Recap: What We Do in the Shadows: “Ancestry”
- Guillermo has gotten everyone dna tests!
- Nandor has family nearby
- Guillermo finds something unsettling in his own family history
- Spoilers!
- Season Finale
- Rated MA for mature situations and language
Guillermo’s Duties
Guillermo didnt have to dust at Panera, I bet.
Photo credit: FX
Guillermo(Harvey Guillén) is keeping house. We find that he practically never sleeps. As a familiar, he must watch over his master Nandor(Kayvan Novak) during the day, and keep house. At night, he must tend to Nandor’s needs. And to think he used to work at Panera.
Beware the Witches
Guillermo has gotten dna tests for everyone in the house. Apparently, the vamps leave that stuff lying around.
Visiting the dna ancestry website, Guillermo finds that Nandor has 200,000 living relatives. Of course, Colin Robinson(Mark Proksch) brings up the very fertile Genghis Khan, which is a sore spot with Nandor.
Just before we hear about Seaman.
Photo credit: FX
Nadja(Natasia Demetriou) becomes very concerned, as witches love to steal really good let’s just call it dna, and that witches must own the ancestry sites.
When can a woman get polish her skull in peace?
Photo credit: FX
Nadja and Laszlo(Matt Berry) refuse to see their results. Colin, however, is white. Very white. Just white.
Blandest dna results, ever.
Photo credit: FX
Topiary
Laszlo is making a topiary for his good ladywife, Nadja. It needs binding to hold it up, and Guillermo brought wooden stakes. WTF, Guillermo? Why? He bought them off Amazon, much to Laszlo’s confusion.
Guillermo’s Ancestry
Guillermo finds out that he is potentially his own worst enemy.
Photo credit:FX
Guillermo checks his bloodline. Not a lot surprising to find, except that HE IS A DESCENDENT OF VAN HELSING. But he isn’t real, right? Right? Sure, Guillermo has effotlessly killed two vampires(First here, then here), but they were both accidents. Right?
Nadja and Gregor
Nadja has a secret drawer of paintings and etchings of the oft- reincarnated-always decapitated Gregor/Jeffzch Jeff(Jake McDorman). She calls to him across the miles, and he hears her at the insane asylum in Poughkeepsie. He breaks his restraints, kills a guard, and dramatically escapes to come to her.
Gregor escapes
Photo credit: FX
Nandor Visits his GreatX30 grandaughter
Nandor meets his great X 30 grandaughter… Photo credit: FX
Nandor has brought a stuffed bear(not the one Guillermo was dusting, natch) to gift to his grandaughter living nearby. Sure, she’s over ninety, sure she’s delicate; that won’t stop Nandor from hovering at her window in the middle of the night to–welp, she dropped dead.
…and she has died of fright.
Photo credit: FX
The Funeral
Nandor somehow convinces everyone to go into the church for the night funeral service(Guillermo called in a bomb threat to delay it). Colin likes to bring up that he can go in no problem, as can Guillermo.
The right ones got let in, but they still suffered.
Photo credit: FX
Sitting in the back, the vampires stay until their eyes bleed and their hands begin burning. Colin Robinson just leaves anyway. Nandor braves the pain until his lap begins burning, and Guillermo pours holy water on him to put it out. This is seen as counterproductive by Nandor.
Gregor Appears
Having stolen a car then a motorbike, Gregor finally appears. Nadja tries to hide who he is, but we find that Laszlo has known about him all along. Who do you think has been decapitating the man throughout history? Nadja is very flattered by Laszlo’s protection of her heart(Gregor always makes her cry, and Laszlo is not okay with that). Deciding to let him live out one of his lives, they couple let him go.
Laszlo, you scamp. You knew about Gregor all along. And have been decapitating him all along.
Photo credit: FX
Gregor leaves, a broken, frightened, confused, murderous man.
Photo credit: FX
Laszlo suprises Nadja with the topiary, and she is delighted. This time it is all of her. Defeated, Gregor gets on his bike and rides off into the night. And by rides off into the night, I mean he goes about five yards and is clotheslined and decapitated by the wire Laszlo used to hold up the topiary of Nadja.
…And thirty seconds after he leaves, Gregor is a decapitated man. This time, Laszlo is not as responsible.
Photo credit: FX
Their is no one to blame this time, and maybe now Nadja has a new skull to polish!
Guillermo’s Ancestry Begins Showing
Nandor is preparing to rest in his coffin. Guillermo is helping him, and Nandor compliments him. Of course, he then berates him and demerits him one year for the holy water incident before closing the lid.
Guillermo goes back to his room and packs up the wooden stakes to return them. He picks up three, his mind spinning. Shaking off the thoughts, he throws the stakes to get them away from himself, and all three pierce the hearts of the vamps-in paintings hanging in the room.
Guillermos Van Helsing starts showing.
Photo credit: FX
I mean really showing.
Photo credit: FX
Outside, what looks to be an unkindness of ravens begin to encircle the house…
At least one of the vamps secrets are out. The birds look like little smudges, but they are there, circling.
Photo credit: FX
Thoughts on “Ancestry”
- Loved the little callbacks to previous episodes with Gregor, the ravens, topiary, Guillermo’s vampire kills and building anger…
- The fact that Guillermo never sleeps may be adding to his building psychosis.
- Nice, subtle juxtaposition of a reclining on a couch Nandor with paintings of characters doing the same.
- Guillermo cleaning up blood and chopping up bodies. Maybe if he met Jackie, he’d have more hope.
- I am betting all energy vampires, regardless of race, get the same bland dna results.
- Totally called the decapitation when Nadja first called Gregor. I don’t know how, but I knew.
- Nadja and Laszlo were adorable in this episode. Laszlo is such a softie when it comes to her.
- So…Do witches secretly run all dna testing sites?
- So happy this show is renewed! No other show makes me laugh out loud as much, and I am already missing it.
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