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 on the last episode of Apple TV's SERVANT, episode 3, "Eel"?
The young nanny Leanne passes out while watching the husband Sean and his assistant Tobe skin an eel alive in the kitchen.
Dorothy's brother Julian video-calls Sean from Wisconsin while investigating Leanne's background.
Julian finds a room where a wall with a wooden totem was untouched by flames and a gravestone with Leanne's name on it.
Leanne sees Dorothy kiss Sean, and so tries to kiss Dorothy's brother Julian and Sean's chef assistant Tobe.
Episode four of SERVANT -- "Bear" -- starts with the husband Sean revealing to his wife Dorothy's brother Julian that Leanne waits for them to fall asleep at night and takes the new baby Jericho into her room. Suspicious of what the mysterious nanny may be up to, Sean opens up a board in the cabinets of Leanne's room and squeezes into a crawlspace behind it where he drills a hole and inserts the nanny-cam from a stuffed bear in order to watch Leanne's room from his tablet. It's incredibly inappropriate--a grown man spying on a teenage girl--but these are obviously not normal people.
We also get this pretty depressing flashback of Dorothy getting super excited about being pregnant and see Sean write a name on the test and place it in a drawer full of other positive pregnancy test. If the drawer contents are truly accurate and not an emotional embellishment, Dorothy's been pregnant at least ten times before Jericho: meaning she's had at least ten unsuccessful pregnancies or miscarriages. Can't even imagine the emotional toll that would take on a human being and then to lose the one and only born child from that one successful pregnancy -- no wonder she needed that therapy doll after losing her child. Jesus Christ, in all the mystery and strangeness of the show we get a reminder of how dark this story truly is.
Later Dorothy invites Leanne to bring Jericho with her to work but Sean panics and says they shouldn't. Despite this, while watching Dorothy report the news on TV, Sean sees Leanne and the new baby Jericho in the background and gets upset at both women when they return home. When a frustrated Sean leaves, Dorothy asks Leanne if that was her first time on TV and Leanne says yes.
Episode four, "Bear," ends with Leanne discovering that Sean has taken the new baby Jericho from the nursery to sleep in his and Dorothy's room that night so that she can't take him into her room. Sad, she wanders around the house and goes downstairs to play an old news report of Dorothy's from almost ten years ago. It shows Dorothy commentating on the runner-ups to a children's beauty contest in Wisconsin. She interviews each of the girls before stopping on the last one, a smaller simple-dressed girl.
Dorothy: "What's your name, sweetie?"
Little Wisconsin Girl: "Leanne."
Dorothy: "Is this your first time on TV, Leanne?"
Little Wisconsin Girl: Looks into the camera "Yes."
So now we know that Leanne or the Leanne she's pretending to be, has known the Turner family or at least Dorothy for years. This isn't some spur of the moment job or trip. The entire present situation may be a ploy that's been cooked up for years by whoever this mysterious nanny truly is.
We just keep learning more and more about these characters and diving deeper and deeper into the tragic history or pain that resulted in the situation of the show's premise.
But still I'm left wondering -- who is Leanne? Did she switch Dorothy's therapy doll for a real baby? Is the new Jericho really Leanne's baby? Did Leanne turn a doll into a baby with magic? Is Leanne magic? Where is Leanne really from? How did the original baby Jericho really die? The more we learn about Sean and Dorothy's past, the more I think my assumption of death by SIDS is wrong. I think one of them accidentally killed the baby, but who -- angry bitter Sean or mentally fragile Dorothy?
Find out next time when we cover the next episode of Apple TV's "Servant."