Servant is an American psychological horror television series created and written by Tony Basgallop, who also executive produced alongside M. Night Shyamalan. The series is produced for Apple TV+, and debuted on November 28, 2019. It stars Lauren Ambrose, Toby Kebbell, Nell Tiger Free, and Rupert Grint.
Sean Turner (Kebbell), a renowned consulting chef, and his wife Dorothy (Ambrose), a local TV reporter, are a grieving couple who are still recovering from the tragic death of their baby son, Jericho. In order to help Dorothy, who suffered a catatonic breakdown after Jericho's death, the couple get a realistic baby doll, called a "reborn doll". Dorothy, intent on sticking to the idea as much as possible, hires a nanny, the quiet and seemingly-meek Leanne (Free), to look after the "baby". However, not long after Leanne's arrival, strange things begin happening in the Turner household, beginning with an unexpected development regarding baby Jericho...
No relation to the comic book series of the same name.
Tropes appearing in this series include:
- Abusive Parents: A completely, tragically accidental case. Both Dorothy and Sean loved baby Jericho to pieces, and never mistreated him. Unfortunately, Dorothy's love wasn't quite enough to prevent her from being careless...
- Accidental Murder: The entire backstory of what happened to baby Jericho, whose death was caused by a tired, overworked Dorothy leaving him in the back seat of her car on a hot summer day.
- Age-Gap Romance: Leanne, who is in her late teens, ends up forming a relationship with Julian, who is likely about fifteen years her senior (though his exact age is not specified).
- The Alcoholic: Downplayed example. The Turners have a very impressive wine cellar, featuring a selection of pricey vintage wines, and the two (and Julian) are frequently seen consuming wine throughout the series.
- Back from the Dead: The entire series hinges on the premise that the Turners' dead baby seemingly and mysteriously comes back to life. This seems to be an ability that Leanne possesses, as we also see a dead cricket, and, later, a dead dog, also both come back to life just by being around her. It's also strongly implied that she may have done this with the Church of the Lesser Saints as well.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the season 1 finale, after Jericho's baptism, a pair of police officers arrive at the Turner home, investigating a missing child. Cue an Oh, Crap! from Sean and Julian, who believe that they're there for Jericho... until it turns out that they're actually looking for a little girl who followed the baptism party home from the church.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Leanne's reason for initially adoring Dorothy and viewing her as "the ideal mother" was because she was nice to her in a kids' beauty pageant on TV once, in contrast to her own abusive mother who forced her to participate in said pageants to begin with. She completely turns on her heel after finding out Dorothy's involvement in Jericho's death.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Leanne. Although she starts off as a helpful, polite, albeit slightly-odd girl, it becomes clear that she has a hidden vindictive streak, best exemplified when she steals Dorothy's car keys, and keeps setting off the car alarm in order to mess with her, after discovering the truth about what happened to Jericho.
- Big Brother Instinct: Inverted with Julian, who, for all his faults, is very protective of his older sister Dorothy.
- Big Fancy House: The Turner house, which is shown to be in a fairly-upmarket suburb in Philadelphia.
- Body Horror: Sean starts getting horrifically-long splinters, that seem to manifest in random places around his body.
- Book Ends: Two of them:
- Season 1 opens with Leanne arriving at the Turner house. It ends with her leaving it.
- The season 1 premiere ends with a horrified Sean discovering the living baby Jericho in the crib. In the season 1 finale, a horrified Dorothy discovers the original reborn doll inside the crib.
- Bottle Episode: Or, in this case, Bottle Series. The show is almost entirely set, and focused, inside the Turner house. The only glimpses we are shown of the outside world is on the street directly in front of the house, via Dorothy's news reports on TV, or with characters video chatting from somewhere else. The only exception we are shown is a brief glimpse of Leanne's date with Tobe at the bowling alley.
- Creator Cameo: M. Night Shyamalan plays Sean's food delivery guy in two episodes.
- Creepy Uncle: A rare non-sexual version, with Leanne's Uncle George. Subverted in that he's not really her uncle or her relative at all and is merely a member of a cult whose members are all referred to as uncles/aunts/cousins.
- Cult: The Church of the Lesser Saints were apparently this, leading to a violent stand-off with police.
- Deadly Euphemism: The Church of Lesser Saints deal with members that have gone rogue by "reuniting" them, which is code for violently murdering them and setting their bodies on fire. Uncle George tried to do this to Leanne but couldn't bring himself to go through with it; Aunt Josephine was more than ready to go through with it but she had her tables turned on her.
- Death of a Child: The entire kick-off of the storyline is the Turners' attempts to deal with the death of their baby son, Jericho.
- Double-Meaning Title: A "servant" is someone who serves (of course), especially in a domestic household context. However, another meaning of servant is "a devoted and helpful follower or supporter", which, come The Reveal in the finale that Leanne was originally a member of a cult called the Church of the Lesser Saints, also applies. The word has also been to applied to those who are devoted followers of Christ, which Leanne also is.
- Fingore: Tobe's abrasive new girlfriend gets subjected to this in a nasty kitchen accident, in the midst of yelling at Tobe, no less. Leanne's agitation leading up to it (as well as the beehive incident two episodes before) seems to imply that bad things tend to happen when she's upset.
- First-Episode Twist: The premier ends with Sean finding Jericho alive and well in his crib.
- Food Porn: Both played straight and averted with the dishes Sean is shown cooking. Because Sean is a gourmet chef, many of the dishes do look delicious... but the series also focuses heavily on the construction of those dishes, featuring handling of ingredients that cross into
Squick territory, such as live crickets and eels. In the finale, he even makes a croquembouche dusted with Jericho's cooked and dried placenta. - Friendly Enemy: Sean and Leanne. After Sean discovers the resurrected Jericho, he turns hostile and tries to pry the truth out of her, but it doesn't work. Ultimately, his desire to have his son back, and seeing the positive impact it seems to have on Dorothy, mellows his attitude somewhat, to the point that he stops trying to actively antagonize Leanne or discover the truth about the baby, and proceeds to treat her on more-or-less friendly terms, even having frank discussions with her about what happened to Jericho, and getting her to taste-test his recipes after his sense of taste disappears.
- Have We Met?: Dorothy has this when meeting Aunt May in the finale. Although Aunt May denies it, Dorothy eventually remembers that she recognizes Aunt May from a report she did - about a religious cult who had a violent clash with police.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Leanne, although most of her "Face" moments are due to being less overtly evil than the other members of the cult by comparison.
- Hypocrite: Leanne is very resentful of Dorothy for accidentally causing Jericho's death, despite the fact that she herself had also caused the death of her family by accidentally burning down her house, to say nothing of the amount of sinister things she does on purpose (which, as of the season 2 finale, include actual intentional murder and burning of a corpse).
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Pretty much every time Julian walks into the Turner house, especially after he starts investigating Leanne.
- I Reject Your Reality: Dorothy, big time. Not only does she accept the resurrected baby Jericho without batting an eye, she acts as if he were alive and well the whole time. Natalie tries to warn Sean about the extreme dangers of this, telling him that the damage to her already-fragile psyche will be devastating when she finally realizes the truth. Scenes throughout the series show Dorothy having very slight reminders of the truth, but she almost instantly rejects them.
- Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: Julian is an abrasive, boorish, drug-using asshole, but it's clear that he cares deeply for his sister and brother-in-law, and willingly does all he can to help clear up the mystery of Leanne and the new baby.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Played with over the course of the first season. Sean and Julian automatically assume that Leanne stole the resurrected baby Jericho from somewhere else, or, alternatively, that the baby is hers, and she's preying on Dorothy's mental state in order to provide a decent life for it. There are moments where the series seems to support this assertion. Then the evidence starts to mount that it actually is Jericho...
- Mental Health Recovery Arc: Dorothy undergoes one prior to the start of the series. After being completely broken by the death of Jericho, Natalie suggests getting a reborn doll for Dorothy to help her cope, and it does, indeed, break her out of her catatonia, to the point that she's almost completely normal by the time she hires Leanne.
- Only Sane Man: Julian, who at one point proclaims himself to be the "only sane person in this fucking house". He is indeed the one to be the most consistently skeptic of Leanne and her cult, although he's ultimately Only Sane by Comparison.
- Religious Horror: Of the "sinister Christian offshoot cult" variety.
- The Reveal:
- The penultimate episode finally reveals how Jericho died: while Sean was away judging a cooking show, Dorothy struggled to take care of the baby. One day, an exhausted Dorothy forgot Jericho in a hot car and then fell asleep, leaving him to die of hyperthermia. This is what prompted Dorothy to enter her catatonic state.
- In the finale, it's revealed that Aunt May, Uncle George and Leanne are members of a cult, the Church of the Lesser Saints, who it's implied were all killed during a police siege years earlier that Dorothy reported on.
- Sense Loss Sadness: Sean mysteriously loses his sense of taste early in the series. While this may not be the worst sense in the world for a normal person to lose, for a gourmet chef. This escalates in the season 1 finale to Sean losing the ability to feel pain. This is heavily implied to be due to leprosy and appears to be related to Leanne writing his name on the margins of her Bible on a page about the Test of Leprosy. The symptoms seem to disappear and reappear depending on Sean's interactions with the members of the cult.
- Ship Tease: Leanne with Sean's assistant Tobe. She's visibly jealous when he shows up at the house with Sylvia in tow (which may have led to the latter's kitchen accident). He's also the only person shown to be able to make her genuinely smile, as demonstrated by their interactions at the block party in "Tiger."
- Becomes Unresolved Sexual Tension in the series finale. He calls Leanne to ask her out on a date and she accepts his invitation. Unknown to him, though, she has set the Turner house on fire with herself locked inside, seemingly to atone for her parents' deaths in a house fire when she was a child. She succeeds.
- Stepford Smiler: Dorothy has shades of this. Although she appears to be recovered from her breakdown following Jericho's death - and even seems back to normal after the resurrected Jericho shows up - Sean and Julian know that the slightest provocation could send her back into a catatonic state. They try as hard as they can to support her cheery, upbeat attitude, but there are moments where it's implied that the full weight of what she did to her son is breaking through. There's even a scene where she completely freezes for a full minute, seemingly-catatonic again - and then snaps out of it and acts completely normal.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: An exaggerated and terrifying example. From Season 3 and onward, Leanne is determined to cement herself as this in the Turner household no matter how much or how many times they express their displeasure or apprehension to want her gone. She will even use her supernatural abilities to thwart their plans to eject her for good. This stems from Leanne’s pathological desire for a loving and supportive family who are always appreciative of her.
- Uncanny Valley: Deliberately invoked by the creators with the reborn doll. The first version apparently looked too lifelike, so they created a version that undeniably couldn't be mistaken for real.
- Wham Shot:
- At the end of the premiere. Sean walks into the nursery to look in on the Jericho doll after he thinks he hears a cry over the baby monitor... and discovers a living baby in the crib.
- In Episode 9 when Dorothy is shown retrieving Jericho's body from the car. It's the middle of the night, and Dorothy was last shown leaving her car early in the afternoon, in the middle of a heat wave. She forgot him there for hours - and just like Dorothy, the viewer was totally distracted from his absence.
