What We Do in the Shadows' two-episode Season 2 premiere was hilarious, richly building up the show’s ever-growing world. The second episode, “Ghosts,” proves that ghosts exist in the What We Do in the Shadows universe... and uses this as a gateway to bring back a character killed off last season.
One of the best recurring jokes of the show’s first season followed Nadja’s relationship with the human Jeff. Jeff was the reincarnation of her former lover, Gregor, who had a particularly unfortunate cyclical pattern in all of his past lives: he would always have an affair with Nadja, and always die from decapitation. Jeff, his latest reincarnation, was no exception, having been introduced and losing his head last season. “Ghosts” starts out with the vampires’ house showing signs that it might be haunted. It turns out it is, by none other than Jeff’s ghost.
Seeing that the show had already established that vampires, werewolves, necromancers, and zombies existed in this world, ghosts were probably going to show up sooner or later. Still, What We Do in the Shadows presents this in an unexpected way, coming right out the gate in revealing that most vampires actually don’t believe in ghosts. Namor scoffs at Nadja when she suggests that their abode might be haunted, as does her husband, Laszlo. After Nadja performs a séance and proves ghosts exist to the others though, the episode has a lot of fun with what the concept of a ghost means for this parodic world.
What We Do in the Shadows is a show that’s committed to turning around certain mythological conventions. The vampires begin to ponder if they may have ghosts too, as when humans become vampires their souls are stripped. The vampires thus perform another séance to see if they can bring their ghosts to the realm of the living, and sure enough, they do. It’s a very clever riff, and it’s actually a bit surprising that more vampire fiction hasn’t explored such a concept.
Getting back to Jeff, it will be interesting to see what happens to him in the coming weeks. They haven’t fully explained why his death caused him to become a ghost, while every other time he died he was reincarnated. (Could his past selves have ghosts too?) Either way, Nadja is more concerned with bonding with her own ghost interacting with Jeff's. She's no longer smitten with him.
Last season ended with Laszlo revealing to Nadja that he was responsible for killing Jeff/Gregor in all of his past lives because Jeff/Gregor always made Nadja cry and Laszlo wanted her to be happy. Nadja was simply flattered to hear this, and it seems to have rekindled Laszlo and Nadja's marriage. Nadja the vampire no longer has any need for Jeff in her life. Nadja the ghost, however, may have found her spectral soulmate (she even asks that he call her, although it's a mystery how a 700-year-old ghost knows this contemporary term).
Whatever the case, neither Jeff or Nadja’s ghost self will be exiting the show anytime soon. Nadja’s ghost creepily possesses a doll before the episode’s end and will be sticking around the vampire’s abode, even while the other vampire’s ghosts make their return to the afterlife. Jeff was a highlight of last season, and thankfully the writers found a way to bring him back that worked with the show’s rules and sense of humor.
What We Do In The Shadows stars Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetriou, Matt Berry, Mark Proksch and Harvey Guillen. Taika Waititi co-produces alongside Jemaine Clement, Scott Rudin, Paul Simms and Garrett Basch. New episodes air Wednesdays at 10 pm ET/PT on FX.