FX's What We Do in the Shadows season 2 will see Guillermo (Harvery Guillén) discover his talent for vampire slaying. Based on the film of the same name from Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi, the FX series follows a documentary crew filming a new group of vampires. It stars Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetriou, Matt Berry, and Mark Proksch as the four vampire roommates: Nandor, Nadja, Laszlo, and Colin Robinson, an energy vampire; all of whom treat Guillermo, the familiar, with absolutely no respect.
In the What We Do in the Shadows season 1 finale, Guillermo learns that he is a descendant of Van Helsing, the most famous vampire hunter of all time. The news comes as a total shock to Gulliermo, who since a young age has dreamed of becoming a vampire just like his hero, Antonio Banderas as Armand in 1994's Interview with the Vampire. It's this love of vampires that led Guillermo to become Nandor's familiar, and for the past 10 years, he has faithfully served his master and his roommates. Even now, after having learned the truth about his heritage, What We Do in the Shadows season 2 sees Guillermo use his newly discovered talent for killing vampires to protect Nandor and the others from assassins sent by the Vampire Council to kill them.
Last fall, Screen Rant visited the set of FX's What We Do in the Shadows and had the opportunity to hear from executive producer Paul Simms as well as Guillén about Guillermo's season 2 arc. As Simms explained, exploring how Guillermo is processing this new information about his lineage is a large focus of season 2:
Obviously, a big part of this season is, we ended last season on a big question with Guillermo as to whether he's a vampire killer. And whether he's a vampire killer by DNA or whether he still can be a vampire. And that's, that's sort of one of the biggest arcs we play out this season. His struggle to figure out what he exactly is and how it affects his relationship with Nandor.
For as much as Nandor belittles Guillermo, the familiar stays loyal to his master in the hope that one day he'll be granted his wish and be made a vampire. In fact, even though he's treated so appallingly - and especially so by Nadja and Laszlo, who care for Guillermo even less since he isn't their familiar - Guillermo still makes it his mission in What We Do in the Shadows season 2 to protect all of them from the Vampire Council's assassins. Simms went on to say:
Which you see in the first scene, because since the vampires escaped the council, and we've never tied up that thread, or referred to it until now. It's that in the time that's lapse between last season and this season, the vampire Council has been sending assassin after assassin to kill Nandor, Nadja, Laszlo. And Guillermo has thwarted them every time without Nandor, Nadja, or Laszlo even noticing that he's working above and beyond and they still treat him like a slave basically. And that's really funny.
There's a lot of comedy mined from Guillermo's suffering in What We Do in the Shadows, and even more so in season 2. While Guillermo is risking his life fighting off the assassins, his efforts go entirely unnoticed by the vampires he's trying to protect. As Guillén explained:
The vampires are so selfish that they don't realize stuff is going on. Like, you know, I get home covered in blood and they're like, 'Where have you been?' You know, like no questions asked... And it's just like, great, great. No one even cares what he's doing. And sometimes that's the joke, that like, I'm in the middle of fighting and killing the assassins.
Giving the whole situation even more tension is the fact that Guillermo can't tell the vampires he lives with that he's protecting them from vampire assassins because, according to Guillén, "then he'd have to admit that he's a vampire killer." Keeping this secret puts a lot of pressure of Guillermo in What We Do in the Shadows season 2, and Guillén said it's hardest for Guillermo to keep the truth from Nandor:
There's a really tender moment at the end of episode 4, where he's [Nandor] in his coffin and he comes out and goes, 'Guillermo, do you think you can stay with me tonight?' He's like, 'All this talk about vampire killers.' And he's just so sweet, to hear that he needs me. You know? You want to be needed and so he needs him. And so here I am covered in blood. I just killed 20 vampires outside the house. And he goes, 'All this talk about vampire killers, but they're not real, are they?' And I'm like, 'Oh, no, they're not.' And, you know, just that moment of you're lying to someone because you love them and you don't want to hurt them.
Still, unwittingly turning into a vampire hunter isn't all bad. What We Do in the Shadows season 2 will also make Guillermo into an action star and Guillén teased the sort of action fans will get to see:
Day one, like, we're shooting the first episode. I'm killing a vampire, going through the window. And it's like Buffy - Guillermo is the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Like, it's 1-2-3, backflip, and I jumped out of the window last week.
See Guillermo the Vampire Slayer when What We Do in the Shadows season 2 premieres Wednesday, April 15 on FX.