Freddie in What We Do in the Shadows: Season 4 Episode 9 Recap

Freddie in What We Do in the Shadows, explained

For three seasons Guillermo has been the person who keeps the house standing, and for three seasons the house has treated him like furniture. "Freddie" is the episode where he finally gets something of his own, and the show spends twenty-five minutes proving how little the vampires can leave alone. Written by Jake Bender and Zach Dunn and directed by DJ Stipsen, it is the 39th episode of the series and the penultimate chapter of season 4.

The title character is Guillermo's boyfriend, played by Al Roberts. Guillermo met him during his time overseas with Nadja, and he asks if he can bring Freddie to New York for a weekend. Nandor takes one look and wants to be close to him, and the episode does a clever thing: it never lets that attraction become a real romantic threat. Nandor wants what Guillermo has, not Freddie himself, and the show treats that confusion as the tragedy.

People searching for Freddie in What We Do in the Shadows are usually trying to work out which Freddie is which, because by the second half there are two of them. The first is the real boyfriend. The second is Marwa, Nandor's newly betrothed, transformed by one of the Djinn's remaining wishes into a copy of Freddie so that Nandor can feel what Guillermo feels.

The nightclub storyline runs in parallel. Nadja's venue is thriving, thanks mainly to Baby Colin, and the opening scene shows the proof: Jim Jarmusch, Sofia Coppola and Thomas Mars of the band Phoenix, all playing themselves, are there to be entertained. The Celebrity Special, an offer reserved for select guests, ends in the way these offers always end, with the guests drained.

Season 4 ran for ten episodes on FX, from July 12 to September 6, 2022, and "Freddie" sits between "Go Flip Yourself" on August 23 and the finale. That position matters. By the ninth episode the season has spent weeks building toward a reckoning for the household, and the writers use the spare half hour to test every relationship in it at once: Nadja and Laszlo, Nandor and Guillermo, and Colin and everyone who has ever tried to manage him.

Freddie in What We Do in the Shadows is also a rare case of the series moving its camera outside the Staten Island house and the club for emotional stakes. The London ending belongs to Guillermo alone. After years of devotion to a master who rarely says thank you, the final shot asks what a familiar actually gets for his loyalty.

Recap: contracts, tours and a copied boyfriend

Laszlo has become Colin's manager and arrives at the club with a contract. Colin is the draw, and Laszlo wants him paid and protected. The Guide (Kristen Schaal) reads out clauses Colin does not care about, Nadja refuses to sign and says that the main attraction is replaceable. Laszlo calls her bluff and takes the act on the road, to Albany and Binghamton, and Nadja loses her husband and her headliner on the same night.

At the house Nandor hides his jealousy badly. He is called the Relentless for a reason, and he spends the weekend interrupting every moment Guillermo tries to have with Freddie. Then he spends one of his wishes on Marwa, who becomes Freddie in a flash. He tells himself he is helping his familiar; the show lets the audience see that he is helping himself.

On the road, Colin hits puberty overnight. A Binghamton motel scene introduces him as a full-grown teenager, and the child act that made him a star stops working in front of the first audience. The crowd came to see Baby Colin and cannot be sold a surly adolescent with a changed voice.

Why Nandor's wish is the show's most honest joke

Nandor's habit is to take what he wants and apologize afterward, and "Freddie" tests that habit against a person he cannot conquer. He cannot have Freddie, so he makes one. The copy has Freddie's face and none of Freddie's history, which is the point: Nandor does not want a person, he wants the feeling of being wanted.

Kayvan Novak plays the scenes with a happiness that is hard to watch, because the audience knows the cost. Novak keeps Nandor sympathetic, a man with a good heart and the self-awareness of a golden retriever, and that is what makes the wish land as a betrayal and never as a villain's plan.

Colin, Laszlo and the end of the baby act

The road plot is a quiet reversal. Laszlo has spent the season treating Colin as a project, and the Binghamton motel is where he first treats him as a child. When Colin storms off the stage, Laszlo goes after him instead of counting the lost fee. It is a small moment, and it is the warmest in the episode.

For Mark Proksch, the change in Colin is a gift: the teenager sulks, wants to sing Papa Roach and Evanescence, and does not understand why. The line between a joke and a sincere portrait of puberty is thin, and the episode stays on the right side of it.

The club night and the double Freddie

Nadja drinks too much of Sofia Coppola's blood and boos young vampire performers at the club's auditions, then books Le Cirque Érotique. The one act that turns up is a performer called Gustave Leroy, who delivers an impressive but unwelcome trick, and the crowd does not forgive it. Blood sprinklers keep the audience in the room until the pressure nearly kills one patron. The night ends in failure.

At the house Guillermo finds Nandor with the copy of his boyfriend just as the real Freddie walks in. Nandor then does the thing the show has been building toward: he sees what he has done. He sends Freddie home, and he sends Marwa away to see the world. Guillermo flies to London to surprise his boyfriend and learns that Freddie is now dating the copy.

Freddie at a glance

• Episode: season 4, episode 9 (39th overall), aired August 30, 2022, on FX.
• Creative team: directed by DJ Stipsen, written by Jake Bender and Zach Dunn.
• Guest cast: Al Roberts as Freddie, with Sofia Coppola, Jim Jarmusch and Thomas Mars playing themselves.
• Main plot: Nandor uses a Djinn wish to turn Marwa into a copy of Freddie.
• Side plot: Colin goes on the road with Laszlo and hits puberty.

Freddie review: the verdict

The best thing about the episode is how little it forgives. Nandor is not a villain, and the script never makes him one, but he does something cruel and gets a precise punishment. The wish costs him his fiancée's company, and the last scene gives Guillermo the worst of the outcome, which is the most typical result in the series: the person who does the right thing pays the most.

The Colin and Laszlo road trip is the lighter half, and it works because Matt Berry sells Laszlo's attempt at fatherhood so completely. Laszlo is not good at it. He is, though, trying, and the Binghamton scenes are funny without being cruel to Colin.

Harvey Guillén carries the final act. Guillermo spends the episode being polite to a boss who is ruining his weekend, and the moment he loses his temper is one the show has earned slowly over several seasons. Guillén plays the hurt first and the anger second, which is the right order, and the London scene needs only his face to work.

As a setup for the finale, the episode does its job. Critics were broadly positive, with The A.V. Club giving it a B+ and Vulture and Den of Geek each awarding it four stars out of five. Viewers who watch only for the jokes will get them. Viewers who stay for Guillermo will get the better half of the season so far. Freddie in What We Do in the Shadows is, in the end, a small, sad comedy about borrowed happiness, and it earns its place among the better episodes of season 4.

Sources

• What We Do in the Shadows (TV series), Wikipedia — Checked against: season and episode list, cast and air dates.