Servant: Final Season
March 24, 2023 12:39 PM - Season 4 (Full Season) - Subscribe
M. Night Shyamalan's Apple TV series about grief and creepy baby dolls comes to an end in its fourth season.
Interest in this weird little show seems to have waned over the seasons, and nobody bothered to post a Season 3 thread, but with the final episode having aired I thought maybe some Servantheads might want to discuss it. Reviews are a little thin on the ground but here's a take on the finale from The Daily Beast.
Interest in this weird little show seems to have waned over the seasons, and nobody bothered to post a Season 3 thread, but with the final episode having aired I thought maybe some Servantheads might want to discuss it. Reviews are a little thin on the ground but here's a take on the finale from The Daily Beast.
I basically agree with that review, yeah. I did think Lauren Ambrose's acting was a continuing highlight, she's really good at that "trying to hold it together" look, and Toby Kebbell as the husband did a good job of grounding the story as the sort of skeptical straight man.
I think the biggest problem with the series was that Leanne's motivations were never really defined, even when they shoehorned in a "Leanne has been stalking Dorothy since she was nine years old(?!)" story into the last two episodes or so. Is she supposed to be a creepy cipher? If so, why do we get so much story narrated from her point of view? Does she have romantic feelings for the brother or the cook? Does she really dislike Dorothy?
My main question from the finale is what happened to Jericho in the last episode. The show seems to want us to believe that Leanne did indeed have witchy / divine powers and turned the doll into the real thing, and then turned it back and burned it up, but there's still like a missing baby involved, to the outside world their baby burnt up in a fire, and it's weird that nobody mentions this.
posted by whir at 8:57 AM on March 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think the biggest problem with the series was that Leanne's motivations were never really defined, even when they shoehorned in a "Leanne has been stalking Dorothy since she was nine years old(?!)" story into the last two episodes or so. Is she supposed to be a creepy cipher? If so, why do we get so much story narrated from her point of view? Does she have romantic feelings for the brother or the cook? Does she really dislike Dorothy?
My main question from the finale is what happened to Jericho in the last episode. The show seems to want us to believe that Leanne did indeed have witchy / divine powers and turned the doll into the real thing, and then turned it back and burned it up, but there's still like a missing baby involved, to the outside world their baby burnt up in a fire, and it's weird that nobody mentions this.
posted by whir at 8:57 AM on March 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
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The episodes were short enough that they were easily digestible. We kept yelling at the characters to "turn on a light!" as the home was so dark and moody all the time that it became a running joke. In the end, I think the performances were the main draw for us. Lauren Ambrose was weird and wonderful. Rupert Grint was almost consistently amusing. The show became so silly and overwrought. Kept us wondering where the hell it was going to go next.
My mini-review here is as scattershot as this show was. It should have been just three seasons. The uncle subplot and Dorothy's dad parts were rambling and unsatisfying. By the end we were just aching for it to be over—in a good way ("...how the hell is this gonna turn out?"). Would I recommend it to anyone? Not really. But for us (who semi-binged all the seasons until we drip-watched the end) it was entertaining and fun for a dreary winter.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:20 AM on March 26, 2023 [2 favorites]