this entry contains spoilers:
--spoiler--
this is how you do comedy. i should say up front that, unlike what's been written here, i thoroughly love this show from its very first moment to its last second. in my opinion every single scene from start to finish, "the final joke" included, is perfectly attuned to the spirit of the whole thing and extremely creative, funny, and clever. the pace dips here and there, and it may look like it's departing from earlier seasons by its very nature, but in an ongoing organism, especially in something as merciless as comedy, there are ups and downs, that's normal; you can't please the viewer any other way, they'd get bored.
also, and this hasn't really been dwelt on, but i think the secret to its success comes from the traditionalism of its characters, their incredible knack for adapting despite being behind the times and naive, their que-sera attitude with the world going one way and the minaret the other, and the coolness they never lose despite their absurd monotony. and to pull this off, i adore the subtle, not-immediately-obvious details they pull off so masterfully: out of all the vampires we watch, main characters included, only laszlo shouts "bat!" to turn into a bat; colin robinson, who never misses a chance to feed off the tension in the room and thinks himself so sharp, cunning, and tremendously boring, is actually a low-level nerd, a modern-day renaissance man with knowledge on nearly every subject; nadja, who is essentially extremely good-natured, accommodating, and forward-thinking, gets treated like a naive little prude by the 4 men she shares her life with on so many matters, guillermo included, and she shrugs all of it off with patience and the kind of nonchalance you show children; nandor, who in any given situation is more of a simpleton and a bumbling fool than nearly everyone around him, yet again comes out of any situation victorious nearly every time, without lifting a finger, thanks to a bit of luck but mostly his surprising charisma... in the moments in question, even though nandor is actually the buffoon of the room himself, i'm also crazy about how he piles the blame onto someone else with that "fucking guy/gal!" exclamation he so often lets out at the end, and how the viewer ends up siding with him too. guillermo turning out to be van helsing is, i think, the most perfect plot twist in the history of the black screen. with its music choices, its collages, the comedy it injects straight into your veins before the story has even begun, the intro is also indisputably among the best in television history.
i could swear a turk who also knows the musical canon well consulted on this show, but i can't prove it. those interested in the subject will catch, as they keep watching, that "kapıldım gidiyorum" isn't the only work/reference used from turkish culture and history. also, take my dear nandor, with that look of his, and stick him in high school history textbooks as a janissary, a vizier, i don't know, a sultan. if a single soul comes out and questions "what's this guy doing here?!" then i don't know anything either.
there's a lot more to be said about it, but let's leave the rest to the perception capacity of whoever's watching. because this production, like i wrote in the entry at the link i gave at the start, is a work stuffed to the brim with countless subtle nods and references. even though it sometimes manages to make you laugh twice as hard, giving you a stomachache and cramping up your facial muscles, like someone else mentioned above, if your english is good enough i absolutely recommend watching this absurd comedy, which constitutes a tremendous supply to the reaction that has taken bodily form in our lands as random laughter, in its original language.
let me end with my favorite line from the show: "guillermo, is there something you haven't been telling us?" to be said with nandor's accent. bat!
--spoiler--
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