Disability is in Everything (Including our Villains): The Servant

Warning: HARK! There are spoilers here, traveler. Take the road less littered with thought.

TW: Mentions of death, infant death, cults, religious abuse

The finale of season three of The Servant ((2019) Tony Basgallop, M. Night Shyamalan) aired on March 24, 2022, leaving us on a massively literal and metaphorical cliff-hanger-banger-of-a-I-need-answers-pronto-ending that will no doubt, spearhead us toward a (hopefully) satisfying fourth, and final, season (sobs). And I'm so excited to see where the cast, crew, and creators will take us next. Willingly, and perhaps emotionally, I'd go anywhere where Leanne's (Nell Tiger Free) demonically gentle hand guided me. Her touch slowly shows us the way around religious trauma the old-fashioned way: using biblical witchcraft against itself. Belshazzar's feast, Lazarus, a zombified army, and so on. Leanne, an amishly dark and personal Jesus.

The Servant is some of the best TV I've seen in a while. The actors' performances are so authentically tuned in to their characters' periling lives that I have to remind myself that they aren't real: Julian Pearce (Rupert Grint) and Sean Turner (Toby Kebell) both embody the clueless male trope with such a refreshing and wonderful twist; both men, since the beginning, are aware, in awe, and terrified with Leanne's power all at once, while Dorothy Turner (Lauren Ambrose) completely flips "delusional wife" and "desperate mother" on top of its head! Literally the most frustrating, but honest portrayal of entitlement, wealth, and psychological torture I've ever seen, paired with the challenges of being a mother. Reimagining what Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby would be like today.

But Leanne. Wow. Her character totally gets all my roses; there are a lot of things to appreciate conceptually about Leanne. She is, but one, a creep. A young girl, carrying the shadows of her neglectful youth, into the projection of her boss, Dorothy, a mother, unaware of her struggle. And a witch of sorts. A batch of coals, lighting the fiery fuel needed to be delivered back into her controlling cult's services for the world: a group of homely bible-lovers, dependent on the sorcery that lives and breathes inside Leanne's faith.

Yet, there's something more to Leanne that intrigues me: I love the way Basgallop and Shyamalan have chosen to orchestrate the biblical trauma both physically throughout the house (i.e. infestations of bugs, cracks in the basement) and through Leanne's consistent fear that her cult will come back. That they will evidently find her and punish her for what's she done; which is what, exactly? The killing of Aunt May doesn't seem to hold up to the fearful guilt, preoccupied in Leanne's eyes. Nor does the resurrection of Jericho, the worry that she's perverted nature by bringing an infant back to life, explain the range of her terror.

The ongoing threat of god, waiting to punish you. Watching you safely upon a shelf of clouds, a veil of invisibility hiding his grimacing smile, reminds me so much of how it feels to have religious PTSD; reoccurring trauma, poking at you, over and over, is not an uncommon comparison when examining the pervasiveness of fundamental theology. When a place, posing as sacred, is committed to having you question everything natural about you, is traumatizing. A scheduled heap of doubt, waiting for you every Sunday, to join the pile.

When you're young, you take the threat of hell literally and far past theatrics. When you're a person, collecting events that will someday experience themselves as reoccurring trauma episodes, then witnessing the terribly consistent cycle of your worst nightmares, being felt in your body, over and over, can feel a lot like a stubborn cult, unwilling to let you and your light go. No matter how much you don't want them back; god always finding a new, cruel way into the creaking floorboards at night. The sweat you produce, when caught in a lie.

The way Leanne can manipulate death has nothing to do with her obedience, resilience, or disobedience against her maker and I really, really appreciate the direction season three has taken Leanne, such as starting to lead her own cult. Would it be nice if Leanne didn't have to copy the system that oppressed her? Absolutely. But truthfully, I think it's a great start to wherever the show decides to go next. And It's been obvious, since the beginning, that the writers are respectful of Leanne's religious PTSD and I don't see them keeping her in this leadership position for long. Given that different forms of rebellion, easily await her.