M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant started out as a beautifully atmospheric but truly warped psychological horror story exploring how Philadelphia-based news reporter Dorothy Turner (Lauren Ambrose) blocked out her feelings of guilt after the death of her 13-week-old baby, Jericho, by bonding with an ultra-lifelike “newborn” doll. She and her increasingly successful celebrity chef husband Sean (Toby Kebbell) even went as far as employing a nanny (Nell Tiger Free) to look after the fake baby. But the show has become as much about the religious cult in which Leanne was brought up as it is about the whole creepy baby issue. Although Leanne, who seems to have extrasensory powers, did find a way of replacing the doll with a real-life baby, the provenance of which remains a mystery.
Shyamalan and his team of writers and directors have skilfully juggled these elements to create an enthralling and epic battle of wits between the damaged mother and the nanny, and also between the nanny and the acolytes of the Church of Lesser Saints who are watching her every move. Indeed, this fourth and final season begins with a spectacular set-piece sequence which takes up most of the opening episode (superbly directed by young British talent Dylan Holmes Williams) as Leanne comes under ferocious attack from the deranged cultists.
Meanwhile, in the huge, magnificently ornate but crumbling house which has become such a key element of the show’s mythology, bed-bound Dorothy is helped in her recovery by two fabulously camp new characters – a duo of mature ladies called Roberta and Beverly (Barbara Kingsley and Denny Dillon) whose very presence infuriates Leanne. Throw in Rupert Grint continuing to have great fun as Dorothy’s dissolute brother, and the truly unnerving arrival of a plague of bedbugs, and you have the setup for a riveting climax to what has been a wonderfully wild ride.
