Review: What We Do in the Shadows, “The Finale” | Season 6, Episode 11
House meeting!… House meeting! [Repeat.]
(Note: When this episode originally aired on FX, depending on what time the viewer watched it, the “fake ending” two-thirds of the way through the episode differed. The advance screener this critic watched only had one of those fake endings, and the existence of other endings was kept secret. Those watching the episode on streaming likely saw a different fake ending than the one mentioned in this review. All of the endings are currently available on Hulu under a tab on the What We Do in the Shadows Season 6 page called “Extra Hypnosis Features.”)
I don’t have a lot of pop culture hot takes. There are many TV shows and movies that people love but I think are merely okay. There are also a fair number of TV shows and movies that people think are awful and I think are, again, okay. I’m not a contrarian by nature. I like to think I’m more measured.
But I don’t like The Usual Suspects. Never have. Sure, that famous ending is clever on the surface and exciting to see unfold in the moment, as the cops gradually realize that the entire story they’ve just been told was fabricated, using words and names scattered around their office. But the movie makes less sense and loses its meaning in retrospect, after the twist. I get why people enjoy it. It’s just not for me.
If you watched the What We Do in the Shadows finale, you’ll know why I’ve been thinking about The Usual Suspects—and it’s not because the Shadows ending is a letdown. (Not to bury the lede, but in brief: I liked this episode a lot.) No, it’s because after Laszlo suggests that Nadja hypnotize the viewing audience into imagining the most perfect and satisfying ending for the vampires’ story, we see a beat-for-beat recreation of the final minutes of The Usual Suspects, with the Shadows cast and plot-points plugged in. It’s a good, self-conscious joke, acknowledging that “perfect endings” are hard and that it might be easier just to rip off an ending widely acknowledged as one of the best.
That the writers happened to pick an ending which I personally don’t dig only proves their point. You can’t please everyone with an ending.
In a broad sense, What We Do in the Shadows ends as it always had to. The film crew that’s been following the vampires for six years decides they have enough footage, and they end the project. The abruptness of their decision might have a meta element to it, referencing the show’s own somewhat surprising cancellation.1 Either way, the writers and cast have fun with the sudden stop, beginning the episode with two Shadows-ready story ideas before immediately abandoning them both.
What would’ve most likely been—under normal circumstances—this week’s A-story picks up from Nandor’s big decision last week to use his vampire skills and his newly acquired moral code to fight crime alongside Guillermo. From the start, there are complications: Guillermo hates the skin-tight “Cowboy Kid” costume Nandor has provided for him, and he’s not wild about Nandor’s chosen alias (“The Phantom Menace!”). He’s especially skeptical about Nandor’s poorly-spelled plans for his “Underground Lare,” which will be a thousand feet underneath a secret elevator built into his coffin—after Guillermo helps build it, of course.
The would-be B-story involves Cravensworth’s Monster, who has become so unstoppably horny that the documentarians have to crop him out of their interview with Colin Robinson and Laszlo, because the Monster can’t stop “going to town on himself.” (One last Matt Berry line-reading for the road: “Stay in the two-shot, he’s got his hand in the cookie JARRR!”)
But before either of these stories can build up any momentum, the Residence’s residents get called into the living room and told the film crew will be packing it in, after just a few more hours of shooting B-roll. The vampires are unbothered by this news; Guillermo, though, is in a mild panic, and no one’s really sure why. So rather than the planned A- and B-stories, “The Finale” becomes more about Guillermo’s roommates—plus The Guide—trying to make sense of why their human companion is unhappy.