Sophia Michaels
At the end of season four of “What We Do in the Shadows,” Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) made the drastic decision to ask Derek (Chris Sandiford) to turn him into a vampire. Fed up after years of his master, Nandor (Kayvan Novak), ignoring his pleas, he decides to get it done himself.
But at the beginning of the show’s fifth season — which premiered its first two episodes on July 13 — we find out Guillermo’s turning didn’t work. Or it did work, but only a little bit. It’s been 16 days, and the typical vampire powers haven’t fully come in for him, which is highly irregular. Guillermo can still eat food (though he does crave very rare meat). He can still go out in the sun. He can’t, however, turn into a vampire bat and fly away.
Guillermo also learns that having a vampire who’s not your master “turn” you is a massive slight to Nandor, which he didn’t know. Laszlo (Matt Berry) calls it the “greatest humiliation” a familiar could inflict on his master, and Nandor says that if Guillermo did it, he would kill him and then himself. Guillermo’s in a tough spot, as he also can’t have Nandor bite him and pretend that Nandor turned him. Why? Apparently, getting bitten twice makes a vampire explode.
So why isn’t Guillermo a full vampire? Viewers did learn in previous seasons that Guillermo is a descendant of the legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing, which explains why he’s such a wonderful vampire killer (or defender, when the coven needs him to be). Is it possible there’s something in Guillermo’s DNA that keeps him from fully transforming? Could he just be an undead vampire killer now, with some weird quirks (but without the desire for blood)? It definitely seems possible.
There’s also the chance that Guillermo’s transformation isn’t working, because he didn’t have his master do it for him. Maybe his transformation will finish when he finally does tell Nandor the truth — even if it breaks their relationship forever.
At the end of episode two, Guillermo tells Laszlo about what he did, so we’ll have the rest of the season to figure out just what’s going on with his vampirism, and if he can make it out of the situation alive (or, rather, undead).
New episodes of “What We Do in the Shadows” premiere Thursdays on FX and stream the next day on Hulu.
