What We Do in the Shadows Episode 8 recap: A homeless vampire in America

Nandor wants to be an American citizen and Nadja teaches the LARPer Jenna how to be a proper vampire in the latest episode of FX’s What We Do in the Shadows.

This episode of What We Do in the Shadows brings back Jenna, the naive LARPer girl Nadja turned in “City Council”. As her vampiric transformation is nearly complete, Nadja takes it upon herself to guide her into the new world of vampires while Nandor struggles with applying for American citizenship after going through an emotional crisis.

Really, I’m sure this is a problem all vampires struggle with at some point, the issue of homesickness (and going through puberty a second time but that’s for later). It’s only a matter of time before your country, state or city is either renamed, conquered or totally destroyed and that’s bound to bring about some sad feelings. Nandor experiences just this as he’s told that his home country, Al Qualanudar, was decimated in 1401.

This news devastates him, and he realizes that he is a vampire without a home, even though he hasn’t been there in 618 years and was rightfully run out by peasants for pillaging and mass murder. All he has left of Al Qualanudar is a bag of soil he treats like precious treasure until he accidentally drops it on the floor. Whoops.

An Al Qualanudaran vampire in America

In order to stop Nandor from crying about the fact that he’s homeless like a total drama queen, Guillermo suggests that he apply for American citizenship, which Nandor interprets as a pledge of alliance to the New World and he jumps for it.

Nandor had already applied for citizenship back in 1992 in order to pledge his devotion to the 1992 United States Men’s Olympic Basketball team because, who would’ve believed it, he’s a mega basketball fan, but he stopped halfway through the process. Now, it’s time for another try and it’s up to Guillermo to train him.

Has anyone ever seen that episode of That 70’s Show where Red tries to teach Fez how to be an American for his Green Card test? Well, this is basically the same, only funnier. When asked who George Washington was, Nandor replies, “America’s first gay president.”

Jenna learns the ropes

Jenna is struggling with her newfound vampiric powers that have caused a major disruption in her life. She can’t go to class, especially her religion history class, and thanks to the sporadic levitation she does during the day, her roommate is starting to suspect something.

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The transformation, which causes strange cravings and mood swings, is compared to the transition that is puberty as Nadja tries to have “the talk” with her young prodigy and show her how to control her physical and emotional changes. Still a fledgling, Jenna only needs a little human blood to complete the transformation, but Nadja wants to teach her how to be a vampire first before becoming full-fledged undead bloodsucker.

The lessons go about as well as Nandor’s history test. Jenna’s a below average vampire who can’t seduce or hypnotize and doesn’t even have a special power the way Nadja states all vampires have to excel their hunting (Nadja can climb walls). She can’t even turn into a bat properly. Instead of a bat, she turns into something that’s half and half. A ridiculously large bat body with a bald human-like head like something that belongs in Hotel Transylvania.

In the meantime, Guillermo and Nandor are still at the house going over their history lessons when Guillermo sees Jenna for the first time and instantly hates her. He’s angry that Nadja turned a random into a vampire when he can’t even get Nandor to discuss the topic with him.

Nandor knows about as much as Jon Snow

At the Department of Immigration, Nandor tries hypnotizing the caseworker into just handing him citizenship but finds that all government employees are too dead inside to be hypnotized. A trip down to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services must be like Thanksgiving to Colin Robinson then.

Nandor knows nothing about America or the Constitution and is unable to say the Oath of Alliance without his mouth catching fire when he says “God.” In other words, everything that can go wrong in an interview for citizenship does go wrong and he fails the test. What did he expect when he said he was born sometime during the 1200s?

At first, he’s moping over his defeat, but Guillermo demands he man up and the big baby gets over it. He’s not an American citizen, but he’s a cool vampire with cool powers and a cool cape, he doesn’t need to be an American.

Frat party

Nadja takes Jenna to a frat party to spread her bat wings because everyone there is a drunk a*****e. During the party, Jenna discovers that she has the power of invisibility and has her first kill of the night, a guy who was wearing sunglasses indoors like all egotistical idiots and spilled a drink on her without apology.

The look on Nadja’s face is pure joy, she’s so proud of her little offspring. It’d be sweet if it weren’t for the dead body lying on the ground. How will the camera crew later explain why they stood by and let multiple deaths go unreported after their vampire documentary is released? They’re literally recording people die and do nothing about it. Maybe they’re in a trance.

Nadja sends Jenna on her away, saying she is a powerful vampire now. But before she goes, Jenna grabs two motorcycle helmets to use as she saw in Blade so they can watch the sunrise together, but it burns them anyway and they run inside (Nadja needs to have a talk with fellow vampire Wesley Snipes on that misrepresentation later).

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