The season finale of “Servant” comes unanswered, as per Shyamalan tradition.

The story of the couple who loses their son and recovers him in an inexplicable way, conflict of the series. Servantavailable on Apple TV+, has always been ambitious. Particularly because M. Night Shyamalan never seemed to decide on the explanation for the phenomenon. The first season kept all the information to itself and left the event to speculation – a dark miracle? a fantasy that embodies mourning? There was no explanation for such a thing.

Nor in its second part. In the third, the scenario implied the existence of something dangerous. Magic, sorcery and power. But it’s the fourth that ultimately provides a more accurate picture. Strange as it may sound, it doesn’t make things any clearer. In fact, again, Servant insists on saying very little in order to provide a glimpse of an explosion at the center of its narrative.

But, before that, it poses a dense atmosphere. In several of the sequences of the first chapter, the camera is motionless in an empty room. The light expands and shows each object in relief. The minutes pass in silence. So much so that the tension rises until the voice of a character can cause a start.

Even real fear, and all the more so when it is clear that the apparent placidity on display is about to be shattered. The Turner family is falling apart. As if the chaos that began with the death of Jericho had become a bodily element capable of threatening everyone.

Servant

For his last season, Servantfor Apple TV+, dropped hints about the possibility of the supernatural. Now, as a certainty, whatever lurks is an obvious fatal presence. At the same time, it is a threat that the characters must face with the weapons at their disposal. Doors that close and open. But the void is the center of the action. It is also the obvious sign that something mysterious awaits us and threatens us. The moment it strikes, the plot then shows its true purpose. It looks at what brought a dead child back to life, but also at the power at work around him.

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Score: 4 out of 5.

Servant reveals what lies at the heart of its history

For its final season, the production dropped hints about the possibility of the supernatural. Now, as a certainty, whatever lurks is an obvious fateful presence. At the same time, it is a threat against which the characters must fight with the weapons at their disposal.

With dark forces at work amid hitherto ordinary rooms, the plot plays with what it does not show on screen. There are small noises, laughter, murmurs. The doors close and open. But the void is at the center of the action.

There is also the clear hint that something mysterious awaits and threatens. The moment it strikes, the plot will then show its true purpose. Immerse yourself in what brought a dead child back to life, but, at the same time, in the power at work around him.

Fear, light and shadow in Servant

The production has the identity of any work of M.Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense, The protected, Multiple). From the atmosphere of apprehension to the characters facing supernatural experiences without having the tools to understand what is happening. But above all, the ambiguous nature of its history.

Servant has addressed, over its previous three installments, the possibility that the mystery surrounding the series is simply a fantasy. At best, an escape, born out of the pain of loss. In its most macabre form, a break with reality that makes the red brick floor the center of conflict, a doorway into the unknown.

In the end, the mystery is solved. At least half solved. Servant uses the sense that the sharpness of its opening sequences conceals the chaos. The chaos that was already glimpsed when the nanny, Leanne (Nell Tiger Free), became the nexus between cults, magic and evil incarnate. One of the key points was to build a puzzle that grew thicker and stronger over time.

The death of a baby, the mourning which follows, then the indecipherable element which allows the apparent omen of his return to life, mingle with something deeper. At the end of the third season, the story has focused on its central point: there is no escaping what Jericho represents. About the boy who was resuscitated or the enigma that inhabits his simple existence.

Back to Twisted Spaces

Shyamalan continues the narrative a few months after the shocking end of the previous season. Indeed, the premise of this pane is that every element and event – ​​before or after – has a motive. After playing with the idea of ​​the disintegration of domestic life, normality and even sanity, Servant returns to a specific point.

For the scenario, everything that happens preserves… a secret of which each character only knows a part. Dorothy Turner (Lauren Ambrose) managed to survive the fall that closed the previous installment. How did she do it? The story doesn’t give much explanation, and the feeling that his recovery might be an unrealistic picture persists for much of the first chapter.

The prison of daily life in Servant

But, little by little, it becomes clear that what the character is going through is forced seclusion. Not only because of the convalescence which must continue in the red brick house and which forces him to isolate himself from the outside world. At the same time, because when she returns, she is under Leanne’s domination.

However, none of the above is self-evident. Everything is suggested in everyday scenes that hide something more sordid.. The nanny has become the center of the world of Sean (Toby Kebbell) and his brother Julian (Rupert Grint). Without either of them realizing it, the woman who is or is not the center of a cult is the real power that gravitates in their relationship.

But Servant is narratively strong enough not to rely on the principle of a confrontation between two opposing forces. It doesn’t make Dorothy a victim either. Indeed, all the lines that converge on Jerich – the dead child, mysteriously returned to his mother’s arms – are dark in nature. But, without answers on the origin of such an event, the story poses a disorientation.

Is what we have seen so far in the series real, could it be a hallucination, mass hysteria, fear transformed into unreal images? The series refuses to give an answer. But he hints that any of these three possibilities could be true.

What happens when the passive-aggressive relationship between Leanne and Dorothy becomes symbolic. There is an unstoppable energy about to explode between the two. Either for a final confrontation or for the death of one of them. However, the plot gives no clue as to what will happen.. When this is the case, they are so confused that the possibilities are multiple, even contradictory.

A farewell to a story that has become an object of worship.

It’s never been easy to describe Servantneither as a production obsessed with a single point of view, nor when it encompasses several themes at once. In fact, each of its seasons tells what seems to be a different dimension of the same inexplicable circumstance. Its closure lives up to this mystery and, perhaps, it is not easy to assume that its open ending is also a tribute to its best moments..

Shyamalan has managed to create a series in which he hones his take on horror. It may be an advantage, but it’s also the weakest element of a plot that has quirky flaws. Servant never seemed to want to finish a story, but rather add layers of complexity to the singular thing he was trying to tell. Ultimately, the challenge of embracing all the possibilities that have been conjured up over the four seasons seems to have been too much for the production to handle.

Servant bids farewell by clearing up many of its mysteries, but without answering most of its questions. Perhaps it is this feeling of incompleteness that upsets the balance of a dangerous enigma to be discovered. Is it the director’s inability to live up to his own premises? Did the series end up collapsing like the rooms in the Turner house? The production offers nothing clear. A tough farewell that nevertheless fits the series so far.