Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak) is a main character in the show What We Do in the Shadows (2019-2024). He is a 760-year-old vampire, who was an Iranian warrior in the Ottoman Empire. He lives with his other vampire roommates Laszlo Cravensworth, Nadja, Colin Robinson, and his familiar Guillermo de la Cruz.
When he was human, Nandor had 37 wives, after becoming a vampire, his wives became fed up with his nocturnal ways and moodiness and left him with their children. He eventually becomes a roaming vampire. In his modern life he has an on-again off-again relationship with a human woman named Gail. He keeps offering to make her a vampire and she keeps rejecting him. Eventually, Nadja finds out that she had become a werewolf and was having an affair with another pack member.
Nandor does have some crushes throughout the show and it’s clear that he’s lonely and jealous of Nadja’s and Laszlo’s intimacy.
He spends season four looking for that companionship. He uses a magic lamp and a djinn to bring all 37 of his wives back to life. He is going to choose one to remarry and have as a lifelong companion. That’s when Nandor reveals “Some of my wives were girl wives, some of them were guy wives. It’s not that different”. We then get to watch a hilariously awkward series of dates between Nandor and his various wives (both male and female).
Nandor goes on to marry Marwa and is almost immediately unhappy with his choice. He is clearly very unhappy and still lonely after his marriage. Then he meets Guillermo’s new boyfriend Freddie and is immediately smitten.
Nandor knows that he can’t steal Guillermo’s boyfriend and he won’t cheat on his new wife. His very Nandor solution is to ask the Djinn to transform Marwa into Freddie, thus creating two Freddies. The two seem very happy together, but Guillermo is miserable. Nandor realizes that he has to let Freddie/Marwa go and the two go their separate ways.
Season four was a big season for Nandor, his character went through a lot of growth, and we got to see past his blusterness and into his underlying loneliness. We also finally had Nandor’s bisexuality very resoundingly confirmed. If you want to read more about this fabulous show, check out our Unicorn Scale Review of it, here!