Before What We Do in the Shadows had even premiered its fourth season, the news came down that FX had renewed the bitingly funny TV spinoff for two more — Seasons 5 and 6, to be precise. The series has only existed in the small-screen realm for the last four years, but within that time it’s made a name for itself beyond the film, written by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, that first gave life to the premise of a mockumentary about creatures of the night. The change-up in location no doubt helped when the show first premiered back in 2019, setting its story around a new group of disaster vampires living in a perfectly spooky and dilapidated house on Staten Island, but in the years since the series has carved out an identity all its own thanks to memorable characters and enduringly funny antics. That’s in large part due to the cast themselves, who deserve to be household names at this point solely based on inspired line readings and phenomenal physical comedy. (Maybe you didn’t even watch the Season 4 episode in which Matt Berry’s Laszlo refers to someone as “the most devious bastahd in New York Citaaaay,” but you definitely saw the memes about it afterward.) The vampires that inhabit this version of What We Do in the Shadows may have started out as reluctant roommates, but they’ve since established a tight-knit unit — one that Season 5 is primed to shake up with a significant transformation for one of their own.

At the end of Season 4, it was revealed that long-suffering vampire familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) has grown tired of serving his master Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak) with just about nothing to show for it — including the promise Nandor once made to eventually turn him into a vampire, too. Becoming more desperate and wanting to seize control of his own fate, Guillermo turns to the former vampire-hunter-now-vampire Derek (Chris Sandiford), who’s been working the graveyard shift at a local convenience store now that he’s a nights-only kind of guy. After pocketing a little bit of money away from Nadja’s (Natasia Demetriou) failed nightclub venture, Guillermo has the funds he needs to literally pay Derek to bite him — but, given that this is What We Do in the Shadows, maybe we should have guessed that the simple act of making someone a vampire wouldn’t be so simple after all. In fact, it’s the questions around what Guillermo could actually be turning into that give Season 5 some of its best overarching plot.

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‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Season 5 Explores the Drama of Guillermo’s Turning
Image via FX

For as long as we’ve spent time with Guillermo on this series, we’ve known that his number one desire more than anything else in the world is to be made a vampire himself. Even after he found out that he was technically a long-lost descendent of Van Helsing, one of the most notorious vampire hunters in history, it didn’t sway Guillermo from achieving his dream — but through the previous four seasons of the show to date, Nandor has proven to be more than a little withholding in that regard. In the meantime, though, Guillermo has made himself the heart and soul of this series — which might not come as any surprise, given that he’s the only character whose heart is literally still beating (at least for now). He’s spent the last ten years, and likely beyond, only doing what’s been asked of him at the cost of doing anything for himself, so the notion that he was going to take control of his own destiny by asking (well, paying) Derek to bite him was an exciting one to end Season 4 on, especially when we didn’t know what the fallout of that ask would be.

Season 5 doesn’t waste any time in showing us exactly what happens, to sidesplitting effect — Derek might be a vampire, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of fainting at the sight of his own blood, and the whole event feels as fumbling and awkward as you’d expect a turning to be when it’s a first for both sides. The more time that passes in the aftermath, however, the more concerned Guillermo gets that he’s not demonstrating any of the usual signs of normal vampiric ability. That said, there are side effects that have resulted from his being bitten, and rather than spoil any of them, just know that they’re as weird as they are a hoot. Guillén has always been a stealth wielder of comedy in this regard, through Guillermo’s subtle looks to the camera while dealing with something exasperating as well as the character trying to tiptoe around how to ask his vampire roommates about the intricacies of the turning process. The plot also orchestrates a refreshing change-up in the dynamics within the house, because as it turns out, a familiar being bitten by someone other than their master is a huge no-no, so Guillermo’s forced to rely on an unlikely party in Laszlo, who decides to conduct his own experiments to find out exactly what the hell is going on. It results in unexpectedly meaningful moments between the two characters, as Guillermo is frantic to protect his secret at any cost and Laszlo finds himself in a surprising position of loyalty to a character whose name he often fails to remember.

‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Season 5 Gets Back to More of What We Love About Vampire Antics
Image via FX

One of the aspects where previous seasons of the show have undoubtedly struggled lies in the overdependence on static locations. In Season 3, the vampires found themselves in a position to take over as the new heads of the Vampiric Council for the Eastern seaboard, but those adjusted roles also meant that the show was relying more heavily on storylines that took place in the various chambers of Council headquarters. Season 4 did more of the same, repurposing that original set and tearing it all down in order to build up Nadja’s vampire nightclub. When the nightclub later met a more destructive fate after losing its main attraction in Baby Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), it represented an exciting shift for the show itself — one that signaled a potential return to something that What We Do in the Shadows has always done best in unleashing these vampires on the different locations of an unsuspecting Staten Island.

Thankfully, Season 5 isn’t content to keep the vampires confined to a distinct number of places, and it gives the series a much-needed rejuvenation reminiscent of its earlier years. We’re still privy to all the hijinks that happen within the crumbling walls of the house, but now the vampires are having more adventures where they’re out on the town, leaving chaos and lots of uneaten restaurant appetizers in their wake. The premiere, written by Marika Sawyer and directed by Yana Gorskaya, finds the group exploring the local mall for the first time, a conceit so perfect it’s surprising that the show has never done this before. Another episode, written by Jake Bender & Zach Dunn and also directed by Gorskaya, follows the vampires taking part in their town’s inaugural Pride parade — at night, of course. Colin, naturally, remains the house’s sole breadwinner, but the avenues he takes to generate income are humorously befitting for an energy vampire given the real-life attitudes attached to the political sphere at the moment. Nadja, meanwhile, discovers a little slice of home within walking distance from the house, which allows her to reconnect with her roots in Antipaxos to amusing effect. The Guide (Kristen Schaal) also becomes a bigger part of the crew, although whether you consider that a positive development or not will likely depend on your personal feelings about that character. Most importantly, all of the characters, both vampire and human alike, are given further room to grow and evolve, based on the four episodes provided for review, but they’re doing it in ways that feel completely true to who they are at their core.

All that said, it would be impossible for this series to continue in perpetuity — even if it’s heartening to know that we can still look forward to one more season after this — but five seasons in, and it still feels like we’ve only scratched the surface of its biggest potential. From leaning into energy vampire mythology to posing the larger question of what it is that really makes someone a vampire, the show is delving into some truly exciting places while never losing sight of its identity. However long What We Do in the Shadows continues, it may not be long enough, but at least the ride to the inevitable end has never stopped being hilarious and never failed to deliver fun surprises along the way.

Rating: A-

What We Do in the Shadows Season 5 premieres on FX with its first two episodes on July 13. New episodes are also available to stream next day on Hulu.