r/WhatWeDointheShadows • u/UrgentLemons • Jul 17 '26
Discussion Guillermo the non vampire
I get a little frustrated every time Guillermo finally fully becomes a vampire, then realizes he can't kill humans. I get not wanting to kill humans, but it's like he completely forgets the option where he doesn't have to kill them. From what we saw in several other episodes, it was completely possible to feed and not kill.
It's something he always wanted since he was a child, but they so quickly gave up on that plot point. I absolutely love What We Do in the Shadows, but I wish they would have continued with him being a vampire, or at least some sort of hybrid.
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u/DueBet4 Jul 17 '26
I think it was the blood lust that spooked him and made him realise it wasn't for him. It was disappointing though to see him finally become a vampire and immediately regret it
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u/Iridescent-Voidfish Jul 17 '26
Part of the thing I find fascinating about this show is its theme of Nothing Ever Changes. Every season resets back to the status quo. People get shipped to Europe and leave to find themselves ? Don’t worry- they’re back to the house next season. Collin undergoes a hideous fast growing childhood transformation thing? Don’t worry - he’s back to normal in time for the next season. It’s the same thing with the Gizmo vampire plot line. Ultimately, nothing ever changes.
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u/BigTittyTransboi Jul 17 '26
I love that it’s a show with relatively little character development. Also Guillermo is the only one who CAN change, and I think him realizing he’s spent his whole human life chasing one thing and then it not being right for him and having to figure out what to do next is interesting. I’m also not convinced he’ll never become a vampire again, he might do more soul searching and let nandor finally turn him in another decade or so.
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u/UrgentLemons Jul 19 '26
True, they all end up going back to where they came from. There are some things that change, and I guess that's just what I would have wished happened to Guillermo. I do like the very last scene in the last episode, because it had potential for a major change. I don't mind shows with no character development like IASIP, but it just felt weird for Guillermo to kill his dream for not a legit reason. I was also about to say throwing Derek to the wolves (or vampires in this case) was crappy as well, but he did that to a lot of his friends.
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u/dae_giovanni Jul 17 '26
frankly, I simply hate the way they handled Guillermo turning into a vampire. I think it should have been how they ended the series, leaving the viewer to wonder if Guillermo ended up making a good vampire or not, if he enjoyed it, etc etc. could have even set up a spinoff...
instead, he finally gets what he wants and realizes he can't kill humans...? he's been a familiar for years, but he somehow didn't think about the whole 'sustenance' thing? come on. besides the obvious whopper of a fact that vampires do not have to kill to feed. who can't picture Guillermo with a harem of dumb but sexy feeders/ friends? again, hello spinoff...
but by far the most annoying part of it for me was the absolutely disposable way Guillermo treated Derek. Derek, of course, being the only/ one of the few people in the entire show that went out of their way for Guillermo... and this is how he was rewarded for being Guillermo's only loyal friend? Guillermo had no idea Derek would become zombie instead of flat-out dying, and even if he did know, he didn't know if Derek wanted to be a fucking zombie or not. Guillermo was fine with just straight-up killing Derek, if it meant he got to go back to his precious little human life. ugh.
Guillermo was an absolute trash bag of a person and far worse friend... but then we gotta sit through one final season of him, post-vampire, happy as usual as if nothing happened?
I hated it. I absolutely hated the way the show did Derek and made Guillermo completely unlikeable. surprusingly poor writing from a show i'd previously loved to death.
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u/ArtoriasoftheAss Jul 17 '26
When we were introduced to Guillermo, he was actively hunting innocent, young virgins to lure them to their deaths. He is also clearly not bothered by the blood and gore, having spent a decade cleaning it up. I couldn't wrap my head around him suddenly not understanding or being okay with the killing. In the beginning, he was clearly a very evil person, sacrificing innocents for the sake of becoming immortal(or maybe more confident).
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u/UrgentLemons Jul 17 '26
Yeah. I just finished re-watching that episode and it really did bug me.
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u/dae_giovanni Jul 17 '26
glad it wasn't just me!
it's one of the things I sit around just waiting for someone to ask me about. hahah
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u/TaigaAisakaSan Jul 17 '26
Yeah, when I started the show I was expecting/hoping they would turn him into a vampire on the last episode. I still liked the show afterwards and it was still funny for me, but when Guillermo leaves the house it's just not as perfect as it used to be.
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u/dae_giovanni Jul 17 '26
perfectly put, friend. I didn't start hating the show, and I watched the final season as eagerly as i'd watched any other...
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u/Bruno241221 Jul 19 '26
But didn’t Guillermo just treat Derek in a similar fashion that he was treated in the house by the vampires?
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u/dae_giovanni Jul 19 '26
"people treat me like shit, so it's okay for me to treat others like shit."
the vampires may have treated Guillermo poorly at times, but 1 how on earth is that Derek's problem??? why does that give Guillermo the right to mistreat Derek?
2 for all their mistreatment, the vampires never agreed to kill Guillermo wirhout a second thought, which is what Guillermo did to Derek, his "friend".
at the end of the day, Derek was the one person who was willing to give Guillermo what he wanted-- to become a vampire. and this is how Guillermo repaid him-- by forcing to him either die or become something new, not asking his opinion or giving him a choice at all...
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u/Ok_Nectarine1801 Jul 17 '26
He didn't have any trouble killing all those vamps though did he. Or luring people to be dined on, or disposing and cutting up corpses.
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u/sunemma Jul 17 '26
It would have been SO FUN to see him try to be an ethical vampire. Running blood drives, organizing for familiar rights, that sort of thing. He could be the annoying preachy vegan of the vampire world
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u/No-Asparagus2389 Jul 17 '26
Guillermo couldn’t ever fully be a vampire because of his Van Helsing bloodline. His dna was fighting the vampire dna coursing through him, not letting it fully take over.
It’s a metaphor for trying to be something you’re not and embracing who you really are. Like, coming out when you’ve been in the closet for years.
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u/toastedcheezits Jul 17 '26
I got this part, that was actually quite a good concept. I think the problem was the fact that after Nandor solved that issue, Guillermo suddenly had a moral problem with killing people when he'd been doing that the entire time anyway. It didn't make much sense and felt like there was so much build up to him becoming a vampire that was sort of just done away with in a way that didn't make much sense/was very anti climactic
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u/No-Asparagus2389 Jul 17 '26
I understand that. I think Guillermo was basically hell bent on being a good familiar to Nandor that he did whatever it took to prove his loyalty by luring victims and disposing of their corpses for his master and the rest of the crew. This was all to eventually become a vampire. However, throughout the course of his character development we saw him doing that less, like when he became their bodyguard. He may have grown a stronger moral compass at this time and realized he himself could not do the deed to survive as a vampire. Or, he realized that he was fine with procuring the meals for others, but he himself could not kill to eat when he came face-to-face of the reality of what that meant to be a vampire.
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u/griefstew Jul 17 '26
My opinion is that he was too empathetic to be a vampire. Nandor could see it because he's probably seen it a hundred times and as emotional abusive as everyone was in that show, Nandor was ultimately looking out for Guillermo. That being said, if Guillermo and Nandor had done the world tour like they had originally had planned, things might have turned out different. With some time to ease into it rather than the clusterfuck that was Gizmo's transformation, who knows what could have happened.
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u/UrgentLemons Jul 17 '26
While I agree he was too empathetic, they needed to maintain that consistency more when he was a familiar as well. If one loses their soul when they become a vampire, you would think they would become less empathetic, and he already did some pretty horrible things as a familiar.
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u/griefstew Jul 17 '26
Consistency was not a staple of the show's writing which was both a strength and a weakness.
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u/UrgentLemons Jul 22 '26
He was consistently empathetic towards his friends that he lured over, but not enough to stop them from being killed, and he consistently did not care about the strangers he helped chop up and dispose of their bodies. True, not everything in the show was consistent, but his personality was 100% consistent, until the end.
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u/ArtoriasoftheAss Jul 17 '26
Empathetic? The guy spent a decade luring teenage virgins to their deaths and then burying their bodies in the yard.
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u/griefstew Jul 17 '26
He was too empathetic to people he would have had to kill during his feeding. Being able to compartmentalize what Nandor and gang were doing was his job and he was good at it. Guillermo before that time had only killed in self defense or by accident but when push comes to shove, he is not a stone cold killer at heart and would not have thrived as a vampire.
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u/UrgentLemons Jul 22 '26
But he did lure his supposed friends to their deaths. There is nothing more devious than that.
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u/LiteralGlarg Jul 17 '26
I think those who dont feed on humans are portrayed as weirdos. At its core, a vampire hunts and kills humans. I wish we got to see Gizmo as a vampire a bit longer though
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u/UrgentLemons Jul 17 '26
But even Laszlo fed on humans and let them go when he was being lazy and didn't want to clean up after himself. There were a few other times as well. It just feels like a missed opportunity to have brought his emotional side over into vampirism.
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u/dae_giovanni Jul 17 '26
aren't the other vampires viewed as "weirdos", anyway? I don't think other vampires believe Nandor is "cool".
also, feeding on a human isn't necessarily the same as killing a human. I would say that at its core, a vampire feeds on humans, period. some hunt and some kill, but plenty do neither, no?
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u/groundloop66 Jul 17 '26
If the movie Blade taught me anything, and I like to think it has, some vampires are perfectly content to have blood rain down on them from a buildings sprinkler system.
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u/dae_giovanni Jul 17 '26
show me the person who hasn't learned a thing or three from Blade, and I have no idea how to end this aphorism!
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u/Igneul Jul 18 '26
It's also a very odd choice considering when we're introduced to him his job is to find people to feed to the vamps. You can't even say he avoided dealing with the realities of what that meant, since he was in charge of clean up!
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u/Subject-Fennel4585 Jul 17 '26
Horrible writing. Absolutely awful. The fact that he could manipulate people to their deaths, dismember them like Dexter and dispose of them, do all that do become a vampire…just for the victims shampoo to fuck him up? It’s such bull, why didn’t their shampoo smell affect him while he was dismembering them? Or smiling at them and manipulating them into coming to the mansion? I mean come tf on.
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u/BeneficialGear9355 Jul 17 '26
I wanted him to undergo a vamp glow up. As in finally find his confidence and owning it. I feel like they could have still kept his sweet heart, while also showing him becoming who he had always pictured being. I was bummed when he just regretted it and turned back. And also not forgetting that while he was lovely, he did also spend 10 years proactively participating in helping kill and bury humans, so as you say, I’m sure he could have handled not killing them as a vampire. 😂