The Unofficial Companion to What We Do In The Shadows
You want to organize your watch of the series properly, or maybe you're trying to keep the vampire timeline straight across the TV show and the movie. There isn't one official source that does both, so most people end up piecing it together from wikis, Reddit threads, and YouTube essays. Here is what actually works. This is essentially a fan-assembled document that pulls together episode summaries, character arcs, and the loose canon connections between the 2014 film and the FX/Hulu series. It's not produced by Jemaine Clement or Taika Waititi. It lives on community sites like Reddit and various fan wikis, sometimes as a Google Doc, sometimes as a pinned thread. The most useful versions link to timestamps for specific lore drops and flag which episodes contradict earlier canon. I spent about three weekends cross-referencing multiple fan guides because the show deliberately plants continuity errors as jokes. The first time I tried to map the vampire calendar against episode air dates, I hit a wall. The episode "The Camerata" establishes that Laszlo, Nadja, and Magnus were in a band in 1712, but "The Trial" later implies Nandor's centuries are counted differently. The workaround was simple: treat each character's personal timeline as subjective narration, not objective fact. The show runs on comedic inconsistency, not rigid chronology. Write your own timeline and accept that it will be wrong in places.
Here is what the guide format usually covers, and how to actually use it without wasting time.
Watching Order That Actually Makes Sense
Start with the 2014 film. It introduces the core characters in their original setup. Then move to Season 1 of the TV show. Do not start with the TV show and then go back to the film. The film contains backstory beats the show assumes you already know, especially around the Vampiric Council and how Old Tyme Vampires operate. After Season 1, watch in release order. The show gets self-referential by Season 3, and skipping around will confuse you more than it helps. The spinoff series, The Vampiric Council, drops between Seasons 3 and 4. It's optional. I watched it and it added roughly forty minutes of context to the Council storylines. If you are pressed for time, skip it. The main show explains enough on its own.
Keeping the Character Arcs Straight
The guide breaks each character into seasons. Nandor goes from grief-stricken leader to someone who actually processes his feelings, which takes four full seasons. Laszlo shifts from chaotic flirt to someone who occasionally acts like a responsible father, then back again. Nadja's entire arc is about her repeatedly choosing freedom and then regretting it. Guillermo transforms from comic relief to someone with genuine power, which the show handles surprisingly seriously by Season 5. Here is the counter-intuitive part most people miss: the show treats the vampires as static for the first two seasons on purpose. They are supposed to feel stuck. If you analyze their character growth too early, you will think the writing is inconsistent. It is not. The stagnation is the joke. The growth starts slowly in Season 3 and accelerates after the Collector arc. Pay attention to how Nadja's relationship with her familiar changes in Season 4 — that is the show's quiet thesis statement about power and love.
Common Pitfalls When Using Fan Guides
Most fan guides have three problems. First, they treat joke lore as real lore. The show invents backstory details for comedic effect, then forgets them. The guide "Baron Afanas was imprisoned in 1337" is funny but contradicts later episodes. Second, they mix up the film canon and the show canon without flagging it. The film's ending does not directly continue into the show. They share a universe but not a continuous plot. Third, they over-index on background gags. Yes, the ghost of that one random vampire matters for exactly one episode. Do not build your entire understanding of the series around background jokes. I ran into this when a guide claimed the show established a specific rule about sunlight vulnerability that was later reversed in a Season 4 episode. The fix was to check the episode script directly rather than trusting the summary. Fan guides compress too much and lose the nuance. Always verify disputed details against the actual episode.
Where to Find a Reliable Version
The most maintained version I have seen is pinned in the r/WhatWeDoInTheShadows subreddit. It gets updated after each new episode drops. There is also a Wikipedia page that tracks canonical inconsistencies, which is almost more useful than any fan guide. Avoid Google Docs that have not been edited in over a year. The show moves fast and outdated info becomes worse than useless. If you want something more structured, the show's own official companion book, What We Do in the Shadows: The Survival Guide for Vamps, Humans and Werewolves, covers the same ground with actual production photos. It costs money and is out of print in many regions, but it is the closest thing to an official guide you will get.
When the Guide Approach Fails Completely
There is a point where organizing everything becomes counterproductive. The show is designed to be watched loosely. You do not need to memorize every reference to the Crown of Barabbas or understand the exact politics of the Vampiric Council to enjoy it. I know people who spent more time reading about the show than actually watching it. That is a bad trade. Use the guide as a reference, not a requirement. Watch the episodes. Come back to the guide when you are confused about a timeline or a character connection. That is the workflow that actually works.
