Change is inevitable. If you’re a teenager, it’s enviable but at times execrable.
To be thirty, flirty, and thriving would be a veritable dream! At least according to the gospel of Jenna Rink.
This isn’t a rom-com, however. This is life… with the undead.
Welcome to the finale of the fourth season of What We Do In The Shadows (FX) titled “Sunrise, Sunset”.
What We Do in the Shadows Season 4 Finale – Recap
We open in on Laszlo (Matt Berry) lamenting that Baby Colin (Mark Proksch) is now a boy. A very, tempestuous and surly boy. He only wants to listen to heavy metal and brood upon his bed.
Poor, poor Laszlo. He wants to make it as it once was. With them going to the zoo, and not even reading Are You There God, It’s me, Margaret can help the poor lad from ever evolving. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare- your baby has grown up.
Even pillow fights send Colin into a blubbering tizzy. So what is he?
Guillermo (Harvey Guillen) knows he’s ‘twixt two worlds, and though try as he might teach him sports, it’s a zero-sum game.
The only thing he truly loves to do is leave hate marks where the love used to be on the wall.
Even Lazzie’s lovely rendition of ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ couldn’t stanch the pain of what he and Baby Colin went through. All the joys, all the rehearsals, all of the good times that were had.
With the Nightclub, Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and The Guide (Kristen Schaal) have nowhere to go without their star performer.
Vampire freestyle rap battles a night won’t go swimmingly unless you’re speaking in blood and don’t even get me started on the improv night. Don’t vamps know ‘yes and?’
Lazlo’s original songs aren’t landing on the crowd. Maybe it’s time to hang his hat (which is now no longer has) up.
Nadja’s still funneling a bit of money for momma, so that’s the spirit (outside of her wraiths).
Though bachelorette parties and haunted house nights were a fail, they’ve come to succumb to children’s nights with laser tag.
How far have the mighty fallen?
At the Vampire Residence, both Guillermo (Harvey Guillen) and Lazz are exasperated at the rate Baby Colin has been growing, having both raised him.
Nandor (Kayvan Novak) thinks he’s a solution by speaking to them in their own language, as he commanded his soldiers once… a lingua franca, if you will. He is committed to remedying the situation, but is blind to the fact Colin is a fucking teen!
He takes the truth of treating anybody older with a shifty eye and a salty word. We’ve all been there.
In the Club, The Guide introduces Nadja to P.T. Barnum. Basically, the one who created entertainment. This is a little secret that the club harbors. They have the power of witchcraft.
They can summon the brightest minds at their will.
The rub? It can last for but 24 hours and at that point, they better make this a fucking thing for the ages!
First soul? Scott Joplin (Sam Asante)! Wonderful, beautiful pick for an ENTERTAINER.
Speaking of which, at the Residence, Seanie (Anthony Atamanuik) is trying to figure out why Guillermo and Laszlo are at odds with Colin’s ever-growing soul.
Colin is a shotgun with questions. Why is he growing at such an alarming rate? These are all things we sometimes ask in puberty, but now, he’s nearly a fully grown man, thinking like a teenager. It seems as though his growth spurt is faster than his brain could catch up to.
As the arbiter of all, Sean tries to resolve the matter by pitting Laszlo and Colin to fisticuffs, but before that plan can come to fruition, Colin’s already mentally matured, apologizing for his iniquities. I’ve been there. Lashing out and apologizing is a part of growing up!
The thing is that he’s feeding on them, both Gizmo and Laszlo. Their anger is the breaking point for what his guardian should have seen a mile coming. He’s actually coming into his own, and poor Laszlo has to break his own heart telling him the news.
At the Nightclub, Nadja has a hardon for simply getting the most brilliant minds to do a sit-down convo AKA a panel to get butts in those seas. Ugh. What betters way to entertain others than talking about oneself? I know, I should talk.
With the “Talk History With Nadja” symposium, Tchaikovsky, Muraski Shakibu and da Vinci are ALL GREAT GUESTS.
They only speak in their native tongue though, which Nadja cannot understand, so consider this rabbit in the hat dead.
In the house, the news is broken to Colin by his own champion, Laszlo. He’s an energy vampire. He will always be an energy vampire and will not be anything but. Colin thinks it sucks, but yet again, he sucks for a living.
Guillermo cleans up for one last time. His love has been lost to… well, his love. Nandor took that away and with Marwa gone, what is there left?
What is a bird to do without a proper nest? Fly Robin, Fly.
In his last-ditch attempt at trying to mesh with Nandor, he realizes that his Master is fine staying the same, but the bags were already packed.
In Colin’s room, now bereft of sewage and looking like a late nineties metal-core video, he blares the tunes and angrily smashes holes in the walls, as he wont to do in his earlier years.
Things aren’t looking great at the Club as Mahatma Gandhi shills for juicy steaks from Blue Apron to up their revenue for better views, Che Guevera looks on in consternation as Hemingway tries to wrest the copy to may it ‘leaner’.
“Blue Apron, you can’t get any leaner than Baby Shoes, Never Worn!” Now they have me doing it!
The rubs on that stake were that they were depending on listeners and they didn’t do so well.
In fact, it was in the red, which as a vampire, you would love to hear, but in this case of a podcaster, you don’t.
Nadja sent the wraiths packing to Orlando and The Guide to go back to the house. This was never going to be a pretty divorce.
Setting fire to your baby is one thing but if it can rise from the ashes, like a Phoenix, sure.
What if that firey majestic thing doesn’t rise again? Then, it’s just… failure. Sometimes fate is yourself reinventing.
In the house, Colin’s hammering out his emotions struck… something? It’s an ammo case, therein containing a singular cell of a film along with a letter.
With his oddly National Treasure mind, he is able, while Nadja’s blowing up her own bar.
There are only but two things he can do when finding out who his true self is. Bust those walls… and bust those walls!
This leads to an entire library of what may be beholden to the vampires… but why?
The fact that the Nightclub actually wasn’t blown up but rather their safe was maybe a blessing in disguise.
The blood sprinklers actually did their duty in a time of need. Just in a time of her need when Nadja wanted to keep the patrons thirsty for more.
While Colin’s hair continues to flick off of his big fluffy 90s era grunge period cut, he learns more and more about his journey.. and then he finds the glasses. Those glasses. His glasses.
I mean I guess it’s like a reverse Superman?
Once the house rallies around what insurance means, proper Colin Robinson joins into the chat. With his ole’ boring aphorisms and punchy yet staunchly digs at his housemates.
All are amazed at how someone so little from the first of this episode, despite and in spite of all of Laszlo’s feeding him culture could still end up like… the Colin we all know and love.
The tragedy is that regular Colin Robinson knows not a lick of the good and jolly times with Laszlo, his surrogate parent for much of the season. It’s like he never existed. Hey, at least we have the memories! Oh, wait.
There is a bonus on this sad note… in true Colin fashion, he’s been noting the receipts on them, and in his estimation, they have enough funds to fix the fucking house!
On a sad note, Colin doesn’t really know Laszlo from a hole in the wall he punched through.
Sunrise, sunset.
This becomes true for Guillermo, who is now committed. Nobody has acceded to him. He has all the receipts and is willing to rip them up.
Derek (Chris Sandiford) can help that out.
He doesn’t want to be in a loop of perpetual servitude so he resorts to something major. Getting the fuck out.
Hemostasis… and why not?
Overall, the season actually was pretty sweet. It kept ramping up the stakes (hisss) but it keeps things really tight and fresh with no sense of where to go.
The one thing I expected from the directors and the writers’ room was them keeping us on our heels, our heckles up, and our minds scrambled, and they were.
Nadja, DON’T. Don’t.
What We Do in the Shadows has been renewed for seasons 5 and 6.
