The main plot of What We Do in the Shadows season 5 has been Guillermo’s strange, stuttering transformation into a full-fledged vampire. At the end of season 4, he pays his friend Derek to turn him. When season 5 begins, though, we find out that the transformation didn’t quite take, and as his secret gradually comes out, Guillermo deals with powers that come and go.
Fans called it as soon as the trailer dropped: Guillermo’s Van Helsing blood is preventing him from turning completely. (Honestly, that explanation is so obvious that I was convinced there would be some deeper plot twist, but okay.) However, in the season finale, Nandor offers a simple solution to Guillermo’s problem: all he has to do is drink some human blood.
Hurray! It works, and Guillermo finally turns! He has super speed and bat powers and stuff! But then, the moment he has to kill his first human, he gets cold feet.
The vamps offer him a way out: if he kills Derek, then his transformation will be undone. It turns out the only reason a vampire’s descendants die if the vampire is killed is because they’re all super old. In Guillermo’s case, he’ll just age a month.
Guillermo does it, abruptly grows a beard, and turns back into a human—and that was the point at which I couldn’t suspend my disbelief any longer.
Why would Guillermo suddenly turn his back on being a vampire?
Guillermo has been waiting to become a vampire for 13 years! As he himself points out after his moment of squeamishness, he’s killed dozens of vampires and disposed of countless human bodies! He’s even okay with killing Derek! But he can’t bring himself to drink the blood of some random Staten Islander?
No. Nuh-uh. I’m not buying it.
The move felt like a rushed attempt to reset everything for season 6. Because seriously, what’s next for Guillermo? Will he continue to just be the vamps’ mistreated bodyguard? What are his goals now? His hopes? His dreams?
Even if he was destined to turn back into a human eventually, it would have been nice if the series gave him a season or two as a full vampire. But also: why couldn’t he just be a vampire from now on? Characters grow and change, even in sitcoms. The show would still be funny! His character arc would have been really interesting! Come on, a vampire-hunting vampire? That’s what makes Blade so cool.
At least we got a silver lining at the very end, with Benedict Wong reprising his role as Wallace the necromancer. That was fun. And hey, things seem to have worked out okay for Derek.
(featured image: FX)
