What We Do In The Shadows Season 5 Episode 3's Harry Potter Homage Explained
Contains spoilers for "What We Do in the Shadows" Season 5, Episode 3 — "Pride Parade"
Body horror goes hand in hand with being (or meeting) a vampire, but "What We Do in the Shadows" Season 5 episode "Pride Parade" takes things to the next level — at least as far as Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) are concerned. When Nadja's ghost (Demetriou) convinces her to switch corporeal forms, the vampire Nadia is stuck in the doll form as the ghost one refuses to give her body back. To solve the situation, Colin Robinson — who's already up to his neck in the situation — comes up with a novel solution: He asks The Guide (Kristen Schaal) to transfer his mind to Nadia's vampire body, too.
This begins as your ordinary "two minds in one body" shenanigans, but "What We Do in the Shadows" being the show it is, things soon escalate when the back of Nadia's head grows a Colin Robinson face and the two start struggling for control ... but still keep things amicable enough to perform the world's strangest duet in Sean's (Anthony Atamanuik) Pride party. The effect is unnerving, to say the least — not that it bothers Lazslo (Matt Berry) in the slightest. It's also extremely reminiscent of the classic villain reveal scene in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," where the mild-mannered Professor Quirinus Quirrell (Ian Hart) turns out to be hiding Lord Voldemort's (Hart and Richard Bremmer) face under his sizeable turban.
A Harry Potter homage with hints of Malignant
The biggest reveal of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is that its villain isn't Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), but the Voldemort-controlled Quirrell. The revelation that Nadja is now running around with a hidden Colin Robinson face in the back of her head isn't quite as sinister and is played entirely for laughs, but the apparent mechanics of Colin Robinson controlling Nadja's body also seems like a nod at something even more wicked than He Who Must Not Be Named.
The villain of James Wan's "Malignant," Gabriel (Marina Mazepa and Ray Chase), is a twisted parasitic twin whose face is hiding in the back of Madison Mitchell's (Annabelle Wallis) head, and who operates her body backward. Though Colin Robinson is obviously quite a bit less monstrous in appearance, her face suddenly emerging from Nadia's hair is reminiscent of Gabriel, and it's not exactly outside the realm of possibility that a horror-comedy like "What We Do in the Shadows" would pay homage to "Malignant," as well.
Whether Colin Robinson's back-of-the-head adventures in "Pride Parade" are a homage to Voldemort or Gabriel — or, most likely, both — the energy vampire is certainly in good company when it comes to famous movie monsters.