Each week Terry and Joe review the latest episode of Apple TV’s Servant S4, alternating between our respective sites.

Miss a Season 4 Recap? 1

Spoilers follow for Episode 4.02 “Itch”

Episode 4.02 “Itch”: Leanne begins to torment Dorothy as chaos overtakes Spruce Street.

TERRY

Servant continues to twist the knife in the Turner household, making things as uncomfortable for the family members (and viewers) as it is for Leanne (Nell Tiger Free). While “Pigeon” gave us an intense game of cat and mouse, “Itch” is the more cerebral and psychological version of the same game. This time, it’s more personal and…well, itchy.

Throughout the seasons, we’ve documented the way in which this troubled blended family unit has gone through various stages of growth, particularly the way Leanne has grown from a wide-eyed innocent baby to a fully formed, and potentially Evil with a capital E, human. “Itch” sort of flips the script a bit in terms of the family roles each character typically plays.

Take Sean (Toby Kebbell) for instance. While he’s an established chef, his latest journey feels like a first job that’s going exceedingly well. When he thinks he needs to skip an important GQ interview to be home with Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose), Leanne chides him like a mother would to her son. “Don’t miss this opportunity, sweetie,” you can almost hear Leanne say as she admonishes him and sends him on his way.

Dorothy, meanwhile - the strong, collected and locally famous news reporter - is struggling with her injury and has to rely on others to clean her, feed her and more. When Leanne holds a bite of food out to Dorothy and she refuses it, Leanne almost does the airplane maneuver many parents have employed to get their kids to eat.

With no real way to fend for herself, Dorothy lashes out the way a petulant child would, spitting food on the floor (and Leanne’s shoe), smashing the bedpan against Leanne, refusing to eat, trading one bite of food at a time for something she wants…yes, it’s still a servant dynamic with Leanne taking care of the Turners, but the why has shifted greatly.

Hints of this shift also come in the way Leanne interacts with Julian (Rupert Grint). I was curious about their relationship after “Pigeon” because Julian didn’t seem to have the same problems with Leanne as the rest of the household. Turns out he’s blissfully unaware (at least on the surface) about the simmering tension between the rest of the family.

Instead, he and Leanne have settled into an awkward, potentially one-sided relationship, as she massages his neck, kisses his head and tries to be a bit more intimate before Julian stops her. He’s not so sure they should be “together” while Dorothy’s home. Her response?

“We have to be them now.”

They have to step up and be the co-parents of their little ragtag group. So, she gives him Sean’s recipe for shakshuka to make and Leanne takes over as the Dorothy-to-Julian’s-Sean, fussing around the house and trying to take care of Dorothy the way a mother would tend to a young child. It’s a fascinating change in power dynamics in the household and one that Leanne wants to revel in, if only the Turners weren’t so, from her perspective, dismissive of her. It’s darkly comedic, given the way things ended last season, for Leanne to think that somehow everything can just return to normal and everyone can be happy.

At the end of “Pigeon,” Leanne asked Sean what the doctors said about Dorothy and he gave her a best case scenario, but didn’t want to even think about the worst case. And Leanne’s response was, “she’s home now, so she’ll get better.” That might seem like a platitude on the surface, but savvy viewers will know it’s a statement dripping with subtext because people’s conditions worsen and improve simply on Leanne’s whims.

And while I do believe that Leanne had every intention of helping Dorothy heal last episode, we continue to see metaphorical (as well as physical) cracks spreading throughout the Brownstone. “Itch” suggests that, for now, Dorothy is going to continue to suffer the pains and indignities of being confined to her bed.

But that’s only covering a portion of what’s going on in this episode, Joe. I’m curious about your thoughts on this more contemplative episode after the action-packed “Pigeon.”

Did the bed bugs make you itchy and what are your thoughts on the continued apocalyptic imagery happening outside their door? We also must discuss the return of some side characters, like Tobe (Tony Revolori), Frank (Todd Waring), our favorite Kourtney with a K (Katie Lee Hill), as well as the brief appearance of Uncle George (Boris McGiver). What are your thoughts on the way these characters change the dynamics in the house?

JOE

Terry, one of my favourite aspects of Servant is how seemingly nothing happens in an episode where everything happens. It would be easy to dismiss “Pigeon” as a creative technical exercise, leaving “Itch” to do the heavy character lifting as the house settles back into place and the characters resume their usual role.

But nothing could be farther from the truth. As you’ve outlined, everyone is going through the motions, but nothing is quite right, because the balance of power has so firmly shifted. Poor Dorothy spends the whole episode desperately texting and calling anyone and everyone to help rescue her from Leanne, including her father’s mistress of six months whom she hates! Sean and Julian both make excuses from going to see her - principally they’re afraid of the infestation of bed bugs around the neighbourhood and, more specifically, their house - will cause her to hurt herself, but Leanne calls it like she sees it when she confronts Dorothy near the end of the episode: everyone is afraid of her.

Leanne’s still on the cusp here: she fully understands how powerful she is, but, you’re right, that she’s still mostly aiming to help the Turners. But her patience is wearing thin, and with it comes a rise in the number of cracks, bugs and, yes, danger. We’ve seen what happens when Leanne unintentionally gets angry or frustrated; what happens when she gets intentionally angry? We may soon find out, because - as she tells both Julian and Dorothy - she’s getting tired of always being there for them, of doing everything for them, of being taken for granted.

The corresponding visual is, of course, a full scale infestation of the entire street. Last week, it was crazed joggers and hot dog vendors. This week, it’s a creepy, crawly mess of bed bugs the likes of which you’ve never seen before!

Oof, Terry, as someone who has gone through this experience, let me tell you that I was not only itching and twitching, but having full blown panic attacks. When Julian pokes that mass on the chair? <silent screams>

I’ll confess that I couldn’t find the humour in Leanne and Dorothy’s situation (my discomfort was too severe), but a lot of the bug stuff felt patently ridiculous. The sheer scope of the infestation around the neighbourhood, with its imagery evoking not just the real life pandemic, but all of the classic disaster/infection movies (paging Cloverfield, Outbreak and Contagion). All of those men walking around in hazmat suits, ducts being pumped out of windows into the street and yet more fog filled the suburban neighbourhood? It’s nearly ridiculous, but also freaky and incredibly memorable. Once again the events of the Turner house are spilling out, affecting the other citizens, and, once again, a cleansing religious rain seems to wipe the disaster away.

The chief difference is that this time the person calling it forth appears to be Uncle George. This…was unexpected to say the least. The last we saw of Uncle G, he was being run over by a car and then speaking to Roscoe about abducting Leanne from the house. The fact that he’s back means violence, and likely death, are on the horizon.

As for the other returnees: it was amusing to see Julian respond like a jealous lover when he sees Tobe in the kitchen, even though when his father Frank asks why he “bangs the nanny” Julian can’t explain their relationship. He even seems unconvinced when one of Leanne’s followers reminds him that Leanne has a power over all of them, though I have a feeling now that the seed is planted, he’ll return to it.

And then there’s Kourtney with a K. It’s wild to see her and Dorothy getting along like they’re best friends (and even better seeing Kourtney and Leanne takes turns passive-aggressively shutting doors in each other’s faces). Naturally when bites turn to itches, Kourtney demands they leave; I, for one, am just happy that she got out before Leanne’s disgruntled behaviour turns homicidal.

Back to you, Terry: which of Dorothy and Leanne’s scenes made you most uncomfortable? (For me it was the shaving) Was it cruel of Leanne to use baby Jericho’s presence (and his outgrown clothes) to manipulate Dorothy? And what did you make of the news story about the rise in crime sweeping Philadelphia? Proof that Leanne’s sphere of influence is expanding?

TERRY

I wanted to circle back to the uncle, Joe, because it’s interesting you pegged him as being the culprit! I hadn’t even thought of that, because I assumed the pests were irritating because Leanne was irritated. And I wondered if she was doing it to make the neighbors move out, as a preemptive bit of getting rid of the cult people who are closing in. When Leanne talks with Tobe, at one point she says, “I didn’t mean for you to get trapped” in reference to the bed bug infestation keeping him at the house. And he responds that she didn’t do it, but that statement hangs in the air, unanswered but, to me, suggesting that she did do it. It also ties into one of the things you asked me above, about her sphere of influence. It seems like it’s absolutely growing, though you could also take that news report as one hyping up the transient population living outside their home and the way media and politicians use that as a soapbox to talk about crime. Either way, these reports combined with the visual indicators throughout the house does suggest Leanne’s growing in power.

But you’re right, there is a case to be made that Uncle George is the one who brought this new wave of pests. He definitely doesn’t give us much to go on outside of a “how many houses were affected?” question before he starts praying. You could take that line to suggest the cult is trying to isolate the Turner household to avoid any more unwanted interruptions. There’s no better way to keep New Yorkers away than to threaten bed bugs. Honestly, when he showed up, I actually thought that he was the person Dorothy called.

One of the things I wanted to cue in on was Sean’s success being tied to Leanne and promises of wealth. Making a deal with the Devil has, of course, been used so much in horror and Servant seems to subtly suggest that’s happening here. Last season, Leanne tried very hard to get Dorothy to “get with the program” and get onboard the lucrative career train.

We saw Dorothy’s slow fall from being a news reporter juxtaposed with Sean’s meteoric rise in his career. And here we have a suggestion that something otherworldly is affecting his trajectory with a very small throwaway bit of conversation near the end of the episode. Sean is perplexed about his interview with GQ–an interview he didn’t want to go to until Leanne prodded him. He ended up leaving the interview halfway because Dorothy called him, and yet GQ called him back to do an even bigger interview piece. “It’s like I can’t do wrong!” Sean exclaims. I think that’s part of Leanne’s annoyance, too. She sees herself as giving the Turners “a perfect life” of rich, luxurious jobs and a baby that’s tended to…but they seem unappreciative of the things coming their way or unwilling to join Leanne’s side, let alone show appreciation for her.

Speaking of showing appreciation, you mentioned the shaving scene and yes that was absolutely the most cringe-inducing moment for me between Leanne and Dorothy. That only slightly eclipsed the moment Leanne truly treated Dorothy like a child, waving her son in her face to get her to eat. The fights between them last season felt very passive aggressive and secretive, but here we have Dorothy fighting back in a more physical sense. “You’re not going to win this battle, Leanne,” Dorothy defiantly tells her. It’s now completely in the open and knives are both figuratively and literally out.

But speaking of the final moments, we have to talk about our new arrivals, Joe! The two nurses (one played by Honeydew’s creepy mother Barbara Kingsley) join in Kourtney with a K’s attempt to block Leanne out of Dorothy’s room. I’m curious if you have thoughts on these new interlopers and who they are working for? And just how far do you think this battle of wills will escalate next week?

JOE

Oh shit, I didn’t recognize Kingsley, but that’s exciting! It’s also a bit ironic considering the premise of that film also concerns someone being imprisoned and waited upon in a home.

I’ll confess that I hadn’t given much thought to the two nurses - I default assumed that they were just hired help that would intervene on Dorothy’s behalf if Leanne tried to get too close. Their attitudes were pretty obviously aggressive towards the nanny, but I imagine that Dorothy and/or Kourtney gave them context for why Leanne was not to be admitted.

Would I be surprised if it turned out that they were cultists, though? Absolutely not! In particular, their reaction to Leanne’s arrival - when she’s holding a knife, no less! - was pretty disinterested, so it will be interesting to see if they simply have a narrow focus or if they’re up to something more nefarious.

One interesting observation I had reading your response, Terry, was whether Leanne’s interest in helping the Turners only extends to Sean and (formerly) Dorothy? Julian doesn’t seem to be doing great (he’s back to drinking at the very least), despite the fact that Leanne clearly feels some kind of affection for him. Unless it’s simply that she enjoys his physical affection, but only feels protective of the patriarch and matriarch of the house?

As for how far this’ll go…well it is the final season, Terry, so I imagine there’s violence and bloodshedding on the horizon. The truth is that Dorothy is pretty incapacitated in that bed (watching her struggle to pull herself up was painful), so unless there’s a time jump, she’ll need to rely on the help of others to battle Leanne.

I’m actually more interested in how we, as an audience, are meant to align to these characters? Half of the fun of the series has been watching the dynamic change between these two women. Now, as the end game approaches, I wonder if we’re meant to cheer for one more than the other? Leanne is clearly on a dark path, and Dorothy has committed some horrific (possibly unforgivable) acts, but is the series setting up some kind of resolution wherein one of them bests the other? I think it’s still a little too early to say, but I’m going to keep an eye out.

We’ll see if we get more answers next week when we jump back to QueerHorrorMovies for the ominously named S04E03 episode “Séance.”