Season 1, Episode 8
Citizenship
Nandor tries to become an American citizen; Nadja helps Jenna get her first human victim.
Tropes That Appear In This Episode
- Artistic License – Law: Applicants for US citizenship are, in fact, allowed to omit the line "so help me God" in the oath for religious reasons, and the interviewer should have offered to let Nandor skip it when he asked — although, of course, it seems unlikely he was going to pass the citizenship test either way.
- Asshole Victim: Nadja tries to overcome Jenna's initial reluctance to kill by picking a frat party as a first-time hunting ground, which she tells her is a "house full of asshole".
- Bat People: Jenna is incapable of fully turning into a bat, and instead turns into a horrifying baby-sized bat-like humanoid that can barely fly.
- Be Yourself: The crux of Guillermo's rant.
- Beautiful All Along: Nadja clearly expects Jenna to go through an "ugly duckling" style transformation as soon as she becomes a vampire, and is repeatedly disappointed by everything about Jenna — her appearance, personality, social skills, athleticism, etc. — stubbornly staying the same.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Guillermo drops one on Nandor near the end.
- Dhampyr: Jenna isn't born of a vampire/human mating but she does fit the part of this trope where, like Blade (or like Michael's situation in The Lost Boys), she currently only has partial vampire abilities and weaknesses while she's living on animal blood, and won't fully "transition" to being one unless she gives into the temptation to kill and drain a human being.
- Don't Think, Feel: Apparently vampires generally don't think about the process of transforming into a bat at all, and doing so just comes naturally to them (although Laszlo, for whatever reason, needs to actually say the word "bat" to do it). Nadja gets really frustrated that Jenna is having so much trouble with "the easiest thing for a vampire to do".
- Fridge Logic: In-Universe. When Laszlo and Nadja say that they are going to teach Jenna how to turn into a bat, she asks where she will put her clothes, thinking that she would need to strip naked. When they say that she doesn't have to do that, she asks them where her clothes go when she's transformed. Both are completely at a loss on how to answer her.
- Holy Burns Evil: When Nandor forces himself to say "God" when reciting the oath of allegiance, his mouth catches fire.
- If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: As is common in vampire stories like The Lost Boys focusing on the Painful Transformation into a vampire, in this universe apparently you need to kill a human yourself and drain their blood in order to complete the "transition". At this point Jenna feels crappy enough as a "half-vampire" that she's willing to do it without much hesitation, and is mildly peeved after she does so when Nadja reveals that she is now cursed to burn in the light of the sun and never walk by day again.
- Invisibility: It is revealed that Jenna's innate vampire power is invisibility. Normally, this just causes humans to ignore her, but after her Rage Breaking Point, she is able to become completely invisible.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The audience knows that Guillermo is pissed when he starts swearing profusely at Nandor.
- Our Vampires Are Different: It is revealed that vampires eating the blood of anything other than humans make them sick.
- Take That!: When Nandor voices that his only regret in not getting his citizenship is that he wanted to buy a gun, Guillermo points out that he doesn't have to have citizenship to do that. Nandor points out that even in his home country, you needed a background check just to get a sword.
- The Talk: Nadja talks about the transition into vampirehood as similar to puberty, Nadja claiming that no one gave her "the talk" during her Painful Transformation.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Both Jenna and Nadja call out Laszlo for saying that Jenna should be put in a cage; Nadja makes Laszlo apologize for it and help in the training.
- Guillermo snaps at Nandor when the latter complains about not getting American citizenship.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Jenna gets the idea of watching the sunrise by wearing a biker helmet like in Blade. She and Nadja still burn up.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Guillermo unloads on Nandor when he is pitying himself for his lack of citizenship, Guillermo going over the number of things that make vampires so amazing and that he should be "proud of [him]self." It cheers Nandor right up.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Nandor's attempts at hypnotizing the Obstructive Bureaucrat fall completely flat.Nandor: ...government workers are immune to hypnotism. It's like their souls are dead or something. ...I don't detect any humanity left in them.
