What We Do in the Shadows Episode 7 recap: Celebrity vampire reunion

Laszlo, Nadja, and Nandor are sent to trial for the death of the Baron and meet a group of famous vampires in the newest episode of What We Do in the Shadows.

We start where we left off in What We Do in the Shadows, with the Baron’s body a burnt rice crispy treat and our three vampire idiots completely unaware that he’s dead. They’re still high from the drugged blood they pigged out on and it takes them a while to realize what happened and even then, they can’t remember how it happened. They assume they killed him. Meanwhile, Guillermo, the true murderer, keeps quiet in the corner.

This episode isn’t called “The Trial” for no reason though. They must face the consequences of accidentally setting a house guest on fire after the Baron’s creepy familiar rats them out to the vampiric council.

The council, a political group so out of touch with modern methods that instead of making a simple phone call they send a hundred ravens to reenact the phone booth scene from The Birds as a way of sending an invitation. A council representative (Kristen Schaal) arrives at their doorstep not 10 minutes after the Baron’s funeral to summon them to court.

The council is responsible for keeping order among vampire society, and apparently, their HQ is in the basement of a regular office building. How no one notices this I do not know but then again, how many times does anyone actually explore the underground tunnels beneath a building?

The time spent with the council comes with a handful of hilarious celebrity cameos starting with Dave Bautista who is imprisoned for a crime Laszlo secretly committed 90 years ago (turning a baby into a vampire). He’s a vampire with a horrible wig named Garrett-just Garrett-who is Drax if Drax were an immortal Earthling.

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They’re taken into a room where the council members wait to set the scene for the greatest moment in the entire series. They perform a strange dance, in case the three vampires get the death sentence and it’s the last thing they see. That’s basically how I imagine drunk warlocks imitating mice would dance. As Laszlo put it, “this is very bizarre.”

However, it’s when the robes come off that the mouths start dropping because this isn’t a council meeting, it’s a reunion of celebrity vampires, including Vladislav, Viago, and Deacon (Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, and Jonathan Brugh) from the original What We Do in the Shadows film the series is based on.

Among them are those who played the fanged undead in prominent roles: Tilda Swinton from Only Lovers Left Alive, Even Rachel Wood from True Blood, Danny Tejo from From Dusk Till Dawn, Paul Reubens from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Wesley Snipes from the Blade Trilogy dropping in via Skype. In a meta fourth-wall breaking twist, they’re all playing themselves, except for Viago, Vladislav, and Deacon who are still the vampires from the film which was also a mockumentary.

What We Do in the Shadows seems to have opened the door for a mockumentary cinematic universe where actors who played famous vampires are really vampires moonlighting as actors. Several other famous vamps/actors who weren’t there got name dropped: “Kiefer” from Lost Boys, “Tom and Brad” from Interview With the Vampire, and “Rob” from the Twilight films.

If actors that play vampires are actually vampires, does that mean Rob Patterson is one of those energy-draining daylighter vampires? He can walk out in the sun without getting burnt, even though he sparkles but I think that still counts as a daylighter. Maybe he’s a different kind of vampire called a Twinkle-pire.

Guillermo and the life of a familiar

While the vampires go through their trial proceedings, Guillermo is sent to the familiar waiting room, yet another dumpy luxury the familiars are generously granted. One is a man in his 80s, maybe even 90s, who has served his master for 70 years and still is no closer to becoming a vampire then when he started.

This story, along with the other familiars admitting that they’ve never met a transformed familiar, tells Guillermo that Nandor never had any intention to turn him into a vampire. You’d think this would make him mad, but the truth either hasn’t processed with him yet or he’s taking a new route in convincing Nandor.

Despite this revelation, Guillermo tries to save his master and friends by telling the council that he killed the Baron. Only they don’t believe him.

The verdict

Guillermo and the Baron’s familiar both testify but, in the end, Nandor admits that he, Nadja and Laszlo killed the Baron in order to spare Guillermo a death sentence, proving that he really does appreciate his cute little servant after all.

The sentence is death by the method their victim was murdered, sunlight, so they’re put in a hole where sunlight will burn them upon morning. Three burned bodies sit across from them in a depressing reminder of what they will look like in a few minutes.

Amidst all the crying and regretful confessions, Laszlo blurts out a Jack the Ripper confession, but the others couldn’t care less, and they continue crying until Colin Robinson and Guillermo appear with a large umbrella blocking the sunlight. They all go home unscathed.

I have no idea how they’ll explain this to the council, but they didn’t seem that desperate to carry out the kill order anyway, so I doubt they’d really care. It’ll be one of those funny memories they’ll talk about years later, “remember when I ordered for you, your wife, and your roommate to die? Haha, good times, good times.”

On another note, Guillermo finds himself incidentally becoming a vampire killer. First, he burned the Baron and then while escaping the council chambers, he pushed a vampire against the wall and accidentally staked him on a torch holder. Guillermo the familiar a.k.a the new Van Helsing.

The next episode of What We Do in the Shadows airs Wednesday night on 10:00 p.m. EST on FX.