The story of a couple who lost their son and inexplicably brought him back, the conflict in the series Servant, available on Apple TV+, has always been ambitious. Particularly because M. Night Shyamalan seems undecided on how to explain this phenomenon. The first season reserved all information and left the event to speculation. Dark wonder? A fantasy that embodies mourning? There were no explanations for this.
Not in the second part. The third scenario hinted at the existence of something dangerous. Magic, sorcery and power. But it is the fourth that finally gives a more accurate picture. Ironically, this does not make it any clearer. In fact, again Servant insists on speaking very little reveal the explosion at the center of his narrative.
But before that, he raises a dense atmosphere. In several episodes of the first chapter, the camera stays still in an empty room. The light spreads out and reveals every object in the terrain. Minutes pass in silence. So much so that the tension builds up until the character’s voice can cause fear.
Even true fear, and even more when it is obvious that the apparent serenity that has been manifested is about to break. The Turner house collapses. It was as if the chaos that had begun with Jericho’s death had now turned into a bodily element capable of threatening everyone.
Servant reveals what is hidden at the center of his story
In the final season, the production hinted at the possibility of the supernatural. Now, as a certainty, whatever is hiding is an obvious sinister presence. At the same time, it is a threat that the characters must deal with with whatever weapon they have at their disposal.
With shadowy forces at work in the midst of what have so far been ordinary rooms, the plot plays with what is not shown on the screen. Light sounds, laughter, mumbling are heard. Doors that close and open. But emptiness is the center of action.
There is also a clear hint that something mysterious is waiting and threatening. By the time he attacks, the plot will reveal its true purpose. Immerse yourself in what brought the dead child back to life, but at the same time, in the force that operates around him.
Fear, light and shadow Servant
A work has the identity of any work M. Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense, protege, Some). From dark atmospheres to characters facing supernatural experiences with no tools to figure out what’s going on. But especially the ambiguous nature of its history.
Servant over the course of the previous three installments, considered the possibility that the mystery surrounding the series was just a fantasy. At best, a fugitive, the fruit of the pain of loss. At its most eerie, a reality rift that turns a red brick floor into the center of conflict, a door to the unknown.
For its closure, the mystery is solved. At least half. Servant exploits the sense that the neatness that shows his opening sequences hides the chaos. The one that was already conceived when Nanny Lynn (Nell Tiger Free) became the link between cults, magic and the embodiment of evil in its purest form. One of the important moments was the creation of a riddle, which over time became denser and stronger.
The death of an infant, the ensuing grief, and then the indecipherable element that allowed for a clear foreshadowing of his return to life, mingled into something deeper. By the end of the third season, the story has emphasized its central point: there is no escape from what Jericho symbolizes. About the boy who was resurrected, or about the mystery that lives in his simple existence.
Back to warped spaces
Shyamalan continues the story a few months after the previous season’s shocking finale. In fact, the idea of this part is that every element and event – before or after – has a reason. After toying with the idea of disintegration of home life, normalcy and even sanity, Servant returns to the exact point.
For the scenario, everything that happens saves a secret that each character knows only a part of. Dorothy Turner (Lauren Ambrose) managed to survive the fall that ended the previous part. How it was? The story is not generous with explanations, and the feeling that his recovery may not be realistic persists throughout much of the first chapter.
Prison of everyday life Servant
But little by little it becomes obvious that the character lives in forced seclusion. Not only because of her recovery, which must continue in the red brick house and forces her to isolate herself from the outside world. At the same time, because when he returns, he falls under Lynn’s control.
However, none of the above is obvious. Everything is offered in everyday scenes that hide something more dirty. The nanny has become the center of the world for Sean (Toby Kebbell) and his brother Julian (Rupert Grint). Apparently, no one notices that the woman, who may or may not be the center of the cult, is the real force that gravitates towards their relationship.
But Servant It has enough narrative power to avoid falling into the premise of a confrontation between two opposing forces. And don’t make Dorothy a victim. In fact, all the threads that converge on Jericho – a dead child mysteriously returned to the arms of his mother – are of a dark nature. But without answers about the origin of such an event, the story is disorienting.
Is anything seen so far on the show real? Maybe it’s a hallucination, collective hysteria, fear turned into unrealistic images? The series refuses to give an answer. But it does hint that any of the three possibilities could be true.
What happens when the passive-aggressive relationship between Lynn and Dorothy becomes symbolic. Unstoppable energy is about to explode between them. Either to the final confrontation, or to the death of one of them. Nevertheless, the plot doesn’t give any clues about what’s going to happen. When this happens, they are so confused that the possibilities multiply and even contradict each other.
Farewell to a history that has become a cult object
Never been easy to describe Servant, not as a production fixated on one point of view, nor when it covers several topics at the same time. In fact, each of its seasons tells what seems to be a different dimension of the same inexplicable circumstance. Its closure is equal to that mystery and it may not be easy to assume that its open ending is also a tribute to its best moments.
Shyamalan has managed to create a series in which he refines his take on horror. This may be an advantage, but also the weakest element of the argument, with some inherent disadvantages. Servant she never seemed to want to finish the story, but added complexity to the uniqueness she was trying to tell. In the end, the challenge of capturing all the possibilities that have been hinted at over the course of four seasons seems to have been great for the production.
Servant he says goodbye, clearing up a few of his mysteries but not answering most of his questions. Perhaps it is this unfinished feeling that upsets the balance of the dangerous mystery that needs to be solved. Was it the director’s inability to live up to his own vision? Did the series end up falling apart as part of the Turner family? The staging does not offer anything intelligible. An uncomfortable farewell, which, however, coincides with what has been offered in the series so far.
Source: Hiper Textual
