Apple TV's SERVANT is about an upper class Philadelphian couple who after tragically losing their newborn child, hire a mysterious young nanny to care for the grieving wife's therapy doll.
What happened last episode on "Servant" season one episode two, "Wood?"
The husband Sean demands from the young nanny Leanne to know why there is a real life baby in their crib instead of his wife's therapy doll but Leanne looks at him like he's crazy and says it is the child they hired her to help take care of.
Sean's wife Dorothy doesn't even bat an eye at the switch and treats the new living baby the same way she treated the therapy deal, as if it were real -- which it/he now is.
Sean tells and shows Dorothy's brother Julian what happened and the wonder if Dorothy has kidnapped a baby or if Leanne brought the new child in with her when she arrived.
In anger and frustration, Sean throws one of Leanne's strange wooden totems into the garbage disposal, and then begins suffering from a plague of splinters. At first they're explainable but soon the splinters appear to be showing up out of nowhere as if he's being cursed or supernaturally punished. Also, he's lost his sense of taste which reminds me of an Olympian punishment where food tastes like ash, drink like salt water,
Episode three, "Eel," opens with the husband Sean and his young chef's assistant Tobe preparing a fancy meal of skinned eels in the kitchen. While holding the new Jericho, or resurrected Jericho (Sean's splinter business feels supernatural, along with his loss of his sense of taste) Dorothy comments on how gross it is and Leanne -- having never seen an eel skinned alive -- understandably passes out.
Leanne wakes up to find that Tobe has carried her upstairs and Dorothy is tending to her. Despite calling her "Mrs Turner," Dorothy asks her to call her by her first name and acts surprisingly mothering to her.
Still suspicious of the young Leanne and the new Jericho, Julian takes a private investigator to the girl's supposed place of origin -- Wisconsin -- while keeping Sean in the loop over tablet video-call.
It is another instant of us as viewers and the characters of the show never venturing far from the apartment, even the experience of travel or characters on other stages is viewed through a window, this time a tablet. It is there in Wisconsin that Julian shows Sean the supposed house of Leanne's upbringing, a burned down home where in a one of the rooms the only place untouched by the fire is a section of wall over a bed where one of Leanne's religious totems still hangs. Adding more to Leanne's mystery, Julian and the private investigator find a gravestone with Leanne's name on it.
Episode three, "Eel," ends with Sean and Dorothy going out on a date for the first time in a while, probably since their original child Jericho's death and her nervous breakdown. Leanne sees them kissing and glimpses Dorothy groping Sean in a way that shocks her but later Leanne puts on one of Dorothy's rings and bright red lip stick and appears to try and seduce Sean's chef assistant Tobe, going so far as to try and impress him by killing one of the leftover eels so that he can cook it. Their evening is going rather awkwardly until Julian arrives and kicks Tobe out. He confronts Leanne about his findings in Wisconsin and Leanne, still emulating Dorothy, leans in to almost kiss him and gropes him. This is when Dorothy and Sean return home and Julian now sheepish, replies that he was just dropping by to check on Jericho.
There's quite a bit do unpack in this episode: the husband Sean, a chef, has lost his sense of taste which is important to his job so now he must rely more on his assistant which forces him to be nicer; Leanne has negative reaction to something being skinned alive or perhaps she's generally queasy when it comes to violence; and then there's the whole mystery of Leanne's previous home life and her imitation of Dorothy.
Julian and the private investigator show Sean that Leanne's home was damaged by a fire but for some reason there's a bedroom where a large section of wall was untouched by the flames and it coincidentally is where one of Leanne's religious totems still hangs. If this object repelled the flames, why so? And how? Are these wooden totems innately magically or is it a power given to them by Leanne? Did Leanne curse Sean with splinters and loss of taste, or was it an automatic effect of him destroying one of the totems?
And there's the gravestone which has Leanne's name on it. Does this mean that she stole somebody's identity or is Leanne someone who has been brought back the way the child Jericho has been? Or is Leanne secretly a doll herself, maybe a mannequin, who has been made real in the way the baby doll has been made a boy?
Before I forget to comment on it, Leanne has begun to copy Dorothy. Seeing her be affectionate with Sean, the young girl tries to mimic the situation with Tobe the young chef assistant. She puts on Dorothy's ring, Dorothy's lipstick, and when Julian kicks Tobe out of the house and angrily confronts her about her mysterious identity she defuses the situation by leaning to try and kiss him, and then even groping him so that when Dorothy and Sean return from their date he is left sheepish to explain why he is truly there.
There's a few other things that happen in episode three's "Eel" but this show is so good I don't want to spoil everything. I highly recommend watching it. Each episode is succinct 30 minutes that both feels longer than its half-hour slot but also goes by quicker than you know it.
Hope you enjoy!