What I’m Watching: What We Do in the Shadows (Season Premiere)

What We Do in the Shadows: Season 3, Episode 1 “The Prisoner” (B+)

After screening a good chunk of season two of this show following its Emmy nomination for Best Comedy Series, I’m now officially going to be watching it. While it took some time for it to grow on me, I think it has by this point, and watching half an hour each week (or a full hour, in this case) should be pretty tolerable. I did enjoy that Guillermo was being imprisoned in a cage that he figured a way out of, yet, instead of trying to escape, which he could have done very easily, he just used the great wi-fi to rewatch “Gilmore Girls” and snuck up to the house to do all the things that the vampires assumed happened automatically and to grab human food since he couldn’t very well eat the raw chicken they kept giving him. The vampires’ concern that he posed a danger to them because he had killed other vampires was apparently shared by the supreme council, and their emissary, played by the always fantastic Kristen Schaal, whose voice I recognized even with her accent, brought a videotape explaining their surprise decision to promote these vampires who had been responsible for the deaths of more than thirty other vampires. Their decision not to kill Guillermo and instead use four-way hypnosis on him was of no bearing given that he had become immune because they had used hypnosis to get him to do things he would have done anyway, and the biggest issue now will be which one of them is going to be the head of the council. Laszlo was immediately out, but the other three are all for it, and I had a feeling it’s going to end up being Colin simply because he’s going to drain the desire out of the rest of them, though Nadja would probably be a better choice.

Emmy Catch-Up: The Mandalorian

Every year, I watch the six submitted episodes of every series I don’t regularly watch that’s up for one of the Emmy series prizes. This year, I’m watching the entire season of every series nominated in the top category.

The Mandalorian: Season 1, Episode 6 “Chapter 6: The Prisoner” (B-)

This show seems very repetitive to me, and in this case we just got more criminals all fighting for the same prize who, unsurprisingly, had an axe to grind with the Mandalorian. I recognized actor Mark Boone Junior from “Sons of Anarchy” right away as the man who seemed most excited to see him, Ran, although he was later revealed to have engineered the whole thing with the goal of his old friend ending up dead. I didn’t realize it was Clancy Brown from “Carnivale” and “Billions” under all that makeup as Burg, whose bear hug beat-down was an impressive way of dealing with an active threat. Using his ship and having to bring Baby Yoda along meant an invasion of personal space, and it tuned out that the droid he hated so much was actually the one least intent on killing him. What’s hard to believe is that the Mandalorian goes to such lengths not to be bad, leaving Xi’an, Mayfeld, and Burg alive rather than killing them when he had the chance, and yet he’s still able to stay ahead and survive. He obviously wasn’t always like this or he wouldn’t have earned such a formidable reputation. Even the fate that befall Qin and Ran wasn’t so terrible because he was indeed an escaped prisoner and ended up with a trio of X-wings coming after him to track him down and fire when they saw they were about to be attacked. With just two episodes left in this season, I imagine that the Mandalorian still has more enemies he knows and doesn’t know just waiting to come after him.