#nandor the absolute moron

[kayanne369]

WWDITS Episode 4 and 5: Favourite parts

Still the theme song.

Nandor playing Aeroplane with Guillermo in front of the mirror so it looks like he's flying. So damn cute, oh, god.

Literally everything that happens as a result of the cursed hat.

The hat in general. Some Ed Gein shit right there.

Simon. Just in general. More Simon please.

Guillermo smirking at the camera when he comes across the sex room.

The entire premise of episode 5. Like, it's both ridiculous and weirdly realistic cause the main issue of story isn't the immediate danger but the fact that Lazlo and Nandor have like one braincell between them and the only female of the group just waltzes in and fixes it in five seconds. It's such a mood. Like...SUCH a mood.

The fact that the camera guy was already in the animal control van. Why didn't they help?

"Ooh, I'm immortal. Well, how about you be immortal at brunch."

[superectojazzmage]

I made a post back when the previous season of What We Do In The Shadows ended (which I can’t seem to find now, thanks for nothing, Tumblr) discussing how it ended the way it did because the whole central theme of the show is really how bad people trap themselves in Hells of their own making where nothing ever changes for the better because they refuse to make the effort to work on their flaws and how, once you cut through the jokes and metaphor, it’s really a show about a group of social parasites slowly destroying whatever joy they could have in life because they’re too set in their toxic ways to do even the bare minimum of treating other people decently, let alone actually doing something good with their lives.

And I bring this up, because the season premiere, I think, just drove the point home EVEN HARDER. Because despite everything that happened in the previous season, the vampires and Guillermo have ended up literally directly back at square fucking one. After everything, every zany scheme, every wacky adventure, every interaction with others, they’ve wound up right back where they started as they always do; puttering around the same shitty old mansion they’ve been in for years. They destroy every possible escape from that godforsaken house and no matter what they try, they inevitably drift back to it because it’s the only place for a group of people like them.

Nandor is still doing stupid shit because of how stuck in the past he is and still burying his feelings constantly. Lazlo is still a bungling moron who’s not nearly as skilled as he thinks he is and still has nobody to hang out with socially except his wife and Sean. Nadja is still whining about never getting what she wants after having literally burned down the best thing to happen to her in years. Colin is still leeching off everyone around him with no meaning in his life except boring others and he doesn’t even remember how Lazlo cared for him while he was regenerating. Even Guillermo FINALLY getting turned into a vampire changed absolutely nothing about his life; the process isn’t working like it’s supposed to — probably because of his vampire hunter bloodline — and nothing has improved about his life. He’s still just playing butler to the vamps and getting nothing but disrespect for it.

I love this show, man. It’s an absolutely brilliant deconstruction of the whole concept of sitcoms, pointing out how toxic, pathetic, and weird a group of friends in real life who do nothing but making snarky comments for a nonexistent camera and getting into wacky situations would be, while at the same time being a legitimately hilarious example of the genre. If it weren’t a silly comedy about vampires, it’d probably be a hard-hitting drama about a bunch of drug addicts squatting in a dilapidated rental being toxic to each other and only leaving to go on benders they don’t even remember after and that is oddly brilliant.

[d20bunny]

I really do think Astarion would have so much fun if he had friends like Nandor and co in What We Do In The Shadows and just joined their little vampire coven of absolute bafoonery. Between Nadja's batshit bloodlust, Lazlo's bisexual horndogness and Colin's intellectualism I think he would make great friends there. He would feel way less alone in the world and have a lot of moron friends to bat around with. This is honestly the cross over I didn't think I would need, but really do need. Also he needs a vampire found family. Honestly. Nandor and Guillermo are like so wholesome. Astarion is a sad meow meow who needs to learn to how to live life free and learn how to love everything about life again, and who better to learn from than these morons who love killing, and sex, and just doing dumb crap but who protect each other fiercely and who have nice normy human neighbours that they charm and hang out with occasionally. Plus Nadja shits on other vampires for having bad fashion sense. Astarion would love the drama. And the hissing.

[whathellandfuck]

anyway wwdits s4e5 private school might be my favorite episode of the series yet. gay shenanigans. absolutely moronic tomfoolery. just the stupidest most nonsensical nothing plot in the world. and then at the last minute we find out both Guillermo AND nadja are embezzling from the club. meanwhile nandor and laszlo are yelling about reaming each other. zero notes.

[hungry-hobbits]

i'm just gonna crosspost my wwdits ep 9 rant from twitter to here so excuse/ignore the formatting cos i'm too lazy to change it but like:

absolutely fucked what they did to marwa and guillermo ep9 - like i dont understand why any modicum of character development nandor gets has to be nerfed by the fact that he just wont grow up from an unchanging uncaring moron who chooses not to see his actions are wrong

nandor is my favorite and its misery inducing to see any positive change in his personality continue to get erased by him doing something twice as fucked up than the last thing he did EVERY season. any growth and love and friendship between guillermo and nandor is always ruined by nandor. and at this point i'm like - if nandermo doesnt become canon thats fine, i'm not one of those babies crying about being "queerbaited" (what) by the writers because they thought this was the "nandermo show" and not a show about 5+ separate people

like i'm so sad that they hinted at freddie all season, finally had guillermo come out, then used the 2nd to last ep to not only introduce but do away with freddie and ruin guillermo's life again - AT THE EXPENSE OF RUINING MARWA'S LIFE TOO?? WTF DID SHE DO???

i dont necessarily agree with the people saying that nadja got fucked over for no reason because she was taking heavy advantage of baby colin and was abusing all of her workers and acted like the club would work w/out colin or the wraiths and was *SO* awful to them, i think the biggest issue w nadja is that like nandor she really benefitted from zero character development. out of everyone its laszlo who actually got *better* which is saying something considering his past actions. like even guillermo didnt really get much development - okay sure he came out which i love but i mean he still wont be independent, ultimately unless the last ep changes this he'll just stay in the pattern of leaving and coming back over and over because nandor manages to nice his way back into guillermo's good graces somehow

i have hopes for seasons 5 and 6 that maybe guillermo will finally start truly standing up for himself re: lasz and nadja, but esp nandor and FORCE nandor to make good on his promise - with or without the caveat of nandermo potentially becoming canon. like nandermo becoming canon isnt why i watch the show, its a fun little "will they/won't they" that's been hinted @ bcos of their strange relationship - believe it or not people can have weird sexual tension *without* ever ending up together, that doesnt mean you were lied to

anyway i mean overall i enjoyed the season, it has numerous numerous great moments and hopefully ep10 will make the misery and woe of ep9 pay off in some way or else we're gonna have to wait a year or two to see how that pans out...............

[rallamajoop]

What We Do In The Shadows

So (surprising probably no-one) I, er, would seem to have tripped and fallen into yet another vampire canon.

To chuck the elevator-pitch for why-you-should-ABSOLUTELY-watch-this-show up top: it is laugh-out-loud hilarious, gleefully queer, and still manages to be both brilliantly paced and just so wonderfully satisfying on a narrative level too. (And you’d better believe I am going to end up writing the most ridiculous smut for this thing that I have created since I last wrote for Deadpool, you see if I don’t!)

This whole thing is so very much my jam that it might surprise you to know how long it took the-friend-who-got-me-into-it to convince me to give it a go. Terrific as the original 2014 film was, I couldn’t imagine how a regular TV series could hope to capture that same tone and level of brilliance. It had to be a mistake even to try, surely?

Rarely have I been so thrilled to be so wrong.

In some not-insignificant ways, What We Do In The Shadows the show is even better than even the film, which – great as it legitimately was – was a bit much of a sausage-fest for my preferences. Whereas the show gives us the magnificent Nadja, billed right up there with the top cast:

Who I am pleased to say is a) every bit as much of a lovably ridiculous moron as all the rest of her housemates, and b) allowed to be horny AF without ever being treated in a skeezy, male-gazey way.

(And it kind of has to be said – one female character out of five mains is still pretty much the bare minimum. But with so many more memorable female characters rounding out the guest cast and with how much the household has come to feel like two-couples-plus-Colin-Robinson, I’m not sure I’d could tell you I’d want it any other way.)

And then there’s how gloriously queer this show is, which is just YES. Vampires have not been this openly pansexual since they heyday of Anne Rice (may she rest in peace / rise again, whichever seems more appropriate). But then, I could happily give anyone willing to stand still long enough this whole spiel on how the entire vampire literary tradition has always been so a lot queerer than it gets credit for – and if you’re going to do a spoof like WWDITS, not acknowledging that front-and-centre would be a crime. Which WWDITS has obvious not committed, given how every vampire (and many of the humans) on this show seem to exist on a spectrum starting at “at least heteroflexible” and going upwards from there.

And just for a change, our most enthusiastically equal-opportunity character is one of the dudes.

Meet Laszlo, who has been on screen maybe two minutes in the first episode before we’re hearing the charming tale of the time he and his wife both cheated on each other with the same man.

(And who I had to stare at way too long before realising I was recognising him as the boss from the IT Crowd, who is somewhere very far down the list of “actors I least suspected would someday play my new favourite bi male character,” but hell is he perfect in the role.)

As much as all the queer-rep talk about this show tends to focus on the Nandor/Guillermo not-even-subtext-anymore (and-I-mean-was-it-ever?), Laszlo still takes the prize for being not so much out-and-proud as horny-and-does-not-give-a-fuck.

But as much as I love Nadja and Laszlo (and, you know, EVERYONE), I’d have to admit that WWDITS is, to me, still pretty much The Guillermo Show, starring Guillermo.

(Yeah, like a Van Helsing descendent whose wardrobe consists mostly of cardigans and Serious Business vests was ever gonna be a hard sell to me.)

Though he starts out as the vampires’ awkward, much abused live-in slave “familiar”, Guillermo’s character arc – as he discovers a nigh-supernatural knack for vampire-slaying, develops some self-respect, and finally starts demanding and getting it – has been easily the best part of what was already a truly excellent show (and not least because Harvey Guillen turns out to be unexpectedly brilliant at action scenes).

Of course, you can’t talk about Guillermo without also talking about his twisted relationship with Nandor (the master he is so obviously in love with from the very first episode), and boy has that been a ride.

Over three seasons, I’ve gone from “oh, Guillermo, you can do better,” to “if this show DOESN’T end with them fucking happily ever after, I do not know what I am going to do.” Which is always a kind of nerve-wracking place to be in with a gay ship on mainstream TV – even on a show that seems to be so very eager to go there – but there, we can only wait, gnaw our fingernails, and see how far The Powers That Be are going to let this go.

And there are just so many things in this show that should not work, but do. For example:

The casual attitude to murder. These vampires produce the kind of innocent body-count that could only work in a comedy, but the fact they remain so lovable throughout still kind of blows my mind. And it’s not like death doesn’t matter on this show: Guillermo has never been comfortable being an accessory to so much murder, and he’s more than once been reminded that these are people his masters eat (even people he knows and cares about, sometimes) and all that implies. By all logic, that should tumble this straight into dark tragedy – how on earth does this show manage to balance all that baggage and still stay so light-hearted? I am more sensitive to this sort of thing than many (The Good Place has some brilliant writing, for example, and I still struggled with the horrifying subtext where this is a world where effectively everyone goes to hell) and yet WWDITS pulls it all off without a hitch. That’s a tonal balancing act worthy of some sort of oscar.  

For such a dumbass sitcom mockumentary, this thing is surprisingly and adorably affirmational. It’s not just Guillermo, going from pudgy, forgotten butt-monkey to certified badass – you’ve also got smaller players like Jenna, the awkward, nervous, LARPer nerd, who gets singled out by Nadja, and follows a similar of 0-to-awesome arc in much less time. People who look like Jenna don’t get arcs like that, if they even appear on TV at all. It’s fantastic what the mockumentary format lets you do. Then you have characters like Gail, who has been on-again, off-again with Nandor for 40 years (but still isn’t ready to settle down), putting her well into her 60’s – and he’s still just as eager to go for another round. Or the scene where all those witches revert to their ‘true’ (ie. aged) selves, and Nandor and Laszlo’s instant reactions are “still into it.” Like, you know how the original movie ends with Viago getting back together with his now-geriatric ex and not caring one bit that she’s aged? That’s clearly still the whole ethos of this franchise, and I love it.  

 Did I mention how ridiculously horny the whole vampire world is, without the show ever feeling creepy because of it? Because I feel that deserves to be mentioned again.  

Colin Robinson the Energy Vampire. You know we had to get to him eventually. Because Colin is exactly the sort of gag character who should get old fast, and yet somehow never does – if anything, he does the show a massive service just by giving them a whole other genre of comedy potential to tap into.  

And for all the death and stupidity and other nonsense, maybe the best thing that’s carried on from the movie is just how unashamedly heart-warming this show can be. It would be so easy to take this gang of murderous idiots and let us laugh at how hateable they are – heck, you could probably still get great TV out of that angle – but they don’t, and I love them for it.

In short: you should watch this thing.

As of writing, it’s at three seasons and counting (season 4 due out around April, I believe), with each season consisting of 10 twenty minute-ish episodes. It’s available on Hulu (I believe) in the US, on Binge here in AU, and I have to say, it is almost too bingeable viewing (seriously, I watched the whole thing in a weekend and slightly regretted it afterwards). The original 2014 film (if you haven’t seen it already) is worth tracking down, but not essential viewing to follow the show. As always, I can only speculate whether later seasons are going to be able to keep up the amazing standard they’ve set for themselves so far – but I have to say, they’d have to sink like a stone to lose me now.

(I do feel it badly needs more lesbian vampires. But considering that my review of many adaptations of Carmilla would probably go “needs more lesbian vampires” you may take that as you will.)