Highlights and review of What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 6: Urgent Care

On the sixth episode in the fifth season of the award-winning vampire mockumetary series What We Do in the Shadows, Guillermo has gotten into a pickle and gets injured so Nadja takes him to see the hospice for familiars to the top specialist in ghoul care on Staten Island.

When the episode opens, Laszlo has become more and more fascinated with Guillermo’s very slow transformation into vampirism. So he’s taken to injecting some animals with the young man’s blood. Among the products are three very hairy frogs with rudimentary telekinesis.

When Laszlo throws them off the balcony they float and levitate before they hit the floor. Interesting bit, but my main takeaway is that the frogs really do have Latino pompadours like Yermo’s.

Laszlo urges Guillermo to test his improving levitation and make like the frogs: jump off the balcony and fly before he hits the floor. Nervous but convinced the familiar just exactly as the English vampire bids…and does it. He floats at the top of the balcony like his feet are tethered to the second floor.

Problem is, his victory lap in the air is broken by the sound of Nandor’s voice calling him. He falls and breaks his leg, foot quite absurdly twisted.

What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 6: Way too interesting to hunt

Colin Robinson comes in with a beauty of a black eye and everyone turns to him, forgetting the injured familiar. Apparently a plane’s frozen waste landed on a Ferrari and blew the side view mirror into Colin’s face. The black eye now makes him too interesting, which means he’s been unable to drain anyone, making him very hungry.

Laszlo straps Nandor and Colin to his steampunky energy transference machine to feed the energy vamp but Nandor begs off, suggesting instead that they put make-up on Colin’s eye and seeing if that works to make him boring again.

All made up, Colin and Nandor take to the streets. Colin tries to drain some pedestrians in front of an outdoor diner but a car runs over his foot. This gets him hopping in pain and, when the folks pull out their phones to record his awkward dance of agony, he’s way too interesting to do any hunting.

When the guy with the car comes back to see if he can help, turns out it’s John Slattery from Mad Men (the silverfox). The situation has just doubled in interest factor and Colin is going viral on social media. Curse you, TikTok.

As the celebrity cajoles them to let him take them to a hospital, Nandor suggests to Colin that they have the guy take them home and he drains him on the way. Sounds like a perfect plan.

What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 6: The familiar doctor

Meantime, Nadja takes pity on poor Guillermo (or more like Nandor saddles her with him) and so she takes him to go see the urgent care for familiars.

They head on over to a 24-hours veterinary facility, obviously a front for the familiar medical center. Behind an illusory wall, Nadja drives Guillermo (who’s in a shopping cart) straight into it, scaring the young half-vamp. As if he’s not nervous enough that anyone else will find out he’s been bitten.

What’s interesting is that when the front desk instructs her where to go, Nadja says she knows the way, saying she’s been here before. But with who? When did she have a familiar?

Behind the fake wall it’s like Saw meets Frankenstein’s lab if it were an organ theft workshop. Two Nosferatu looking assistants in lab coats with cages around their heads knock out Yermo with a dose of…something and the doctor takes him away.

What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 6: Slattery’s flattery

In the car with the Mad Men star, Colin tries his level best to be boring and get a draining. But Slattery is apparently a great fan of accents and he just finds Colin’s so fascinating. As the ride goes on it becomes apparent that he’s taking them to Brooklyn instead of back to their neighborhood.

Wait, could Slattery be an energy vamp himself? Nandor and Colin say screw it and just jump out of the moving car.

Back at the clinic, the doctor tells Nadja that Guillermo’s healing up nicely but he still has blood work he needs to re-rest. She decides it’s just better to take him home rather than have them find his Van Helsing blood when they re-test.

But the doctor has found something worse. The test confirms that the familiar is now a vampire and obviously unregistered, so the lab assistants take him away.

What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 6: Nobody kills Gizmo…but us

Nadja can’t believe her ears, but she’ll be damned if they kill him. She knocks out the doc with a powerful telekinetic scream and, with a nod to the docu crew, runs after Guillermo.

Inside one of the back rooms she runs into The Guide, who says she volunteers at the clinic part time, taking care of the strays. Nadja finally finds Yermo strapped to an upright restraining bed. She fights off the lab assistants easily but then the doctor comes in and she has a harder time fighting him and his syringe of death.

Fortunately, Guillermo’s drugs are wearing off and he helps Nadja. Together they take down the doctor and exit the clinic.

Colin is near death and so Nandor carries him into a convenience store to feed on some hapless shoppers. Turns out the place is being robbed at gunpoint though, which will make it way harder to feed. But the thief recognizes Colin from TikTok, so distracted the store owner knocks out the robber and thanks the vampires.

Nandor eventually takes Colin home and he’s not looking good at all. Laszlo puts them back in his steampunk machine and voila Colin is re-energized. However, Nandor looks like he’s been hit by a Mack truck.

What We Do in the Shadows season 5 episode 6: Colin’s real name?

To put the energy back into his friend, Colin tells him that his real name is Arthur Simon Santino. Yeah, the initials spell ASS.

With everyone mostly back to a healthy normal, Guillermo with a fancy leg brace, Nadja is going bonkers with Laszlo keeping the familiar’s secret. They narrowly avoid Nandor finding out. Nadja covers for him and Nandor is very timely distracted by one of the flying, hairy frogs from Laszlos experiments.

One of the more exciting and lively episodes with great pacing and very cool reveals into the vampire world. I mean, whodathunk there’d be a doctor that caters just to familiars and their unique biology? Like a pet doctor in the real world.

When will the other shoe drop for Guillermo’s secret though? Sometime during this season, I hope, because I would dearly love to see the consequences when Nandor actually finds out.

You can stream season 5 of What We Do in the Shadows on Disney+