The following contains spoilers for What We Do in the Shadows Season 4, Episode 6, "The Wedding," which aired Tuesday, Aug. 9 on FX.
Weddings tend to be a sure bet on TV shows... either for the affirmation of two characters madly in love or for the happy day becoming a traumatic experience. The wedding of Luke and Laura Spencer on General Hospital in 1981 garnered over 30 million viewers, while shows like Friends and The Office gave the latter half of their runs a boost by having their respective happy couples tie the knot. On the other hand, just as much entertainment can be derived from any number of nightmarish scenarios, starting with one party leaving the other at the altar and escalating to anything from ninja attacks to inebriated relatives passing out on the cake.
What We Do in the Shadows used the marriage plot device as a big part of its Emmy Award-nominated fourth season as Nandor the Relentless sought and found a bride in typically chaotic form. Season 4, Episode 6, "The Wedding" was an excuse for the show to cut loose in a number of weird directions. Yet the strangest twist might be how bizarrely uneventful it all ended up being. At the end of the day, it was still a special event.
Weddings in movies and television rarely go as planned. An uneventful wedding can readily be conveyed by a quick shot of the happy couple kissing on the steps afterward without wasting screen time. That's led to a "Groom Goes Kaboom" syndrome, where something wild and expected has to happen, regardless of whether the couple goes through with the marriage. The most infamous example in pop culture is the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones Season 3, Episode 9, "The Rains of Castamere," but the circumstances needn't be so dire. (See Henrietta punching Charles at the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral, for instance.)
What We Do in the Shadows used its wedding as the culmination of one of the show's biggest subplots in the first half of Season 4. Nandor stumbled across a wishing lamp among his possessions, resulting in a no-nonsense Djinn appearing to grant him whatever he desired. Naturally, he squandered his wishes, largely in pursuit of a wife. He ended up resurrecting his previous wives, then winnowing them down until only Marwa remains. It took a lot of wishes. The same thought process held true for the wedding itself. After sending Guillermo on an unspecified number of impossible tasks to put the ceremony together, Nandor used his final wishes to add the finishing touches. They included a living dodo bird, the bride's parents reincarnated for the weekend and their ancient frenemy Baron Afanas restored to health so he could officiate.
The wishes worked as intended, and yet did absolutely nothing to salvage what happens next. The wedding took place at Nadja's nightclub, and entailed not only the Baron publicly stating his intention to have sex with Laszlo after the ceremony, but over an hour of objections from the guests... who gave a myriad of reasons for why the marriage shouldn't take place. This included both the bride's parents and the bride herself, who admitted that she was doing it only because she likes whatever Nandor likes, thanks to the djinn's magic. The dodo was served cooked at the reception, while the wedding's human guests were hypnotized to "not be freaked out" and to forget about everything the next morning.
And yet so much of this was so oddly normal. Nandor and Marwa went through with it, for starters, suggesting that Marwa may become a new permanent resident in the household. And for all its bizarre moments, the wedding itself came off as a success. Laszlo and the Baron snuck off for a quickie, the band got everyone to dance and the vampires' neighbor Sean Rinaldi woke up on his lawn in his underwear with no idea how he got there. Perhaps sweetest of all, Nandor covered Guillermo with a coat after the familiar once again worked far too hard to protect his master from his own bad decisions. It was a rare moment of gentleness from the groom, but also a sign that the wedding -- like so much of what the characters do -- was still a family affair.
What We Do in the Shadows airs Tuesdays at 10:00 p.m. on FX.