[Recap] Keeping Up with the Shadows Season 2 Episode 7

EPISODE 7 — THE RETURN

The seventh episode opens with my favourite couple, Nadja and Lazlo, who have just left ‘the talkies’, now known as the cinema. They’re complaining about the addition of sound and how it ruined the film for them, but are stopped when they hear a voice coming up from the sewer, calling out for Lazlo specifically. The voice asks them very nicely to come down in to the sewers, so of course they do, and after a few minutes of walking through the crap pipe they come across an old foe… Simon the Devious. Played by Nick Kroll, he is a familiar face from the last season, though he is a shadow of his former self. The once successful and popular vampire is now down to a crew of two and living in the sewer.
Because she feels sorry for him Nadja makes the empty offer of having him over to their home, thinking he would be too ashamed to take them up on it, but of course when they return they find he’s beaten them there and is already inside with Nandor and Guillermo.

The vampires give Simon and his crew a tour of the house, and as they do we meet Elvis… THE one and only Elvis. The king himself. We then learn that he was turned in to a vampire by Lazlo in the 70s and is using a room in their house to record new music. And then they leave as if all of that was no big deal and continue the tour.

Everything seems to be going okay for a little while, apart from Lazlo constantly trying to uncover a plan that seemingly doesn’t exist, but it all falls apart when Carol learns that Guillermo is a vampire hunter when she smells death on him. So of course she tries to kill him, and again Guillermo kills another vampire by accident, but before he can get away unseen this time Nandor appears and slowly realises what he’s done.
Guillermo admits that to his master that he killed her by accident and Nandor decides to cover it up, mainly because it will reflect badly on him, but also because Guillermo would be killed for what he did.
There’s a moment after Nandor tells him to clean up the dusty mess that was Carol, when Guillermo says yes and accidentally places the wooden stakes against his torso, and it’s very tense as the two of them slowly back away from one another.
I think this is the first time Nandor actually considers the fact that his familiar could be a threat, and might not the meek human he’d always thought he was.

Lazlo, who has been suspicious of Simon the entire time, is proven correct when the vampire has fully recovered and reveals his true intentions. He wants the hat, of course.
Nadja believed the witch hat was lost in the explosion at Simons club, and is furious when Lazlo brings it out to taunt him with, revealing to her that he’d had it in the house the entire time.
A fight for the hat ensues and it’s in this scene we get one of my favourite moments in the episode. When Simon tries to escape Lazlo picks up a bow and arrow and takes aim at him, and it’s then we get a shot of him that is completely reminiscent of Vladislav in the movie. It isn’t surprising that we get this tribute in the second of two episodes in this season to be written by Jemaine Clement, who played Vladislav.

Taking bat form, Lazlo and Simon disappear in to the sewers again, and the others follow them. They’re led in to a trap, where they’re ambushed by the rest of Simon’s crew, which is a lot bigger than he led them to believe.
Even Elvis had been working with him, which is a stinging betrayal to the vampires, and we learn that the whole thing was in fact a plot for him to get the hat back.

Or so we thought…
During his speech Simon reveals that his crew is no longer enough to satisfy him, instead he wants what Lazlo and Nadja have, even though he believes they settled for one another.
Obviously his crew aren’t happy about that, so when he realises he’s trapped and begins slowly sinking no one helps him, instead they leave him to slowly drown still wearing the witch hat.

Theres a moment before they go when Guillermo asks Nandor if he’ll drown, and Nandor suspiciously asks him why he’s so interested in how vampires die now. But just before that he also makes it clear that he’ll cover for him, or he’ll at least try to, even though we all know he’ll probably be very bad at it and will most likely be what gets them caught. This made me hopeful for their relationship going forward but I think it’s definitely going to be tested even further before the season is over.

But that’s not all!
Throughout this episode we’ve seen Colin Robinson as he uses several laptops and tablets to troll people online and drain them.
But, as always happens, he ends up being trolled too. He gets more and more invested in taking this person down, until finally he decides to go and confront them in person.
When he gets there he has a moment where he realises what he’s doing and decides to go home, until he receives a message from his online foe telling him to meet him around the corner. So of course he does.
Colin Robinson meets the person he had been talking with online, and it’s an actual, real life, butt naked troll. As in the creature that lives under the bridge and is about 8 foot tall.
Because he’s so huge we think that Colin Robinson would be outmatched, but Colin does what he does best, he talks and talks and drains the troll of all his energy. He talks for so long that the sun comes up and the troll turns to stone.
Colin has won, or so he thinks, until he tries to walk away and the troll makes one last move, reaching out and grabbing hold of the energy vampire before he’s fully turned to stone.
And then the credits roll…

There are several things I’m waiting to come up in this season;
Obviously the first is the vampires, or at least Nandor, finding out about Guillermo’s heritage and his vampire hunter group. But also learning about all the vampires he’s been killing since the last season in order to protect them from the council, and if I’m correct they still don’t know the council wants them dead because Guillermo’s been doing such a good job.
And secondly, I NEED an episode centred around Nadja’s doll, who I realised Colin Robinson must know about, since he tried to kiss her. But he seemingly hasn’t told anyone else in the house and neither has Nadja, so I can’t wait for them to find out and see what happens with her character.

So far this season has been amazing, and while I can’t wait to see what happens in the next three episodes, I’m really not looking forward to it ending and having to wait for another season.
But I’ll worry about that in three weeks…

For now, join me next week to talk about episode 8!