The Callous Horror of Servant

There was a brief moment during early episodes when I was actually enjoying Servant, M. Night Shyamalan and Tony Basgallop’s new series for Apple TV+. The show has been marketed as a work of psychological horror about a young couple who have experienced unspeakable loss, and yet it functions best early on as a surreal comedy about the grotesque excesses of the modern bourgeoisie. Dorothy (played by Six Feet Under’s Lauren Ambrose) is a local TV reporter in Philadelphia with the rictus grin and terrifying positivity of a professional ballroom dancer. She’s married to Sean (Toby Kebbell), a chef and food influencer, and the couple live in a rowhouse ripped from an Architectural Digest spread, all floral wallpaper, Aesop hand wash, and $10,000 espresso machines. Sometimes Dorothy’s brother, Julian (Rupert Grint), visits, a man whose lone defining characteristic seems to be “wine.” Servant’s cinematographer, the frequent Shyamalan collaborator Mike Gioulakis, imbues the show’s epicurean interludes with sensual horror, like an episode of Chef’s Table directed by Eli Roth.