What We Do In The Shadows S5 Casually Reminds Us How Dangerous Nandor & Lazslo Are

Contains spoilers for "What We Do in the Shadows" Season 5, Episode 2

When "What We Do in the Shadows" started, much of its humor came from how comically inept its main vampires are. Not that this has ever really stopped being a central plot element. Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak) is hopelessly out of touch and preoccupied with his own insecurities. Nadja of Antipaxos (Natasia Demetriou) has a horrible temper and an array of quirks that belie her dangerous nature, and Lazslo Cravensworth (Matt Berry) is a pompous hedonist. Colin Robinson (Mark Protsch) is actually very good at what he does, but the strange and generally non-lethal nature of his energy vampirism means that he's just as prone to comic moments as his flatmates.

However, every once in a while the show takes a moment to remind the viewer that the characters are incredibly powerful when they need to be. The very first episode of "What We Do in the Shadows" Season 5 serves one of these reminders almost right away, as one of the first things we see is Nandor casually hypnotizing an entire basketball arena. In Episode 2, his hypnosis power makes a comeback, and his collaboration with the far more socially-skilled Lazslo makes it clear how dangerous the pair can be when they need to ... at the expense of the staff of an entire police station, who'll no doubt have a fun time explaining why they set up a motorcade for two guys they just imprisoned.

Nandor's mind-control game may have improved to the point where he can hypnotize thousands of people at one go, but as a 1,000-year-old undead warrior who's spent almost his entire existence either pillaging or firmly inside his cozy vampire bubble, he still has the social skills of a potato. Because of his inability to take social cues, he also doesn't quite understand when using his vampire superpowers is appropriate — except when it's time to convince a store to honor expired coupons that may or may not be just magazine cutouts of Ryan Seacrest.     

Enter Lazslo, then. The younger vampire has spent hundreds of years socializing and has consistently shown that he has charisma to spare, even when he's disguised as a completely regular human bartender. He and Nandor have a somewhat strained friendship, but when they cooperate, they're a massively effective team. In Episode 2, the bickering pair's night out goes increasingly awry as their human friends get into more and more trouble, and when they finally land in jail, they have a heart-to-heart that leads to a truce. After this point, Lazslo cues Nandor in on the correct moment to whip out the old hypnosis skills. With some "Blue Bloods"-themed mind control, the vampires proceed to acquire a massive, wildly loyal police convoy.   

"What We Do in the Shadows" Season 5, Episode 1 gives us a perfect reminder that when Lazslo combines his social skills and evil genius tendencies with Nandor's hypnosis powers, the two are truly terrifying ... and when you remember that they also have a whole host of other vampire powers at their disposal, there's no denying how dangerous they can be when they want to.