Wwdits Takes - Tumblr Posts
A random thought that just occurred to me in relation to this post: they never said energy vampires could only feed on negativity, did they? Like wouldn’t it be fucking wild if this version of Colin Robinson actually grew up to feed on love, because that was the primary emotion present in the house?
one of the most refreshing things about shadows is how they take raunchy topics and make them as unsexy as possible, like the orgy where 90% of the episode was admin and at the end, the orgy didn't even happen, or the dick wish where we witnessed a lengthy detailed negotiation that effectively led to absolutely nothing. at the same time very innocent things feel suddenly sexy and exciting, like nadja and laszlo's marital bliss or a little tasty familiar twirling a metal rod over his head, i mean what
the tragic irony of guillermo always being the one to oppose nandor's relationships with other people, UNTIL it's a relationship nandor doesn't actually want. the tragic irony of nandor always being able to rely on guillermo to save him from himself and his mistakes even when he himself doesn't realise it's a mistake or believes he doesn't want guillermo's help, UNTIL he literally wants guillermo to do exactly that and all guillermo is doing is wholeheartedly supporting what he KNOWS is a huge mistake. the tragic irony of nandor wanting someone to ruin his wedding so desperately, whilst guillermo is literally driving himself insane trying to make it perfect for him. the tragic irony of guillermo thinking he's done right by both of them by moving on and letting nandor be happy with someone else and not being jealous anymore, when really what nandor actually needs right now is that old jealous, conniving guillermo who will try to sabotage nandor's relationship for his own good. the tragic irony of nandor finally giving up on running away from his feelings and turning around, only to find that guillermo has stopped chasing him.
One of the things I really can’t get over was that Guillermo was pretty much the only person there who didn’t object to the wedding – even though he clearly agreed with some of the objections. Nadja’s especially, his face was definitely like “yeah, she’s got a point”, and that’s probably because Nadja was 1000000% right.
Nandor was only doing this because he wanted to be married. He was only doing this because he wanted a big wedding to distract Guillermo. He didn’t care about Marwa specifically. And Guillermo knows this.
So then Guillermo, Nandor’s heart guard, the person who sat down with him for an entire day to make sure he didn’t fuck up his dick, the person who has protected Nandor from himself for over a decade… didn’t have anything to say about Nandor actively ruining his own life?
Everyone else in their lives had an objection. The fact that Guillermo didn’t is actually the most suspicious thing he could have done here. It’s such a blatantly terrible idea that him encouraging it is bizarre. Even the officiant knew it was never going to last!
So then… why didn’t Guillermo object? Why is he almost too encouraging and supportive? I think it’s because Guillermo needs to be supportive of this, for his own sanity. He’s yelling that he doesn’t care about Nandor getting married practically at the top of his lungs because he has to. It’s how he’s convincing himself that he’s okay. That this is fine. That he doesn’t care at all. That he’s totally fine with his own relationship and he’s not jealous at all.
Guillermo needs to behave like he’s happy that Nandor’s getting married. He needs to be seen not caring. He needs people to know that he Does. Not. Care. But he’s pushed it too far. Now he’s helped push Nandor into a terrible situation. He’s pretending so hard that everything’s okay that he’s missing all the blatant red flags about this relationship.
Because if he’s upset about this wedding, that means he’s upset that Nandor’s getting married. And if he’s upset that Nandor’s getting married, that means that his own relationship isn’t going as well as he thought.
And maybe he’s not as happy as he says he is.
The fact that there are so many reasons to object to this wedding other than jealousy seems to have completely escaped him. Boyyyyy that is some deep fucking denial! Freud would have a field day with you, Guillermo, if he weren’t busy fucking Laszlo!
(And yes, there’s also some stuff here about being so happy that Nandor is trusting him that he wants to make everything Perfect, but I think it’s mostly the carefully constructed denial that he’s leaning into as hard as humanly possible.)
no no you don't understand im going insane. all those times we've seen guillermo try to initiate a hug with nandor and nandor rejects them like to the point where its become a trope all on its own, yea the running joke of guillermo wanting a hug and nandor saying no I don't wanna hug you, and I was honestly starting to get to the point where I was like ok whatever, maybe nandor just isn't a hugger. BUT THEN THIS FUCKING EPISODE COMES AROUND AND MARWA IS DJINN'ED INTO LIKING AND WANTING WHATEVER NANDOR LIKES AND WANTS and at the first opportunity she gets she pulls guillermo in for the biggest hug and starts kissing his cheeks........nandor has literally wanted to hug guillermo this whole time and for some reason he has denied himself that every time he has the opportunity. I feel fucking sick!!!!!
The CONTRAST of Guillermo in s1 during the Orgy episode, calmly saying he needs to leave the room before he says something he'll regret, to which both Laszlo and Nadja protest to Nandor, "Are you going to let him get away with that??"
To THIS EPISODE where Guillermo literally DESTROYS A ROOM while screaming, and Nadja's first response is "Are you okay?", and then proceeds to help him???
Every episode they all get closer and closer to an actual family and I am LIVING for it. The character development is unmatched.
the fact that Nadja was like "I so rarely care about what Guillermo says or does" when that hasn't been true since season 3.. like her "now that we're all friends again" in episode 1, her helping Guillermo with the wedding stuff, her acknowledgement of his weird relationship with nandor. she's been paying attention to him and helping a little. and the way she behaved toward him this episode???? she agreed to pretend to be his girlfriend and maid, just going along with guillermo's story immediately and not being outraged or making a scene when she saw he was home. genuinely being interested in his family and laughing and joking with them, being apologetic when the cousin got mad at her for not saying lasik right. even when they were chasing her down with stakes she wasn't mad at Guillermo. she was confused and outraged that they were trying to hurt her but not at Guillermo. she threatened to kill them, but not Guillermo. and then she agreed to hypnotize them exactly how Guillermo wanted, remembering that he told them he was gay. she didn't have to do any of that. we know how powerful she is. she's developed a genuine comraderie with Guillermo and it's gonna make me sob.
I cant get over this fucking shot after he says he's gay. the amount of emotion he puts into this.... literally stood between the two groups of people he cares about most in the world, literally caught between the two parts of himself that he can never quite reconcile together, begging them not to kill each other, but also in a weird way begging them not to kill him. he places himself between them, puts his entire life on the line, knowing this could go so wrong in so many ways - his family could not listen and kill nadja, nadja could kill his family, they could reject him for being gay - but still holding out his hands and looking at his mother, saying I'm sorry, I just can't hide anymore, I can't choose between these two parts of myself so I'm asking you to please understand, please forgive me. everything he's never said, everything he's too afraid to say - it's literally all captured in this one frame. if his two families can make peace with each other then he can make peace with himself. literally his requirements for self actualisation are to reconcile with the two parts of him and allow them to coexist - and so he stands here, literally caught between two worlds, hands up in surrender, and puts it all on the line. guillermo is so so so brave and harvey guillén was so so so insane for this!!!!!!!
cannot stop thinking about marwa as nandor telling guillermo that she doesn't know what she would do without him. the whole thing really is just about nandor thinking that guillermo stood him up at the train station for one reason or another (like maybe he thinks guillermo changed his mind etc) and then being alone for that whole year and getting "home" and not finding any fulfillment or happiness in that and then thinking he has to get married to stop feeling so alone and being too stupid/depressed/repressed emotionally to understand that he just wanted guillermo to be with him! because he doesn't know what to do without him! and that him getting married was him subconsciously trying to get guillermo to object like he always did but guillermo just giving up on the idea of being a vampire or anything else with nandor because nandor didn't wait for him or come find him but nandor being so self hating that he probably thinks guillermo chose not to come. nandor trying to find flaws in the wedding and assuming everyone is trying to sabotage it because he know he doesn't actually love marwa that way and doesn't want to be married to her and can only do it when guillermo says he'll be there with him. because he doesn't know what he'd do without him. because he's his best friend and he can't bring himself to say it but he knows it's true and guillermo knows what he meant and he's okay with that because in s3 he realized how much he loves nandor but his love for nandor was never enough to make him happy and he wants him to be happy but everytime nandor is without guillermo he realizes how much unhappier he is without him. this whole arc is just a masterclass in mutual pining and miscommunication.
I love Nadja’s portrayal so much because she really is a quite revolutionary character? Women in vampire media are either the damsel in distress (see: Nosferatu, Dracula, Bella from Twilight etc.), deeply over-sexualized seductress types (see: Camilla, Dracula as well etc.) or just….treated very poorly in general (see: Interview with the Vampire). The WWDITS movie also hints at this, with Deacon’s familiar Jackie complaining about how the vampires are always male and only turning other men into vampires. So it’s amazing to see a character like Nadja on screen: yes, they’re leaning into the vampires-are-sex-obsessed trope, but because it’s a satire, it’s not treated seriously and the jokes are NOT just made at the expense of the only woman in the house. Nadja is never shown half-naked or anything (not even in the bathtub which fucking BROKE me wow), her sexuality is treated exactly like Nandor and Laszlo’s. Yes, she’s “seducing” Jeff, but even if or maybe because it’s just ridiculous, it really feels like she is exploring her own sexuality and being confident instead of putting on a show for the audience. She also gets to be mean! She gets to be angry, she gets to snap at people and have an ego, while still staying a likable and relatable character. Her relationship with Laszlo doesn’t confine her, she’s still having fun, but not like the seductress-type vampires her character is based on/making fun of, she’s also capable of real love! She loves Laszlo, Nandor and even Guillermo with all her heart. Anyway I love her
It's so funny that the whole wwdits fandom was like "yeah Guillermo's gay" but when he said it out loud in the new episode we all started crying screaming and throwing up like none of us knew
That's the thing with having unabashedly gay characters in media, it's rare enough to make people openly weep with joy when they're properly represented, and I'm glad we're finally getting the portrayals we deserve
something i never considered until this episode is…. Marwa knows.
like, the djinn wish made her like everything nandor likes, but as we all know about djinn wishes, you have to be super specific about your wording or it’s gonna come back to bite you on the ass somehow. Marwa now likes everything nandor likes, but there were no caveats in the wish about her awareness of it. he can change her mind but he can’t stop her from wondering why her mind was changed.
i think the man cave scene in this episode is a perfect and chilling reminder (as well as moment of foreshadowing) that she still has her intellect and her agency, and KNOWS that nandor has taken her free will when it comes to the things she likes. Marwa possesses deep practical and emotional intelligence, so the fact that she is slowly kenning to how and why her feelings changed so rapidly the night before the wedding makes sense. the look she gives nandor right before closing and locking the door is one of recognition as well as condemnation.
she knows what he did and will make him suffer for it until it is undone.
In the end, I don’t think that Nandor and Guillermo are endgame. I’m talking like season 6 shit. This episode I feel like really put in perspective all their fucked upness and they will return to the status quo because that’s what they always do but they’re never going to be together together. I think that at some point (season 5?) Nandor will realize his feelings for Guillermo (I’m in the camp of Guillermo already did last season) and then maybe in season 6 we’ll see the confession.
But they won’t be in an actual relationship. They never could, it was never the right time, never the right dynamic. And that adds to Nandor’s tragedy. He wants, he needs, someone to spend the rest of his life with. Maybe that person could have been Guillermo, but not under these circumstances, and he’s gonna figure it out.
While everyone is re-discovering that Nandor is in fact still a moron of an undead warlord who takes what he wants and leaves devastation in his path (shocking), I'm gonna go against the grain and keep playing in my own little sandbox like the lil meta goblin I am.
Let's look back at Guillermo this season so far.
Guillermo is probably my favorite character and he's my blorbo and I would die for him but this episode really highlighted what his main moral failing is: he's the enabler who stands by when others get harmed.
He stood by as Nandor fucked with his resurrected ex-spouses and helped him plan his wedding to a brainwashed Marwa. When he did properly address how Nandor had been treating her, he only did it because it was now affecting him and his relationship. He never cared about Marwa, just like he doesn't care about any other human victims.
He didn't step in and end it when Laszlo & Nadja were pushing Colin as a child performer, even after saying he would be a good parental figure and keep him safe.
The money he stole and use to buy himself nice things was technically mostly earned by Colin. As soon as he stopped performing, the club started failing and the money stopped coming in. Sure, Guillermo probably used some of it to buy stuff for Colin too, but did he put anything aside? Maybe he did, we don't know. We sure know he bought himself nice designer clothes and an expensive-ass Rolex.
Don't get me wrong, what Nandor and Freddie did to him this episode was horrible and humiliating, I'm not excusing that. They're still fully at fault for how they betrayed him. But it did kind of come back to bite Guillermo in the ass - the way he never intervened when Nandor was using Marwa like a prop. If he'd stopped that in its tracks at the beginning, which I think he might've if he'd gotten involved any other time than just with the penis wish, a lot of bad shit could've been prevented.
He's always been like this, he looks the other way when the vampires do horrible shit, which does make him responsible just like how he's assisting with all the murders
My biggest pet peeve is when people say "Guillermo should've saved Marwa!" like yeah he should've and could've, but he didn't, because that's not who he is as a character. He just spent a whole season enabling Nandor's abuse of her. He isn't someone who cares about other humans and that didn't change just because Marwa was likeable.
We have no idea how many people the vampires have tortured over the years but I'm sure it was a lot, and Guillermo didn't care. He just cleaned up the bodies later.
Again, his main motivation is that he wants to become someone who has that kind of power over others! His main concern is that he isn't the one doing the brainwashing and torturing yet!
You think Guillermo as a vampire wouldn't brainwash people? You think he wouldn't play with his prey? You think he'd be some kind of Twilight vampire who eats rats or whatever? You think he'd treat his familiars well? You think he would only eat "bad" people? Hell no, that'd never be him.
He's an immoral, abhorrent little freak and we can't pick and choose when we choose to acknowledge that about him. It's the main reason why he is who he is and why he does the things he does
no bc sean has a bigger part in this season because he has a bigger part in laszlo’s life…….like for a whole year nadja guillermo and nandor were gone and it was just laszlo, baby colin robinson, and his sweet cheese good time boy neighbor. and sean is a good friend so of course he’s been there for laz. he doesn’t even knock anymore. he found colin whacking holes in his garage wall and he’s like ‘oh that little rascal’ and carried him home. he’s so accepting of laszlo’s sexuality and will fight anyone who isn’t. he bonds with colin and tells him how lucky he is to have laszlo (and how much laszlo loves him). he invited laszlo and nandor and colin on a guys hunting trip (the worst possible people to bring) instead of literally anyone else. bc yah sean is laszlo’s best friend but laszlo is also sean’s
The amount of people calling for Nandor's death, solely because of the Guillermo end of things, is fucking disturbing. Like people not even mentioning Marwa but calling for Guillermo to "put him down" (holy shit), zero jokes. The real life equivalent of the Guillermo part of this is a cheating plot, but actually less bad than that would be because of clones and good intentions. What the fuck is wrong with some of y'all.