One more thing that What We Do in the Shadows gets right
Beyond being the funniest, weirdest, most unexpectedly heartfelt sitcom in years, it's also paid homage to the creepy capital of the world: New Jersey
There’s simply no way that What We Do in the Shadows should have made it past a first season. A long and dreadful history of successful comedy films transitioning over to short-lived TV series format would normally have doomed it from the start, particularly when it was cast with largely unknown (in the U.S. at least) actors, and the setting changed from Wellington, New Zealand to Staten Island. How much mileage could you get out of a bunch of vampires living in a house together anyway?
Turns out, quite a lot actually, as What We Do in the Shadows ended its fourth season last week as strong as ever, and on one heck of a cliffhanger, with Guillermo (series MVP Harvey Guillén), tired of waiting on Nandor (Kayvan Novak) to turn him into a vampire as long promised, pays vampire convenience store clerk Derek to do it. It remains to be seen whether Guillermo will actually go through with it, but what matters is that What We Do’s writing team is keeping things fresh and interesting, rather than falling back on tired tropes and rehashes, like so many other sitcoms heading into their fifth seasons. It feels as new and unique as when it premiered.
It helps that the fact that most of the main characters are centuries old vampires is not really the focal point of the show. Or rather, it is, but it’s watching them deal with very human problems, like cash flow issues, failed businesses, unrequited love, loneliness, and feeling lost in the world that makes it special. Who expected to be moved by Laszlo’s sorrow over a newly regrown Colin Robinson forgetting the time they spent together? Who ever thought they would find themselves disappointed in Nandor after jealousy drives him to create a clone of Guillermo’s boyfriend, ultimately destroying the relationship? Not me, this was supposed to be a silly show about vampires who talk in funny accents.
But I don’t want to talk about the stuff you already know is great about What We Do in the Shadows. I want to talk about something else the show gets right, that may only be noticeable to myself and a select few other people.
It recognizes New Jersey as one of the strangest places on Earth.
Not just New Jersey, specifically southern New Jersey, which, for how often its depicted in pop culture, might as well be a blank space on a map. Yes, there’s that famous episode of The Sopranos where Christopher and Paulie Walnuts get lost and nearly freeze to death in the Pine Barrens while trying to chase down someone who owes them money. There’s also the fact that Dr. Weird’s secret laboratory in Aqua Teen Hunger Force is located “somewhere in South Jersey,” but neither of those are the freshest references. As a potential setting for movies, TV shows and books, it simply does not seem to exist.
As someone who was born in and grew up around the Atlantic City area, I can say with authority that it’s a town ripe for artistic inspiration. Once a posh beachside resort town in the early 20th century (back when it was possible for families to take three month long vacations in the summer), it was remodeled into a hip amusement park/surfing destination during the 50s and 60s. When casino gambling was legalized in the 70s, it went through another metamorphosis, this time into a chic “adult playground,” promoted as Las Vegas by the sea, where New Yorkers and Philadelphians could play the slots or blackjack without having to get on a plane.
And then, thanks to corrupt local politicians, mafia involvement, and the exceedingly poor business decisions of one Donald J. Trump, Atlantic City’s days of glamor quickly began to fade. The 2009 recession put a stake in it altogether, and the town has been teetering on the edge of crumbling into the ocean ever since. It’s a memorial to excess and hubris, a smaller Times Square without the charm and excitement. There are a few valiant efforts to maintain its once classy image, such as a Gordon Ramsay steakhouse, but it does little to mitigate that the whole place is dying. Everything you need to know about the current state of Atlantic City is that its most heavily promoted events are tribute band concerts, including two separate and entirely different shows devoted to the Eagles.
To enter Atlantic City is to step onto another planet, where you can buy “starving artist” paintings, live hermit crabs and bongs all in the same store. One of the town’s minor celebrities in the 80s and 90s was Celestine Tate, a woman born without arms or legs who played a Casio keyboard with her tongue. A series of murders involving sex workers in 2006 has never been solved. A friend of mine who visited recently noted that she saw a man sitting on a bench offering full body massages. Culinary institution White House Subs has a towel Frank Sinatra once used to wipe his brow encased and on display. The United States’ oldest surviving roadside attraction, a six story elephant named Lucy, stands nearby, her ass facing the street, a window just under her tail. It basically looks like if David Lynch retired from filmmaking to open a tourist attraction.
It’s quirky and funny, but also bleak and decomposing and just plain weird. It’s both literally, and figuratively a ghost town, so of course Laszlo, Nandor and company would feel right at home there. In the season 3 episode “The Casino,” they’re invited on a weekend trip to celebrate neighbor Sean’s wedding anniversary, and are all too excited to spend some time in this “mecca of depravity,” which is such an accurate description of Atlantic City that they should put it right on the welcome sign (and let me reiterate that I’m from there, so I can say that).
Though the episode was actually filmed in Toronto, the opening credits sequence was changed to show real footage from Atlantic City, a montage of check cashing stores, decaying pawn shops, a guy throwing up into a trash can, and the iconic (if you’re from that area) “Christ Died for Our Sins” sign. You could swap out Norma Tanega’s “You’re Dead” for Bruce Springsteen’s least cheerful song “Atlantic City” and it would work perfectly. I don’t know if “homesick” was what I felt upon watching it, but—actually, no, you know what, “homesick” is the right word. That this montage of degradation is intercut with shots of the gang excitedly rolling into town in a garish, neon-lit party bus only heightens the utter uniqueness of the Atlantic City experience. I’ve been there. I know this. It feels right.
Without recapping the entire episode, some other all too recognizable beats are Nandor getting addicted to a Big Bang Theory slot machine, Nadja hanging out with her old flames the Rat Pack, not realizing that they’re impersonators (even though one of them is Chinese), and Colin Robinson feeding off of casino employees, an easy task considering they’re half-dead from boredom already. Then there’s the fact that Laszlo and the others become listless and disoriented from lack of sleep, both because hotel housekeeping has vacuumed up the native soil they sleep on, and because in a casino it’s impossible to tell what time it is. Go ahead, the next time you’re on a casino floor take a look around — you won’t see windows, or clocks. They’re designed so that customers playing the slots or roulette are unable to keep track of how long they’ve been there. Time has no meaning.
I don’t want to say that “The Casino” was made with love for Atlantic City, exactly. But there’s familiarity there. Episode writer Sarah Naftalis did her homework. It’s enough that at least someone acknowledged that it exists.
The gang (or at least, some of them) returns to South Jersey in the season 4 episode “Pine Barrens,” also written by Sarah Naftalis, who I have to assume is a native of the area. Laszlo, Nandor and the reborn Colin Robinson are once again invited on a trip by neighbor Sean, this time to his father’s hunting cabin deep in the titular Pine Barrens. Contrary to the popular belief that New Jersey consists mostly of smokestacks and the occasional tomato plant, much of the state between Atlantic City and Philadelphia is either rural farmland, or vast acres of undeveloped pinelands. The Barrens stretch across seven counties, and have existed for more than 10,000 years. They’re a part of the country so rich with spooky folklore that they have their own tag on Weird N.J.’s website.
Just the area around the hunting cabin is creepy enough, as is the growing possibility that Sean has killed someone at some point. Eventually, they’re paid a visit by South Jersey’s most famous resident, the Jersey Devil. West Virginia has the Mothman, the southwest has chupacabras and wendigos, the northwest and Canada have Bigfoot, we have Mother Leeds’ thirteenth child, cursed by its own mother in frustration at her drunken, useless husband.
The Jersey Devil was the number one scare tactic of choice for frustrated Jersey moms in the 20th century, though it was at one point taken rather seriously, as illustrated in a 1909 panic that resulted in school and factory closings. Its legend is also rather a bit more gruesome than other cryptids, in which the cursed Leeds child transformed into a monster upon birth, killing its mother and tearing apart the women who helped bring it into the world. You’d think a creature with such dark folklore would make for ample creative inspiration, and yet, as of this writing the only movies made about the Jersey Devil are no-budget affairs only found deep in the bowels of Tubi. There have only been a small handful of books written about it. We did get an episode of The X-Files, although with a version of J.D. (I call him that because we’re old friends from the neighborhood) that’s more of a Missing Link-type creature than a bloodthirsty murderous demon.
So what a delightful surprise to see it show up in What We Do in the Shadows. It looks much like how the actual Jersey Devil is described, an absurd mish-mash of wings, hooves, and multiple arms, standing upright but with a long tail that drags on the ground. It almost manages to overtake Nandor and Laszlo, before Colin Robinson orders Siri to play “New Jersey music.” Siri, of course, selects the unofficial anthem of New Jersey, “Livin’ on a Prayer,” and the Jersey Devil stops his attack to rock out to it, long enough to be defeated. Sean tries to help, but ends up accidentally shooting himself in the foot, shouting “Fuckin’ Jersey!”
Fuckin’ Jersey, indeed. The older you get, the more that strange things hit your emotional buttons hard, and this hit it hard. I’ve lived in New York City for nearly two decades, and even I’ve grown tired of it being the setting for the vast majority of movies and television. A rich vein of dark humor, surreality, seedy history, and sour soil horror exists just 120 miles away, and it remains puzzling that so few writers dig into it.
Great article. South Jersey reminds me of the gulf coast by your description.