What We Do in the Shadows’ best character is Colin Robinson

It’s easy to be annoyed living in America. While this feeling isn’t a uniquely American experience, life in this country does seem like it’s predisposed towards being annoying in uniquely American ways. You can think of any one number of institutions that are deeply rooted in our society: private insurance, online service providers, Congress and the Fortnite Battle Pass — layers of compulsory bureaucracy complicating what probably should be rather straightforward tasks. You are constantly distracted by small, insignificant things. This is a very different type of vampire but it’s still horrifying.

FX Comedy How we work in the Shadows isn’t just a television adaptation of a movie, it’s an American take on a New Zealand work. While the show’s premise — a bunch of vampire roommates trying to enjoy modern life while being stuck in their archaic and blood-sucking ways — is identical, the series follows new characters distinct from the 2014 film. In its first few episodes, it’s quite similar to the movie but with one big exception: Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), its most annoying character, and also its best.

Colin Robinson (one should always refer to him by his full name) was an invention exclusively for the TV version. ShadowsIt is possible to. As an “energy vampire”, Colin Robinson does not have fangs or drink blood. Colin Robinson is a “energy vampire” who feeds on others’ life force by using bad jokes and long diatribes that nobody cares about. He also has a very low sense of urgency. His specialty is to see your eyes glaze over and feed you.

Initial thoughts were that Colin Robinson was the greatest character. How we work in the Shadows can seem like a stretch — particularly because he is actually annoying. He enjoys office gossip and happily drones on on TV about motion smoothing, nearly exclusively for viewers who do not care. His efficacy and his ability to make others laugh is what makes the comedy. Watch a supercut of his shenanigans, and it’s absolutely maddening stuff.

How we work in the Shadows wisely uses Colin Robinson as a spice throughout its first two seasons, a bit of droll comedy to contrast with the antics of his roommates: the wildly horny Laszlo (Matt Berry), his wife Nadja (Natasia Demitrou), their petty leader Nandor (Kayvan Novak), and their pet familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén). A brilliant show. Shadows behaves like each season is not telling one overarching story — most episodes are entirely standalone — but always is. How we work in the ShadowsIt is Always world-building (season 1 eventually reveals that there’s a whole vampiric council), and always doing it with jokes (Wesley Snipes is on it, because he was in Blade(). That throughline, which was just concluded in the third season of its current series, focused all on Colin Robinson.

Early on in the season, Colin Robinson becomes curious about his origins — as an invention of the show, and one different from typical vampire tropes How we work in the ShadowsParodies are a way for the audience to forget about energy vampire legends. Turns out that’s because the characters have no idea either, so every once in a while, they try to find out more. Although they never find the answers to their questions, one thing is certain: Colin Robinson is in his final days.

The writers of Season 3 took a sudden twist and created this episode. How we work in the Shadows are able to remix a funny relationship — it’s hard to mourn a roommate you don’t like much — and underline what might be the show’s most incisive point.

Russ Martin/FX

It’s easy to forget this because they’re all bumbling goofballs, but this is a show about monsters. Nadja and Laszlo are Old World bloodsuckers. They’re ancient, foreign horrors who settled in Staten Island. They are known for their fish-out-of water humor. Nandor is a former warlord, who settled down into domesticity. Laszlo is an outof-touch libertine with eclectic taste. Nadja is uncommonly sensitive to the supernatural in ways which make life even more strange for everyone. Colin Robinson is an older, more straightforward American citizen. This is the perfect example of passive aggressive hostility. It is the type of person who makes sense when you are in an environment where, according to the old joke, the hospital bill is sufficient to return you to the hospital. He is the worst kind of hostility that occurs when we are unable to directly address discomforting issues, or to identify the ways in which others have been hurt or disconcerted. He is a vampiric individual who acts in a casual way and shows selfishness that wreaks havoc on peace-making abilities of others.

When you know he’s in the room and what he’s doing, Colin Robinson is extremely funny. When you don’t, though? That’s what makes an energy vampire the perfect horror monster: They could be any one of us, ready to drain at any moment. That’s the real power of annoyance: It makes it impossible to get anything — be it health insurance, government, or even a bunch of work emails — done. So America does nothing.

You can stream What We Do In the Shadows on Hulu via FX.