vw

VIP

2

[7.7/10] I loved about 80% of this one, and it only gets points knocked off for ending the whole thing on such a miserable note. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen an episode soar so beautifully for most of its runtime, only to crash and burn at the very end like this.

Suffice it to say, putting the vamps and Guillermo into an HGTV-style reality show is a hoot. I thought it was a little odd that they brought in such talented comedians like the Sklar brothers to do the little ads for the home-renovation show that Lazlo watched regularly. It makes sense now! And they kill it! Both of them absolutely nail the saccharine sunniness and hollow positivity of those sorts of televised cheese merchants. There’s an “I’m your server at TGI Fridays”-esque faux-enthusiasm to everything that makes for an amusing juxtaposition of the darkness and vulgarity that pervades the vamps’ abode.

I’ll confess, I haven't seen a ton of those HGTV shows, but WWDitS absolutely nails the tone and rhythms of the few I have seen. The forced taglines, the false drama of the act breaks, the silly swooping shots, and the goofy graphics are all done to perfection. You don’t have to be an expert in this sort of television to appreciate the attention to detail in the presentation and how it exposes how ridiculous this sort of thing is by merely replicating it.

But it also injects the peculiar ridiculousness of the vamps in all of this. Lazlo as a starstruck superfan tickled my ribs. Nadja being against the whole thing until it nets her a golden toilet made me chuckle. Nandor being so amazed by a “Home Is Where the Wine Is” sign is adorable. Guillermo being against the whole thing for very practical reasons of avoiding exposure, until he realizes he can spin things to improve his “hidey hole” is a great bit. And I love the humor of Nadja hypnotizing the crew, editors, and other nerds not to notice they’re vampires or that one of the hosts was murdered in the first scene.

I also enjoy the subplot about Nandor trying to build a mancave to get away from Marwa. There’s genuine insight to the idea that having someone who likes all the same things as you sounds good on paper, but that in practice, having someone who never challenges you or complements you, only matches you, would be exhausting and unsatisfying. I also appreciate him being hoisted by his own petard, where the fact that he wants a mancave where he can be away from her means she wants a mancave where she can be away from him. It’s a nice twist on the whole thing.

But god, I’ve never liked Devious Simon, or Nick Kroll’s whole shtick for that matter. I can appreciate the absurdity of turning this whole production into a shaggy dog story where it was all a ruse to get Lazlo’s witch skin hat. I have to tell you, though, I find Kroll’s overdoing it as a vampire exhausting, and the “humor” of his parade of hangers on to be dead on arrival. There’s some more funny digs at home renovation shows, about how they’re only fit for people half paying attention in hospitals and airports (which is, candidly, where I’ve seen them). But delivered in this package, the whole thing goes over about as well as a big wet fart.

Overall, I love this one as a format bender and in its ability to mesh the show’s sensibilities with the nonsense of reality television, but the limp, annoying ending brings an otherwise quality episode down considerably.