What We Do in the Shadows loves a cameo. At the end of the first season, we saw how the series, which is set in Staten Island, tied into the movie it is based on, and met the Vampiric Council—made up of actors who played vampires in movies and other TV shows. That’s right, Evan Rachel Wood and Wesley Snipes are actually vampires. Since, we’ve had quite the journey with the council. Nadja was in charge at one point alongside Nandor, and it was less about how fun the original council was and more about our favorite vampires being in charge of something.
The show continues to have great cameos and guest stars, with Nick Kroll rolling up from time to time (and being the subject of Laszlo’s now iconic “The most devious bastard in New York City” line) along with the likes of Mark Hamill, Vanessa Bayer, and Doug Jones. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the perfection that is the Energy Vampiric Council. Colin Robinson is back in action, he’s not his child-self anymore, and with that comes his outlandish quests for energy.
The season 5 episode “The Campaign” features Colin running for City Comptroller so that he can debate his opponent on stage and drain those in attendance. The problem? The person he’s running against would be horrible for energy vampires because she wants to give power to the people. Meaning that Colin and his fellow energy vampires wouldn’t be able to just drain anyone and everyone.
Colin learns this when he’s kidnapped by the Energy Vampiric Council, which is comprised of every slightly monotone comedian you could think of, their characters all sharing names with their actors just like the other Vampiric Council. Personally? Jo Firestone and Aparna Nancherla being there made me so happy.
They are deliciously boring
To be clear, all these comedians are hilarious: Firestone, Nancherla, Hannibal Buress, Gregg Turkington, and Martha Kelly. They just have this flat cadence in the way they speak that isn’t necessarily for everyone. It works very well for me, mainly because have seen both Nancherla and Firestone live and their energy together is so much fun to watch. Pairing them as energy vampires on What We Do in the Shadows just played to their strengths as performers.
The entire council instigates its own demise in the sense that their need to constantly inconvenience everyone in order to feed leads their work down a rabbit hole. Jo is constantly getting texts that derail the meeting and everyone is trying to tell her how to silence her phone, and it takes longer than necessary for the council to let Colin and Evie (Vanessa Bayer) know what they need to do. It is so perfectly cast that I just want to go back to the council time and time again.
Maybe we can have the Energy Vampiric Council and the regular Vampiric Council all hang out together because that surely will be a hilarious adventure.
(featured image: FX)
