Narratively surprising and technically ambitious, “Servant” is one of the most unusual shows on television, a thriller that has outlasted its single-season concept to become more unpredictable and stranger than nearly anything else on television. Created by Tony Basgallop and executive produced (and often directed) by M. Night Shyamalan, it’s gained even more unique prescience during the pandemic given its single setting examination of themes like agoraphobia, paranoia, and distrust of others. The show shouldn’t really have worked after its premise was blown up in the first season, but Shyamalan and company continue to find ways to make it entertaining in the first half of chapter three. Concern how to follow up the acclaimed first year led many to predict a sophomore slump, but now it feels like this twisted tale might just hold together until the finish line in its announced fourth and final season.
The concept of “Servant” is one that Rod Serling would have loved. A nanny named Leanne (the increasingly excellent Nell Tiger Free) arrived at the doorstep of a Philadelphia couple deep in grief. Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) and Sean Turner (Toby Kebbell) have recently lost a baby son named Jericho—the details of how that tragedy unfolded forming the backdrop of Season 1. Dorothy had suffered what looked like a complete mental breakdown, deciding that the toy doll in the crib in their gorgeous home was Jericho. In fact, Leanne was hired to take care of that plastic baby, much to the dismay of Dorothy’s brother, Julian (Rupert Grint), but everything changed when Jericho suddenly became flesh and blood.
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The question of how Jericho came back to life dominates Season 1, but then “Servant” starts to shift and becomes a show that is also about Leanne’s past, including life in a possibly supernatural cult. Leanne is a completely different creature from the Turners and Julian, someone who doesn’t fit into their highly manicured world, and yet she is now basically a part of their family. After the mind-blowing chaos that ends Season 2, Jericho returns yet again, this time seemingly for good, after a ritual brings him back to life, and results in a dead body in Leanne’s wall.
The third season of “Servant” opens three months after that action. Leanne is still deeply traumatized, but Dorothy is ready to move on with her new family finally whole again. Or is she? Some of the most interesting action of the first half of Season 3 centers on the idea that Dorothy is one of those selfish, high-maintenance people who will simply always be dissatisfied. She struggles with what motherhood means for her on-camera career as a reporter and discovers that maybe Jericho’s return didn’t automatically reignite maternal instincts that she just possibly doesn’t possess at all.
She’s trying though, taking the family to the beach in the season premiere, but Leanne can’t bring herself to go. After what happened, she has severe agoraphobia, which fits perfectly for a show that has never really left the Turner residence. Everything that takes place outside of the home on this show is seen through technology, whether it’s in a Dorothy news report or a FaceTime call from Julian or Sean. It enhances the tension and paranoia of a program that recalls ‘70s horror with its oppressive domesticity. The Turner home is one of the coldest on television, and the way Shyamalan and company use it as almost a character on this show is brilliant.
The writing in Season 3 also leans into the show’s twisted sense of humor. This can be one of the most morbidly funny shows on TV, such as in an episode this season wherein Tobe (Tony Revolori) brings a new girlfriend into the Turner home and things go very wrong for her. Shyamalan has often imbued his projects with dark humor (“The Visit” and “Split,” for example), and that element of “Servant” is one of its strengths. The creators here know that tension can’t be maintained for a multi-season run, and so mixing up the tone enhances the scenes wherein the show does get truly unsettling.
Much of that latter tone this season comes through Leanne’s eyes. Sean is back to work, and Dorothy is balancing motherhood with a career. While Julian becomes logically a bit obsessed with just where the baby in the Turner house came from—he basically turns into a private investigator with a new partner played by Sunita Mani (“G.L.O.W.”)—Leanne becomes convinced that every intruder into the Turner home is an enemy. The guy setting up surveillance, Tobe’s new girlfriend, and especially the homeless young people around the Turner home whom Sean keeps feeding cannot be trusted. Paranoia was always a theme of “Servant,” but it has been amplified in Season 3, where it feels like every encounter with anyone who is not one of the main characters could end in bloodshed.
“Servant” sometimes struggles with realism for the sake of plot—a criticism that could be levied at a lot of Shyamalan work, really. Would Sean really be so casual about the return of Jericho as he is at the beginning of the season? Probably not. And every episode has a few of those beats where it feels like characters aren’t being completely consistent either with what we know about them or the real world for the sake of the plot. But that exaggerated realism has been a part of the Shyamalan brand and it’s certainly not as pronounced here as it is in something like “Old,” for example.
It’s also worth noting that “Servant” has sharper craft than most things on television. The way that Shyamalan and his directors slink their camera through the Turner home is captivating, moving it from rooms that always look like they were just cleaned to a basement where, well, weird things are happening. It’s a show about cracks in the foundation of a seemingly happy couple and the production design and cinematography capture that theme through the aesthetics of the show as much as the plot. It becomes an easy program to get lost in, stuck wandering the rooms of the Turner home along with these crazy people, nervous about who’s at the front door. [B]
Season 3 of “Servant” debuts on Apple TV+ on January 21.