Is Servant Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot

The doll's crib turns out to have a baby in it

Dorothy and Sean Turner live in Philadelphia, and their thirteen-week-old son Jericho has died. Afterward Dorothy had a psychotic break and went catatonic, and an unlicensed therapist suggested a lifelike reborn doll. Dorothy now treats the doll as the real baby. Six weeks after the death they hire eighteen-year-old Leanne Grayson as the nanny, a devoutly religious girl who plays along. Then Sean finds a living baby in the doll's crib. Leanne insists the baby is his son, and Dorothy behaves as though Jericho never died. Sean can't disarm the security system when he tries to carry the baby out, and after he destroys a straw cross Leanne hung over the crib, he starts finding splinters under his skin and loses his sense of taste. Julian, Dorothy's younger brother, and Roscoe, a private investigator, travel to Medicine Bridge, Wisconsin, and find a burned-out house and graves for a girl named Leanne Grayson and her parents. Later Leanne's Uncle George turns up and says she is leaving with him.

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A baptism with a placenta on the menu

The first season builds toward two episodes. In episode nine, a flashback shows Jericho being born at home in a tub. Sean is away on a job judging a cooking competition, and Dorothy copes alone with a loud, colicky baby in a heat wave and barely sleeps. After bringing in groceries one afternoon she leaves the front door open, the baby stays silent all afternoon, and that night she finds the crib empty. She then realizes she forgot Jericho in the car and he was left there for hours, which is how he died. It is told as a flashback. Episode ten is Jericho's baptism. Sean serves the guests a pastry made with Jericho's placenta, and none of them know. Dorothy recognizes Aunt May as May Markham, the leader of the Church of the Lesser Saints, a cult that supposedly burned along with most of its followers. Leanne leaves with a suitcase and is surrounded by strangers who vanish when a police officer approaches. Dorothy finds the doll in the crib again and drops it.

Leanne in the attic, Josephine in the basement

In season two, Dorothy phones the police to say Jericho has been kidnapped. Officer Stephanie Reyes, who responded the day Jericho died, doubts the family's cover story. Dorothy then locks Leanne in the attic and questions her about where the baby is, and Leanne says she doesn't know. A ransom note arrives asking for $200,000, and Sean sells his espresso machine to help pay it. Uncle George demands Leanne's return and promises to heal Sean in exchange, and Reyes finds straw crosses in the attic. On Christmas Eve the family gathers expecting Jericho to come home, and Sean, who has drifted from atheism to belief, says grace. A woman in a veil named Josephine arrives and shows Dorothy the onesie Jericho died in. Dorothy locks herself in the nursery planning to hurt herself, and Sean talks her out of it. In the basement Josephine tries to put Leanne through the cult's "purification" ritual, Dorothy knocks her out with a shovel, and Leanne stabs her with a red-hot knife. Josephine vanishes, and her burnt corpse later turns up behind the wall of Leanne's room. Afterward Leanne is cradling a living Jericho in the nursery and says the Turners are her family.

The termites have opinions about the railing

Three months later, Leanne is paranoid and refuses to leave the house, convinced the cult is coming for her. Julian is sober after rehab, and a piece of the gargoyle on the front of the house falls and nearly hits him. The Turners install security cameras and host a mommy-and-me party, where Leanne hallucinates that the other mothers are cult members. A ring that won't come off costs Tobe's girlfriend Sylvia her finger. Sean starts praying and attending church with a minister named Nancy, which Dorothy resents, and Leanne takes charge of a homeless encampment that seems to be full of cult runaways. Dorothy's friend Isabelle dies, and Dorothy asks Leanne about her smile at the news. Dorothy also sees Leanne and Julian on the security camera, finds insects in her cereal, and finds a drawing of Leanne whipping herself. Jericho says his first word, "mama", but he seems to be looking at Leanne. That night Dorothy tries to run away with Jericho. Leanne stops her, a termite-eaten railing gives way, and Dorothy falls to the ground floor and can't move.

A séance with a dagger in it

In season four, Dorothy returns home paralyzed. Cult members attack Leanne outside the house with holy water, and a flock of pigeons attacks them in turn. A bedbug infestation spreads down the street, and Dorothy hires two live-in nurses, Beverly and Roberta, to keep Leanne away. During a séance Roberta conducts, Leanne attacks Bobbie with a dagger. By Halloween, Sean has seen what Leanne is like and joins Dorothy against her. A sinkhole opens in front of the house, the cult tries a ritual at Jericho's half birthday party, and Beverly dies from a snakebite at the petting zoo. George claims Leanne is an ordinary young woman who became obsessed with Dorothy after meeting her at a 2011 pageant. Sean and Julian confront Leanne during a sudden downpour. They then tell Dorothy what happened to Jericho, and when Julian plays her a voicemail and Sean mentions the reborn doll, she remembers her catatonic state and lashes out at them.