On January 20, 2020, the day before the first confirmed case of Covid in the United States, we spoiled the first season of “Servant” and explained how it fits into M. Night Shyamalan’s filmography. This review referred to Shyamalan’s love for confined settings. At the time, one criticism of “Servant” was how he conspired, sometimes awkwardly, to keep his characters trapped inside, with the outside world only seen through video screens.
There’s also a plot point where one of the show’s main characters, a housewife chef named Sean Turner (Toby Kebbell), loses his sense of taste. As the coronavirus spread, of course, some people would lose our sense of taste in real life, and many of us would find ourselves sequestered in our homes like a “Servant”, if so. more and more relying on video links to the world. outside.
How many of us would harbor our spouse’s illusions that an inanimate reincarnated doll was our baby? How many of us would abuse this doll and invite a mysterious nanny into our homes to take care of it?
Not much, probably, but that’s the way “Servant” goes. Nell Tiger Free (“Game of Thrones”) plays the nanny, Leanne Grayson, and Lauren Ambrose (“Six Feet Under”) plays the mother, Dorothy Turner, a local television reporter. Rupert Grint, grown up since the days of “Harry Potter”, plays his brother, Julian Pearce, who always has a glass of red wine in his hand.
The characters of “Servant” do not always act consistently. It can be difficult to analyze their motivations and frustrating to see their lack of communication. But if we’re being honest, it was the first show intriguing enough to warrant signing up for Apple TV +.
