off to all of your beautiful faces during the break!”)? She pounces right on the opportunity and simply takes the job for herself!
It’s the ultimate commentary on replaceable bureaucracy in which the more things change the more the vampires in office really just do stay the same. As the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Energy Vampires declared in a flat tone “All hail bureaucracy.”
Also. Shudder asks us to play the Elevator Game in September. light