What happened last time on Apple TV's SERVANT?
Upper-class Philadelphian couple, Sean and Dorothy Turner, have recently lost their infant child.
Due to his wife Dorothy's resulting breakdown, Sean and his brother-in-law Julian give her a therapy doll and let her order a nanny online to help care for the "pseudo baby.
Their shy new nanny, a young slightly Amish-looking girl named Leanne, treats the therapy doll like a real child--upsetting the husband Sean.
Sean sneaks up on Leanne one night and watches her pray beside her bed.
The next day while his wife and the nanny are out of the apartment, Sean hears the sound of a baby cry upstairs and goes to the crib to find the therapy doll replaced by a real child.
That was a pretty damn good way to end a season premier episode but I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from a series produced by the twist-master M. Night Shyamalan.
In Servant season-one episode two, "Wood," the fancy-chef husband Sean demands Leanne to tell him whose baby she's replaced the therapy doll with. She looks at him confused and says it's his child Jericho, which is impossible because everyone knows, including his wife Dorothy who knows but doesn't want to, that their newborn son Jericho died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
What comes off as even more of a surprise is that fact that when his wife Dorothy sees the baby, she treats the same way she treated the therapy doll, as if nothing has changed. Understandably, Dorothy in her PTSD delusion treated the therapy doll as a living breathing baby but is now seemingly unaware that what was once a fake plastic baby is now a flesh and blood child. In order not to cause his wife another psychotic breakdown, Sean keeps the truth from her and calls up his brother-in-law Julian to tell him that something crazy's happened at their home and that he needs to see it right away.
When Julian arrives, he panics as well and when they run down to the wine cellar to discuss their options he confides in Sean that this may or may not be a bad thing, that in a way this is perfect for Sean and Dorothy, that they've lost and regained a child. Sean reminds him that the baby probably belongs to someone and asks Julian to look into missing baby reports.
What happens next is an eerie coincidence--in his anger and confusion, Sean throws one of the nanny Leanne's religious wooden totems in the garbage disposal and then begins suffering from an increasing amount of splinters and loses his sense of taste, an almost biblical and Olympian type of punishment that is ironic because he is also a chef.
I've noticed something from episode one that is now pretty prevalent in episode two of Apple TV's SERVANT as well: the show rarely ever leaves the Turner's apartment. Sometimes we go outside their front door but other than that, most scenes take place within the confines of their old luxury apartment, or townhouse. This creates an almost claustrophobic atmosphere as we witness the strangeness of the Turner home-life. I'm reminded of the classic movie Rosemary's Baby in that thew viewer, like the characters, is seemingly trapped by the setting of the story. This refusal to leave the premises is a nice detail that I actually love. It captures the restricting nature of stressful stages of life, induces feelings of imprisonment, and maintains an air of helpless that is appropriate for a show about a couple with a young child but not just a child but a new one to replace one that was lost. How does one deal with that situation when the surprise mix-up brings comfort to a loved one who is in so much tremendous pain? I've already begun to assume that the reason for the antagonism between Sean and Dorothy, along with her functional psychosis, is that she is responsible for the death of their original child Jericho.
What will happen next on Apple TV's Servant? Who knows. I'm not even sure if this show is entirely supernatural or not but a hunch is telling me that Leanne is punishing Sean with magic splinters, that she's a witch, and that the new Jericho is the result of some subtle and religion-related hocus pocus.
I love that Sean is being punished with splinters because I am currently playing a ton of @steemmonsters or Splinterslands, an awesome blockchain card game, so I think the universe actually wants me to both watch this show and play more Splinterlands :)
Loving this show so far and will keep y'all posted!