After the horrific fall at the end of the previous season, traumatized mother Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) goes home to her TV chef husband Sean (Toby Kebbell), but she is confined to her bed while her enemy, nanny Leanne (Nell Tiger Free), watches over mystery baby Jericho. Members of Leanne's cult are circling outside.
The original version of M. Night Shyamalan's Servant focused on how Philadelphia-based news reporter Dorothy Turner (Lauren Ambrose) overcame her feelings of guilt following the death of her 13-week-old baby, Jericho, by developing a close relationship with an incredibly lifelike "newborn" doll. She and her star chef husband Sean (Toby Kebbell), who is becoming more and more successful, even hired a nanny (Nell Tiger Free) to take care of the fictitious child. However, the creepy infant controversy has given way to a focus on the religious cult Leanne was raised in on the show. Leanne, who exhibits extrasensory abilities, did manage to switch out the doll for a real infant, whose whereabouts are still unknown.
These components have been deftly balanced by Shyamalan and his writing and directing team to produce an engrossing and epic battle of wits between the damaged mother and the nanny, as well as between the nanny and the followers of the Church of Lesser Saints who are keeping tabs on her every move. The opening episode of this fourth and last season, which was wonderfully directed by young British talent Dylan Holmes Williams, features a spectacular set-piece scenario in which Leanne is viciously attacked by the crazy cultists.
In the meantime, bed-bound Dorothy is helped in her
recovery by two fabulously camp new characters, a pair of mature women named
Roberta and Beverly (Barbara Kingsley and Denny Dillon), whose very presence
enrages Leanne. The house is a huge, magnificently ornate but crumbling house
that has become such a key element of the show's mythology. Add to that the
fact that Rupert Grint is still having a blast playing Dorothy's promiscuous
brother and the genuinely unsettling appearance of a bedbug infestation, and
you have the makings of a thrilling conclusion to what has been a truly wild
ride.
The final season of M Night Shyamalan's darkly humorous,
darkly twisted TV horror tale solidifies its place among his finest works.
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