When What We Do In The Shadows began, the idea of Daddy Laszlo was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Zaddy, more like it. But as we rolled into season 4 of the FX series, we quickly saw Matt Berry’s Laszlo going from “ladies’ man of the night” to a father, desperately trying to make his son cool (while still being madly in love with Nadja, of course).
At the end of season 3, Laszlo was about to go with Nadja to be a part of the Vampiric Council, and Guillermo and Nandor were going on their own journey together. However, Laszlo realized, right before the trip, that Colin Robinson’s death resulted in a new being crawling out of the remains of his body. This new…being (Laszlo refuses to call him “Colin Robinson”) forced Laszlo to change his plans. The finale of season 3 features Laszlo tricking Guillermo into going with Nadja, and Nandor thinking that Guillermo abandoned him. Thus, Laszlo’s left to care for this boy all on his own. And what we get at the start of season 4, is Daddy Laszlo, and it’s honestly some of the best character development for Laszlo yet.
Learning to embrace his “son”
One of the more interesting aspects of Laszlo’s relationship with “the being that crawled out of the hole in Colin Robinson” is the fact that Laszlo has had to come to terms with the fact that his “son” doesn’t like the same things he does. In episodes 3 and 4, Laszlo slowly has to learn how to deal with this. In episode 3, the boy shows an interest in LEGOs, and then, Laszlo’s worst nightmare: Musical Theatre. “A gutter pantomime, performed by half-wits with painted faces, enjoyed by lower wits,” Laszlo says in the episode. And yet, when it continues to be something that the boy likes, it seems as if Laszlo is less aggressive about his hatred for it. It helps that the boy also wowed the audience of Nadja’s nightclub with a tap performance and became the Vampire Night Club’s premiere entertainer.
Laszlo’s fear is that one day the boy will have a Sondheim lyric for every occasion, and then, at the end of the episode, he says to Laszlo, “You were raised to be charming, not sincere” which is based on a line from Into the Woods. But it also is a sweet scene—because Laszlo says to the boy that he knows he will be boring, but that he is a better man than him.
A new side of Laszlo
We were used to seeing charming and quick-witted Matt Berry play Laszlo as this sexed-up man who loved talking about sex and particularly loved talking about sex with Natasia Demetriou’s Nadja. In the first few seasons, a lot of the focus in character development went to Nandor (Kayvan Novak) and whatever he was going through. Sure, it was always fun when Laszlo was around, but he didn’t really start to change (for the better) until he realized that Colin Robinson was dying.
He began to care more and we could see how upset he was that Colin was dying—despite how mean he’d been to him throughout the first three seasons of the show. So, seeing him take on the role of “father” to this child isn’t just fun because it’s my favorite kind of trope—Irresponsible Man Adopts Small Child—but it’s also a great look into how Laszlo is growing as a character.
Old Laszlo wouldn’t have been open about anything really, especially not with Colin Robinson. And so, in episode 3, when he’s talking to the boy about what his father was like, we got a unique look into him as a human (prior to his vampire transformation). Then, in episode 4, we got to see him trying to understand what the boy wants (even if he refuses to read fairytales to him) and he still finds a way to connect to him, despite being bad at fully being a father to him.
Watching as Laszlo tries to be there for the boy and tries to make sure everyone respects that he’s not just Colin Robinson 2.0 is surprisingly sweet, and I hope the series continues to explore this relationship between the two of them. Mainly, because I do love Daddy Laszlo.
(featured image: FX)
