Servant - Apple+

[37Harrison]

Anyone else have Apple+ and watching the show Servant?

I bought an iPhone for my son this past Christmas and because of this Apple gave me a free year subscription to Apple+. If you have the ability to watch it, I highly recommend. It's a dark show with a lot of mystery and suspense. Officially it was categorized as "Horror" but this is not horror. I can't stand horror movies/shows and will steer far away from them.


My attempt to give you a brief summary of season 1 without giving away any spoilers:

The gist: Set in Philadelphia, a semi-famous couple, Dorothy (a local TV news reporter) and Sean (a highly sought after Chef ) suffer the loss of their baby, Jericho. Dorothy cracks and her friend Natalie, brother Julian, and husband Sean get her a life-like doll to cope. This seems to work and Dorothy believes the baby is real. Still struggling emotionally, Dorothy wants to hire a nanny for the doll which they end up doing. Enter Leanne Grayson the live-in nanny, a seemingly shy, devout religious teen (18) from Wisconsin. This is where things start to get a bit strange... splinters, graphic food preparation, a feral dog, and an amazing wine cellar (not to mention the craziness with the baby doll... or is it a doll?) are just some things going on in this show. Sean is a dick, Dorothy is a nut case who is completely into herself, Julian is a high functioning alcoholic who is described by Sean as "being 160 lbs most of which is cocaine", and Natalie is an unlicensed kinesiologist. Oh BTW, Julian is played by Rupert Grint or as many may know him, Ron Weasley.

I won't go on any further as not to ruin it for anyone but all I can say is I got hooked on it quick and binge watched the entire first season. The shows are only about a half hour long and there are 10 episodes in season 1. Season 2 just came out but they are only releasing one show/week so you have plenty of time to catch up!

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I won't spoil any plot/story elements but still have a strong opinion. M. Night Shyamalan is great at building dreadful suspense within a world that is both realistic and paranormal. He creates in-depth, believable characters. It is often difficult for the viewer to know whether or not unexplained events are supernatural or not, as there is always some ambiguity. That's what I really enjoy about his work.

Since the The Sixth Sense had a successfull plot twist, he has continued to use plot twist endings on virtually everything he's done. In some projects, like The Village, the plot twist ending works well. But more often, he sacrifices a really well-crafted story for a cheap "gotcha" ending that doesn't even mesh with the major plot elements and leaves you frustrated that you bought into the story. I cautiously enjoyed watching Servant but had a feeling the whole time that it wouldn't pay off because the ending would be more of a gimmick than a resolution. I was right.

Disclaimer: I may be biased since I'm inclined to weigh finales heavily.

 

[37Harrison]

Ice_Ice: I thought the finale opened up a whole new avenue for the story to go down. Did it play with the rest of the plot throughout the season, no not really but I don't think it was meant to, I think it was meant to be a cliffhanger opening up the supernatural. Now on to the supernatural and how that plays into the family life.

I too was skeptical at first because of Shyamalan and his past works but I think so far... so good! Can't wait to see what happens tonight!