“What We Do within the Shadows” stars Matt Berry, Mark Proksch, Kristen Schaal, Kayvan Novak (via Zoom), executive producer and showrunner Paul Simms, and director Kyle Newacheck appeared in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday to preview (and have fun) the sixth and final season of the Emmy-nominated FX comedy.
The Footage: Before the panel, FX screened the complete first episode of Season 6, which introduced Michael Patrick O’Brien (“Saturday Night Live”) as Jerry. Who’s Jerry, you ask? He’s the previous roommate of Nandor (Novak), Laszlo (Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and Colin Robinson (Proksch), who all of them remember with great affection because the “vampire’s vampire” — until they realize that they’ve all forgotten to wake him from the deep slumber that he entered in 1976.
Jerry’s return plunges everyone into an existential crisis, as he upends the dynamic between the vampires by reminding them of who they was. Meanwhile, we learn where Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) has been living since he walked away from vampirism and as Nandor’s familiar, and the vampires begin to query why, exactly, they’ve agreed to let a human film crew follow them around for thus long.
What We Learned: Simms said that once they realized Season 6 could be the top of the series, they decided to lean away from the tropes that many shows fall into once they’re on the house stretch.
“We just desired to make a extremely funny season that was not too sentimental or attempting to tie up too many threads,” he said, before immediately backtracking. “I mean, for the super fans such as you guys, all of the threads shall be tied up.”
Simms also teased that there shall be several big cameos this season, featuring “the folks that we just loved and thought were super funny” — including casting O’Brien as Jerry.
Much like how, in the ultimate season of “The Office,” the documentary crew became more integrated into the show, Newacheck also teased that the documentary aspect of the show “does get opened up towards the later end of the season in a really meta way that was fun to make.”
He added, “I’ll say that that I did get to play a director within the show at a certain point while I used to be directing the show, which was probably the most meta thing I’ve ever been an element of. So stay tuned, y’all. It’s gonna get wild and peculiar.”
Funniest Moment: Unable to attend in person, Novak appeared on the panel via Zoom — as his character, Nandor the Relentless, replete with vampire teeth and a painted portrait of Nandor within the background. When asked about whether Guillermo is ever going to sort out his feelings about Nandor, Novak-as-Nandor explained that Guillermo continues to be living with him with the extent of delightful vulgarity one has come to expect from the show.
“I even have to maintain my voice down, because Guillermo is in the subsequent room, jacking off into his pillow,” he said, before acting as if Guillermo was just off camera. “What? No I wasn’t talking about you. Shut the fuck up!”
