What We Do in the Shadows continually slays fans with crass, dry humor at every turn, but some of the funniest zingers and one-liners appear in the show’s many backstories. It’s a documentary, after all. Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), and The Guide (Kristen Schaal) always pause to give viewers more hilarious information they never knew they needed.
Practically everything the beloved characters do and everyone they meet requires a backstory, which they usually tell with hysterical visual aids in the form of old paintings and drawings from the time. Without a proper backstory, viewers would be just as oblivious as the vampires.
10 Nandor’s backstory
Season 1, Episode 1 (2019)
Nandor’s backstory is one of the first in What We Do in the Shadows. He was a “ferocious” warrior in the Ottoman Empire, which meant a lot of “killing and pillaging.” Nandor was relentless; that’s why people called him Nandor the Relentless.
Even in the pilot, Novak has Nandor down. The ancient warrior doesn’t know he’s being funny when he imitates the villagers he conquered using a feeble voice. They begged him for mercy, but he would say, in a loud, intimidating voice, “No, I’m pillaging everyone, you included.” Seems weak and simple-minded for a fierce leader.
9 Laszlo’s turning
Season 1, Episode 1 (2019)
In the pilot, Laszlo and Nadja explain how she turned him. Laszlo was the most handsome man in his village, ravaged by leprosy and the plague. He did contract leprosy, but only on his private parts. One night, he was awoken by some horrible clawing at his third-floor window. Investigating it, he saw the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Nadja clawed at the glass and hypnotized Laszlo, which he discovered later. He invited her in, and as they were about to make love, she turned into this hideous, “leathery bat thing.” She drained him of his blood, giving him the curse of eternal life and making him a “bloodthirsty creature of the night.” Laszlo knows how to make even the most boring stories hilarious.
8 Nandor’s horse John
Season 2, Episode 2 (2020)
In “Ghosts,” Nadja conjures up their human ghosts that have unfinished business. Nandor’s only speaks the language of Al Qolnidar, but the former warrior figures out that his ghost wants his horse John, his closest companion, to move on.
Sometimes, Nandor fed John nuts and berries from his mouth. John would also accompany him everywhere on the battlefield and comfort him when he felt sad. They were inseparable. However, Nandor and his army ate John when they got stranded. The look on Nandor’s face as he remembers weeping as he ate his delicious friend is unforgettable.
7 Baron Afanas’ backstory
Season 1, Episode 1 (2019)
Nadja and Laszlo tell Baron Afanas’ origin story separately. Unbeknownst to the other, they each had their way with the “charming” member of the vampire royalty. Nadja and the Baron had a “very intense, very long sexual affair” hundreds of years ago. It was pretty wild with lots of “acrobatic stuff,” and the old photos put the story over the edge.
Nadja says it’ll be awkward seeing the Baron with Laszlo present, but little does she know that her husband had a similar affair with him. They also enjoyed an intense “animalistic” affair with “acrobatic stuff.”
6 Simon the Devious’ backstory
Season 1, Episode 4 (2019)
Telling stories well together, Nadja and Laszlo play off each other like it’s a game of tennis. Simon the Devious is a vampire they’ve known for centuries. On the boat to America, they used to hide in a hole together, whispering jokes, crawling around, and “tickling each other.” Lazlo doesn’t seem to remember the tickling part, though.
The three vampires went to Staten Island, and Simon went to New York City, where he very quickly became king at only 107. His HQ/nightclub, the Sassy Cat Club, where they used to hang out in the 1920s, has one rule, at least back then. Everyone had to wear a cape. If you didn’t, you’d look like a “knee-trembler” and a “right little tart.”
5 Gregor’s past lives
Season 1, Episode 5 (2019)
Early on in What We Do in the Shadows, Nadja finds her old lover, Gregor, reincarnated in Jeff. However, after a night out together, she can’t believe how boring he is in this new life. In other past lives, Gregor was exhilarating, “a maverick.”
Gregor was once a washerwoman who’d pour dirty old mop juice over Nadja’s body and rub it into her while ravishing her. As a wild horse, Nadja rode him naked throughout the countryside. This version of Gregor? “It’s a boring disgrace.” It’s because his name is Jeff. Gregor’s backstory is definitely outrageous.
4 Lilith and Nadja’s friendship
Season 2, Episode 9 (2020)
A witch named Lilith kidnaps Nandor and Laszlo to steal their sperm. However, Nadja was once friends with the sorceress years ago when Lilith ran a shop that sold “all the newest mixtures of makeups and ladies clothings and shirtings and suitings and shoesings.”
It was a front, a way for her to distribute the “very best of semens to any witch who needed it.” Naturally, the women hit it off straight away. Until Lilith did something “so evil, so despicable, so unforgivable” that they are now sworn enemies for the rest of time. Lilith had an affair with Laszlo, earning herself five spits for an enemy from Nadja.
3 Nouveau Théâtre des Vampires
Season 2, Episode 10 (2020)
The backstory for the Nouveau Théâtre des Vampires is, like the rest, shown with hilarious, raunchy old paintings and sketches. The theater group travels from Europe to America once every five years, and only the “creme de la creme de la creams” of vampire society is invited.
The vampires finally make the cut. Laszlo adds that he’s heard there’s a lot of nudity, the “full rack.” He claims there should be “some genitalia on show there that would make a human go ‘what is that exactly?'”
2 The Guide’s sordid past
Season 4, Episode 2
Thanks to Laszlo’s hypnosis, we learn of The Guide’s sordid past that she kept locked away in the furthest parts of her psyche behind a door marked “Shame.” Being The Guide isn’t her job; it’s her punishment because she was once a bad, sloppy, wild, moth-to-the-danger-flame vampire.
Cue the hilarious paintings of moments from her past. She led the Inquisition, danced the Dance of the Seven Veils without the veils, and was “extra.” However, the worst thing she did was sleep with a Van Helsing, which she knew was wrong but was intrigued by “the danger, the depravity.” Will this climax be the end of her story? What a way to go as his fingers wrapped around her neck.
1 The stigma of throwing a poor orgy
Season 1, Episode 9 (2019)
In one of their first joint backstory sessions, Laszlo and Nadja educate viewers on the stigma attached to throwing a poor orgy. If it ever happened to them, Nadja would kill Laszlo and then herself. There’s no recovery from that humiliation. They can’t even speak of the notorious orgy of 1937.
Nadja’s seriousness on the matter is hilarious itself. She explains that half the bats you see are just vampires that have thrown terrible orgies and are too ashamed to regain vampire form. “They just flit around shame bates, bats full of shame,” she says.
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