What We Do in the Shadows – A Weekend at Morrigan Manor

By: Gladys Luna

The Guide (Kristen Schaal) shows up at the residence to remind the vampires that tonight will be her big art exhibit to which they have been invited a while ago. However, as usual, they do not seem to remember or have any interest in. Obviously, The Guide gets disappointed once again at hearing this, a sentiment that only gets worse when she informs them that they had received a message from Perdita Morrigan inviting them to spend the weekend at her Manor. This news make the vampires all excited, quickly forgetting what they just said about wanting to spend the night at home. It appears that Perdita is a big deal in the vampiric community as she is part of one of the first families that migrated to America. Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) even refers to her as the “Grand Dame of Vampiric High Society.” Of course, the gang of vampires won’t let this opportunity slip through their fingers so they set up for what they expect to be a wonderful night and Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) also joins gladly. When they get there the first random thing they realize is that Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) has grown a mustache which he explains he has managed to do by shaving three times a day. As expected, The Guide also shows up there except she is not alone as she has decided to bring all of her paintings with her. She finds a message from Perdita asking them to go straight to the drawing room where they find a recording from the Dame herself saying that, unfortunately, she won’t be able to join them alleging that something important has come up. Although, she welcomes them to celebrate nonetheless and most of all she asks them to be extremely careful as the manor is mostly known to be very treacherous. So, she suggests they remain together and support each other as a team. While they seem to be disappointed that Perdita won’t be there with them, they decide to have fun and enjoy the place.

Everything seems to go smoothly the first night but the next one, things begin to get a little wild. The first thing we see is Laszlo (Matt Berry) who has decided to practice his sword fighting skills on his own. The Guide has offered to join him, but he refuses her offer. In the middle of his practice an opponent suddenly shows up out of nowhere. Even though Laszlo is very confident in his skills, he is soon led to defeat when his opponent begins to multiply leaving the vampire completely outnumbered. On the other hand, Nandor (Kayvan Novak) and Colin Robinson try to entertain themselves by playing chess despite the fact that they have absolutely no clue how.  Later on, The Guide informs the team that Perdita has arranged a treasure hunt for them and takes this opportunity to show them the paintings she made of them but once again they do not care. Nadja is a little worried since she hasn’t seen Laszlo in a while so she decides to search for him and The Guide offers to assist her. However, in the middle of their quest The Guide gets startled by something she sees in the belfry. This causes Nadja to bail on their adventure, but when she goes to depart she falls through the staircase. Meanwhile, Nandor and Guillermo are already onboard with the treasure hunt and go outside to see what they find. While they are there they see some naked people (Jason Lee Ball and Tressa Young) running away and Nandor feels they might be running in the treasures’ direction. He doesn’t waste any time asking his familiar to smell their clothes and trace them. At first Guillermo declines but after agreeing he pretends to run after them yet instead he goes back to the Manor.  Once inside the manor he sees that Colin Robinson is the only one standing there and he starts to believe that maybe the former familiar has something to do with all the madness that seems to be going on. Of course, Guillermo also has his own suspicions. They start to accuse one another until they realize their conversation and “theories” have no sense at all.  While Nandor is looking for Guillermo and the naked humans, he sees The Guide with her foot in a bear trap. He tries to help her yet when he sees the humans running towards them he decides to go after them, leaving the other vampire on her own. Unfortunately, he falls into a trap and gets caught up in a net.

A few minutes later The Guide enters the room where Guillermo and Colin Robinson are at and informs them that Nandor, Laszlo and Nadja have disappeared. Guillermo notices that The Guide has hurt her leg and offers to help her, a kind gesture that she appreciates. Said act makes her start a speech about how a simple act of kindness can change everything and how hard it is to feel put aside when trying to fit in to a group of people that does not care at all. Guillermo understands perfectly what she means, but this time the speech is not addressed to him but to Colin Robinson who is not paying the slightest attention to her. This gets The Guide so mad, making her push a button that causes the vampire to fall through his chair and into a cage in the basement where the rest of the vampires are already trapped. It turns out that The Guide, exhausted from being left out and ignored by the group of vampires, has decided to use this weekend to teach them a lesson and came up with a slick and neat plan to lure them all into the Manor. Nadja believes that the hex that was cast on her is the reason she is going through all of this, but then The Guide admits that she was  the one who made that lie up just to make her Nadja for her assistance. She thought that maybe this way they would become friends. She also lets them know that Guillermo is the only one that has been kind to her and emphasizes on the fact that he has also been trying so hard to be one of them that he had to take care of being turned into a vampire on his own. After this revelation Guillermo tries desperately to deviate the course of the speech but Nandor is not willing to pass this one up. Seeing there is no other choice, Guillermo finally confesses that he has asked someone else to turn him into a vampire. Initially he does not want to reveal who did it, but he ends up admitting that it was Derek (Chris Sandiford). All of this makes Nandor furious with him promising that as soon as they are let out he will kill Guillermo.

Suddenly, Laszlo recalls about one night when they were having a conversation about The Guide. He asks the camera crew to play the video for her, which is something that softens her as it is a tape of them complimenting her. She wants to know why they never told her what they really thought of her but they confess that vampires are not truly known for being nice to others.  As she starts to release the vampires one by one, Guillermo takes the opportunity to escape turning himself into a bat before Nandor’s cage is opened.