What We Do In The Shadows S5: Why Laszlo's Episode 3 Discovery Is A Game Changer
Contains spoilers for "What We Do in the Shadows" Season 5 Episode 3 — "Pride Parade"
Nobody is here to pretend that the vampires on "What We Do in the Shadows" are a bunch of geniuses. In fact, it's part of the point of the show that they're actually pretty dim-witted — but in the third episode of the show's fifth season, Laszlo (Matt Berry) makes a major discovery that could completely change the game on the series.
After finding out that Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), familiar to Nandor (Kayvan Novak), broke vampiric protocol by asking someone other than his master to change him due to his own impatience, Laszlo is horrified — but he's also stuck keeping Guillermo's secret. In the process, though, he does a little study of his own, collecting Guillermo's sweat and applying it to his face during the season's third episode, titled "Pride Parade." So what does this do? It allows him to go outside during the day and exist in the sunlight without dying, though he does get a truly insane sunburn that turned his face a violent shade of red. The fact that Guillermo's sweat, affected by his slow transition into a vampire, can provide this benefit is pretty incredible, and it could lead to bigger and better things for "What We Do in the Shadows."
This could open up a new world for Laszlo and the other vampires...
On the one hand, this could create a ton of new narrative possibilities for Laszlo, Nandor, Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), and even Guillermo, even though he can't admit he's a vampire yet. Out of the whole gang, the only one who can walk in the daylight is Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), an "energy vampire" who basically gains his strength by bumming people out really badly — so giving the vampires an entirely new playground to explore could be extremely fun.
In the episode, Laszlo apparently spends the entirety of his day outside with no ill effects other than his beet-red sunburn, and since this was only his test run in the sun, he could try and improve his efforts next time. This gives the vampires so many more possible plotlines; they could spend the day at the zoo or the beach, and they might not need to lock themselves away in their dark house until the sun sets each day. There are a few issues, though. Not only will Laszlo eventually have to explain where he's getting this magical cure — because, as you probably recall, Guillermo's status as a vampire is still a total secret because both he and Nandor face death otherwise — but there's an important thing we all need to remember about how vampires "work" on "What We Do in the Shadows."
...but nobody seems to notice these vampires are vampires anyway
Focusing too much on the vampire gang going outside would ultimately betray one of the show's funniest running gags, though — which is the fact that none of the humans around them ever seem to notice that they're vampires, even though they're all very obviously vampires. None of them bother to hide their fangs in public, they all dress like they're from another time (because they are), they can't eat or drink anything other than blood or flesh, and they're constantly referencing things that happened hundreds of years ago.
The fact that these vampires constantly interact with humans who don't point out their fangs or anything else is one of the funniest parts of the show, and even though the vampires are all capable of hypnosis, they don't use it constantly — which indicates that humans are just looking at their fangs and not saying anything. "What We Do in the Shadows" doesn't take vampire lore seriously at all, so while it will be fun to give them more to do during the day, it probably won't change that much about this delightfully silly series.
"What We Do in the Shadows" airs on Thursdays on FXX and on Hulu the following morning.