Shyamalan’s Servant: Apple TV+ thriller servant proves his twist mastery

M. Night Shyamalan’s work may not always be consistent, but his Apple TV+ thriller Servant stands out as one of the strongest recent entries in the genre. Known for jaw-dropping plot twists, Shyamalan’s career has itself become a source of unexpected meta-twists.

Shyamalan began his career as a successful blockbuster director thanks to hits like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs, but flops like The Happening, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and After Earth soon stalled his progress. However, in the years since, The Visit, Split, and 2024’s psychological thriller Trap have all been dubbed M. Night Shyamalan’s “comeback.”

After so many ostensible comebacks under his belt, one could argue that Shyamalan is a straightforwardly successful, if somewhat inconsistent, director. One project that provides further proof of this theory is Apple TV’s psychological horror series Servant, starring Lauren Ambrose, Toby Kebbell, Nell Tiger Free, and Rupert Grint.

Servant focuses on Dorothy and Sean, a couple who lose a child in infancy and are left psychologically devastated by the ordeal. When a therapist suggests that the couple replace their child with a lifelike doll to ease the grieving process, Dorothy and Sean hire a nanny named Leanne to “care” for the doll.

This is where things get strange, as Servant’s nanny, Leanne, is far from any ordinary caregiver. To say more would be to give away too much, but suffice to say, Servant’s twisty story makes every visit to the child’s bedroom and every smile from the motionless doll’s sweet nanny deeply discomfiting.

While Servant earned stellar reviews upon release, some of the show’s best feedback came from titans of the horror genre. In a post on X, the prolific horror author Stephen King praised the series, saying Servant was “spooky as hell”, and “extremely creepy and totally involving”.

Meanwhile, horror legend and The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro said the show was “Beautifully crafted,” before praising its “surgical staging and camera work” in the episodes Shyamalan directed. While Servant’s story isn’t entirely the work of the divisive director, his trademarks are all over the show.

Servant was created by What Remains scribe Tony Basgallop, and the British writer deserves full credit for the plot’s twists and turns. However, Shyamalan was its showrunner, and this couldn’t be more evident throughout all three seasons of the series, as Servant features the sort of wild twists and slow-burning horror atmosphere familiar from his best work.