Usually when I’m watching TV shows, I settle on a definite favorite character that I can obsess over. For FX’s “What we do in the Shadows,” however, I can’t make a decision — I love all these gay, vampiric losers.
“What we do in the Shadows,” inspired by the 2014 movie of the same name, is a mockumentary-style horror comedy that documents the lives of four vampires and their familiar as they attempt to conquer the New World (or at least Staten Island).
One of the vampires we follow is Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak), a conqueror from the Ottoman empire 762 years ago. Despite his history as a ruthless, relentless general, he’s actually quite soft, almost shy at times.
Then there’s Nadja of Antipaxos (Natasia Demetriou), a vicious, seductive and capable vampire who is often looking to make something of her eternal life, and her vampire husband, Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry), her foppish and flirty other half who kind of just does whatever he feels like in the moment.
And then we have Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), an “energy vampire” who, rather than feeding on blood, feeds on the life force of humans and vampires alike. Colin Robinson does this by having conversations that are so mind-numbingly boring that his victims come close to passing out.
Finally, we have Guillermo De La Cruz (Harvey Guillén), Nandor’s faithful familiar of 15 years, who quit his job at Panera Bread for the chance of being turned into a vampire — just like he’d dreamed as a child.
This show is really funny and, inexplicably, very queer — in such a way, though, that it’s entirely unquestioned. There is no plot point of “coming out” for anyone. In fact, from the very first episode, there’s casual mention of Laszlo having had a relationship with another male vampire.
Laszlo and Nadja are both pansexual and have an open marriage, Nandor is also pansexual, Guillermo is gay and Colin Robinson is…Colin Robinson. We’re not quite sure what his deal is.
But none of that is really relevant to the story, it’s just there. There’s almost an implication that, well, obviously they’re not going to limit themselves to just the opposite sex after hundreds of years. Obviously some of Nandor’s 37 wives were girl-wives and some were boy-wives.
There’s something so refreshing about representation that doesn’t make queerness a spectacle. The sexuality of these vampires is actually so much less important than whatever unethical misadventure they’ve gotten up to today.
“What we do in the Shadows,” available on Disney+ and Hulu, is now entering its sixth and final season — the first three episodes are already out, and the next comes out Oct. 29. If you’re looking for a mature, LGBTQ+ comedy to finish out the Halloween season, “What we do in the Shadows” is it.
And, in the words of Laszlo Cravensworth, “Gay is in. Gay is hot. I want some gay. Gay it’s gonna be.”
