Four years have passed since Apple TV+ kicked off one of its most attractive bets for the launch of its platform, under the protection of none other than M. Shyamalan, also known as the master of the “girito “.
Four years in which the series has been mutating with each new season. Thus, after a start full of mystery that it resolved on a good note, the series dropped the wheel and began with serious zig-zags in the second season and lost the north season 3. Does the fourth season manage to remedy the disaster? That is what we are going to see in this review of Servant Season 4.
After a first episode that barely served to see how it connected with the final cliffhanger of season 3, the series has continued with its usual lurches, leaving a new dozen chapters with a common note: irregularity.
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Servant – Season 4 Trailer (Apple TV+)
Irregularity in the background, in the dialogues, in the direction, in the progression of the characters… The end of Servant has not been able to trace the long journey towards drift that began in 2021with the second season.
So what the series started from some very good wickers in the first season, in which it was possible to savor a Shymalan in its purest, concentrated and undiluted state, with disturbing scenes.
Of the reborn doll that came to life, only the memory remains and of the mansion, that you laugh at those that appear in the horror classics, some things have not been fully explained.
At the end of the first season, there were already inconsistencies by then, but the viewer could turn a blind eye, and wait for a later explanation, even in scenes that fell apart under their own weight.
Now, with the series already closed, some explanations have not come to pass (They have given the rattle with the flooded hole in the basement to remain as an anecdote).
Continuing with the simile of wicker, the plot “straws” and characters have been twisting and convoluting to weave a basket without head or foot, or lid, or capacity to put a sock.
All the characters have undergone transformations that have turned them into “something else” and almost always in a rather clumsy, rushed and meaningless way.
From the long-suffering father and unscrupulous successful cook who finds solace in faith, to the nanny, Leanne, who just a year ago was a fearful young woman who didn’t even step on the street for fear and has ended up dispensing justice and breaking arms (and this last one is literal), all the characters mutate without much sense and less background.
Another character like Julian, played by Rupert Grint (Ron in Harry Potter), has ceased to be an old-fashioned guy to an “obedient little pet”, in a process that is neither clear nor convincing. And so absolutely everything… From one episode to another, the characters cease to be coherent and have no continuity.
And that’s not to mention the new signings. Characters have been introduced that almost seem like an insult to the intelligence of the viewer because of how goofy they aresuch as Dorothy’s caregivers who settle in the house to help with her recovery after the accident.
In just two episodes they are interfering in the life of the family, the couple recognizes them almost as if they were one more member of the family and, surprisingly, they stay in a never-before-seen area of the houseand that seems to be taken from the first seasons of Cuéntame, to generate a little more bad vibes with an old flavor.
Because that is something else: wait, the house still has annexes, tunnels and areas that after three years had not even been named and that appear like this, by magic and, again, introduced in a rather rude way. You have to commune with mill wheels until the end.
This is the feeling that leaves practically everything, that it is a monstrosity in which several heads have gotten their hands on, giving something totally disconnected and without much sense, quite clumsy introducing the news, with uninteresting twists and as if they were a collection of great ideas that in the mind of some scriptwriter, or director of some episode, they were the cane.
It happens until the final episode, the denouement, where everything ends in a way that just in the previous episode, Leanne herself denied. It is the best example of the lurches that she has been giving the series.
where yes that I can’t make a single complaint is that the technical part, where the series has remained faithful to its style and impressive photographyin which the gloomy mansion has shone with its own light, and sometimes without it.
We have gone through its corridors, rooms and hiding places from all possible perspectives, and it has been one of the stars of the series, along with a sound section that has also been key in moments of tension (and with a good handful of licensed songs). .
The performances of the main actors cannot be underestimated either.which have done wonders with the few certainties that their characters had, and where Lauren Ambrose (the unbalanced mother) or the aforementioned Rupert Grint have especially shone.
as we said, a pity that the series has not given more of itself, because it could have gone through other, very different paths and ended up being one of the essentials of Apple TV +. Having seen it from start to finish, I wouldn’t recommend it to even the most die-hard Shyamalan fans.
If you’ve seen the three previous seasons, make the effort and finish it to find out what’s going on with the Turner family… but for the rest, for those who haven’t seen a single episode, it’s better to yell at your television: go retro, satan!
