While it is a major and dangerous secret, the crew captures the plan to save the club. The Guide holds the second largest collection of dead souls in the U.S. The largest holder is some rich computer guy, but that’s not the creepy part. Nadja may be undead, but she is still superstitious. She spits when she learns the Guide has been studying ancient, forbidden, texts on witchcraft, but is pleased to know celebrated dead people can be brought back to life for short periods of time to boost attendance. Who wouldn’t want to ask Murasaki Shikibu (Yui Ugai), the lady-in-waiting at the ancient Japanese Imperial court and inventor of the novel form, where she got her ideas?
Among the reanimated celebrities are Leonardo Da Vinci (Felipe Aukai), Scott Joplin (Sam Asante), Che Guevara (Victor Ayala) and after a little tinkering, it seems like a genuinely workable plan. But as Laszlo says, people or vampires make plans and the “guy upstairs” has other ideas. The vampires’ relationship with god is milked for inspired amusement, from the moment the offensive word is crossed out of Are You There [CENSORED], It’s Me, Margaret, and culminates in one particularly classic comedy scene. But it is not as spiritually offensive as having Mahatma Gandhi (Murli Nedungadi) read out an advertisement for steaks.
Like most great ideas coming from the vampires on Staten Island, the project fails because of missed opportunities and miscommunications. For all the frank speak and unabashed honesty which comes out of the vampires’ mouths, they are too self-concerned to give or receive messages from anyone but themselves.
The creature which crawled out of the abdominal cavity of Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) had a major growth spurt at the end of “Freddie,” and is now breaking hearts like the teenaged nightmare he’s become. The former Baby Colin hits the “awkward age,” as Laszlo puts it. This is a relative term for a character characterized by its awkwardness. Colin is now sullen, withdrawn, uncommunicative, and needy. In all ways a teenager, sucking the energy out of his most parental figures: Laszlo and Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), both at a loss to get through the thick skull of teen spirit. Baseball bats don’t seem to work. They should try a hammer.
Nandor’s (Kayvan Novak) attempt at youth-talk, or “gutter patois,” is a disaster before it starts. “I too got off on rocking out to cool tunes like this,” he enthuses as Colin hammers his wall to the pounding offbeats of heavy metal. To be fair, “cool” is a cyclical concept, and the things a 759-year-old warlord might have considered edgy in his youth may have come around to be hip again, but we know Colin is ranking on Nandor long before the relentless one pulls rank.
Nandor’s speech about young soldiers is less than moving. If this stuff got young men to die on the front lines of the battlefields in his day, they must have had nothing to return to at home. His advice marks a full commitment to Father Knows Best wisdom, and Colin responds like a modern Eddie Haskell on Leave It to Beaver. How cool is it to respect your elders, and show some self-respect? About as cool as deciding to spend the next fifteen- or 20-years reading books.
