'What We Do in the Shadows' Season 2 Episode 5 sees Colin feed off others' energies and become a supervillain
Spoilers for ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Season 2 Episode 5, ‘Colin’s Promotion’
Unlike most episodes of the Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi vampire mockumentary series, episode 5 of ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Season 2 did not revolve much around either Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) -- and season 2 has focussed on him an extraordinary amount so far -- or the old and traditional vampires Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), and Laszlo (Matt Berry). Instead, as the title suggests, ‘Colin’s Promotion’ focussed on Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), the energy vampire.
Even though a middle-aged balding and bespectacled man with an extraordinarily forgettable face, Colin is a young vampire. His flatmates are centuries old. So relatively, yes, he is young. And he wasn’t the usual kind of vampire either. He doesn’t drink blood. He feeds off people’s energy. His obvious age and type difference do not make him popular with his flatmates, who find him boring and annoying. They constantly suspect him of draining their energies. And he does. They also admit that the only reason they were stuck with Colin is that he came with the house.
The episode begins with Colin being promoted at a workplace where he does not even know what the company does. And while he’s nervous at first, he soon realizes that as a boss, he has complete control over his employees and we see the birth of a supervillain. Colin’s powers grow exponentially as he walks around repeating tired jokes to his employees, who are forced to laugh. He feeds on their energies so much, he even manages to grow luxuriant hair on his bald pate.
Back at home, however, the equation becomes troubling. Tired of being ignored by his flatmates and their familiars, Colin pits them against each other with a single painting. It was a painting of a burning village, a village that Nandor had pillaged at the height of his mortal powers as a ruler. A village where Nadja grew up, 200 years after its destruction. Obviously Nadja is mad and Nandor, being the way he is, doesn’t manage to apologize. As they fight, Colin continues to feed on their energy.
Soon, the vampires realize what’s going on. And they plead Colin to stop. But by now, Colin’s powers had grown so much, he could fly, zap people unconscious with a single stroke, and multiply. He seemed unstoppable.
But pride cometh before fall and the multiple Colins begin to feed off each other’s energies, eventually killing all three. It is only in his death that his flatmates find something nice to say about him. They talk about their favorite things that Colin did even if they pretended to not like them while he was alive. After an oddly touching funeral ceremony, as they leave, Colin comes back to life to proclaim that he was never dead. He only wanted to hear his eulogy.
The lesson that the three vampires should ideally take from this is that they should behave better with their friends, no matter how boring or different they are. But given how blunt and moronic they are, any and every lesson is likely to miss them like Stormtroopers in ‘Star Wars’ miss their targets.
New episodes of ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Season 2 air on FX every Wednesday at 10 pm ET/PT.