Servant is an experiment in how long a TV series can withhold concrete answers to its central mysteries, and credit for that teasing nature goes to executive producer, director, and driving creative force M. Night Shyamalan, whose career has been marked by stories predicated on climactic twists—often of a less-than-wholly-satisfying quality. Now in its third season, Shyamalan and showrunner Tony Basgallop’s spooky small-screen effort is like the ultimate expression of the auteur’s modus operandi: establish and develop baffling supernatural scenarios and then sustain them for as long as is humanely possible, all in the hope that audiences will remain intrigued, rather than frustrated, by the prolonged waiting game.
Predictably, there are no mind-blowing revelations in Servant’s latest season (Jan. 21 on Apple TV+)—its second to last—or none found in its first five chapters, which were all that was provided to press. For every clarifying nugget dispensed by this new batch of episodes, Shyamalan and Basgallop pile on five more head-spinning questions. The result is a darkly comedic drama that mines tension from the deliberate suppression of key information. No doubt many have found that construction vexing; there are only so many times one can be on the precipice of comprehension, only to be thrown back into confusion, before aggravation sets in. Nonetheless, there’s something rewardingly compelling about being strung along in this excessive fashion, thanks both to a serpentine formal structure that suggests unholy malevolence in every constricting door frame and hallway, and performances that are constantly threatening to tip into abject madness.
Servant picks up three months after the events of the prior season’s finale, with baby Jericho back in the loving arms of his well-to-do Philadelphia parents, local television reporter Dorothy Turner (Lauren Ambrose) and gourmet chef Sean (Toby Kebbell). How Jericho—who died due to neglect caused by Dorothy’s psychological breakdown—is alive and kicking continues to be perplexing, as does the issue of whether this tyke is actually Jericho or someone (or something?) else entirely. It’s not even clear what process brought Jericho back to the land of the living, although his reappearance is definitely the result of Leanne Grayson (Nell Tiger Free). The Turners’ beloved nanny, Leanne semi-accidentally murdered her family as a child, was adopted and raised by a cult known as the Church of Lesser Saints, and as a teen disobeyed her new clan’s orders (which supposedly came from God, or some other higher power) by entering into the employ of the Turners—a decision motivated by Leanne’s lifelong belief that TV celebrity Dorothy would make a model substitute mother.
Dorothy may dote on Jericho but she’s anything but a stable mom, living in severe denial about her culpability in Jericho’s demise that’s naturally facilitated by the fact that the infant has magically rematerialized in his crib. Both Sean and Dorothy’s substance-abusing brother Julian (Rupert Grint) aren’t much better when it comes to being upfront with themselves (or anyone else), enabling Dorothy’s delusion in a wacko attempt to return to normalcy. Futile is a good way to describe that goal, though, since Servant is a tale about the lies that we tell ourselves and each other in order to make our failures more palatable, and the stranglehold those untruths exert on our every waking moment. It’s thus also a tale about deep individual and familial dysfunction, which extends from the Turners and their relationship with Jericho, to Leanne’s desire to become a full-time member of her employers’ domestic unit, to the mounting paranoia that courses throughout this third season.
Suspicion is everywhere in Servant: Dorothy thinks (probably correctly) that her broadcast bosses are pushing her to the sidelines in favor of a younger reporter; Julian and his new girlfriend Vera (Sunita Mani), whom he met in rehab, have a pesky hunch that Jericho is actually Leanne’s biological offspring; and Leanne, having stabbed her evil cult superior Aunt Josephine (Barbara Sukowa) in the eye with a red-hot dagger, set her body on fire, and hidden her corpse in the walls of the Turner’s home, expects her cult to reappear at any moment, hell-bent on revenge. It’s the last of these concerns that propels much of the action, and escalates once Sean begins feeding a group of homeless men and women in the park adjacent to their residence, and those individuals start spending their nights staring up at Leanne’s attic bedroom window like brainwashed zombies.
Since Leanne is a perpetual enigma, it’s impossible to make heads or tails of precisely what’s going on in Servant. Still, Shyamalan and a collection of skilled directors cast an unsettling spell through long, winding tracking shots, images that gaze at human subjects from above or below, intense-to-the-point-of-distortion close-ups, and a score peppered with strident shrieking and rattling. Predominantly situated in the Turners’ immaculately posh brownstone, the show generates a mood of composed claustrophobia—all while suggesting, through its hermetically sealed interior action, the Turners’ bubble-like entitlement, which prevents them from seeing (or allows them to ignore) stark truths staring them straight in the face. Not that the Turners are intended to be totally distasteful; despite their numerous shortcomings, their narcissistic and condescending attitudes are also a source of black humor, as when Sean, referring to some Jersey Shore lunkheads on the boardwalk he’s visiting, opines, “We’re in their country.”
Grint and Kebbell get most of the choice lines in Servant, and the former’s high-strung turn makes Julian—desperate to figure out what’s taking place—the closest thing the proceedings have to a viewer proxy. Free, meanwhile, drives the show’s mystery, her performance moving seamlessly between frazzled anxiety, dead-eyed horror, and impulsive zeal, none of which are ever fully readable. That leaves Ambrose to embody the series’ insanity, and she does so with such scary, off-putting vigor that it frequently seems like she’s about to explode in a fit of homicidal (or suicidal) mania. Willing to come across as an unlikable loon, Ambrose proves the wild-eyed soul of Servant, all the more transfixing for being so inscrutably unhinged.
