Welcome to the ending explained for the penultimate episode of the final season of Servant. Last week’s episode brought us to the edge of our seats, with Leanne finally showing her true face to Julian and Sean. This week’s episode, however, managed to surpass it, as the moment we’ve all been waiting for finally arrived. Dorothy remembered, and for now, we’re leaving it at that. Episode 9 was highly emotional, showing us the “rawness” of Dorothy’s pain and her inability to deal with what happened to Jericho. Dorothy was never a character easy to like. She is borderline obnoxious, but in this week’s episode, the showrunners finally managed to invoke our sympathy, at least when it comes to Jericho’s situation. So without further ado, let’s go.
Dorothy gets in contact with Sean, but it’s too dangerous to communicate what they both realize
Dorothy is desperately trying to get in touch with Sean, who is in the hospital like Julian, following the last week’s deadly episode. It’s still raining outside, and Leanne watches Dorothy’s every move like a hawk. Dorothy finally gets in touch with Sean, and he delivers some heartbreaking news to her, he won’t be out of the hospital for days, maybe even weeks. He promises to send Tobe to the house to deliver a few supplies, like food, but otherwise does not reference what happened just a few hours before and how Leanne was connected to it.
The realization that she will be left with Leanne alone for so much time hits Dorothy like a ton of bricks, and she quietly sobs. Later, we see Leanne impersonating Dorothy, speaking to Sean’s doctor, and later getting in touch with Sean himself. Sean tells Leanne that Dorothy is the strongest among them, and if someone can find a way to get rid of her, it’s Dorothy.
Leanne feels pretty confident now, and she makes a vague threat to Sean about how he should save his energy for “rebuilding his life” when he leaves the hospital. This clearly means that Leanne is planning something huge to get Sean out of the picture forever.
Dorothy hatches an escape plan, but Leanne sees right through her
The next day Leanne suggests that Dorothy and her watch a movie. Dorothy is completely uncomfortable, and her anxiety levels are through the roof, but she says yes. The doorbell breaks the tension of the scene. It’s probably Tobe with the supplies. At least Leanne assumes as much when she sends Dorothy to answer the door.
Outside in the pouring rain, there’s a gift basket holding an envelope with a note. The note simply says that Dorothy should pretend to talk to Tobe, which she does. Back inside, Leanne is eavesdropping on the “conversation.” Dorothy is aware that the gift basket holds the key to her freedom. Still, Leanne refuses to leave her alone with the basket so Dorothy can analyze its contents. Dorothy tries to reassure her that if she was able to escape, she would have done that long ago.
Halfway through the movie, Dorothy complains that she is in pain and she would like to go lie down. She suggests that Leanne should draw a bath for Jericho. Leanne agrees, and Dorothy is heartbroken that she needs to leave Jericho in Leanne’s custody, but she needs to at least try to escape.
Leanne takes Dorothy to the upstairs room and gives her a painkiller, leaving with Jericho. Dorothy spits out the pill as soon as Leanne leaves, and when she hears water running upstairs, she tries to make a run for it. She is trying to be quiet as possible, but her walking frame makes too much noise, which makes for a tense scene. Will she make it?
Sean and Julian are here to save Dorothy, but does she want to be saved?
She will. She makes her way outside. There’s a car parked waiting for her. Sean and Julian are inside. She is relieved to see them but surprised that Leanne managed to hurt them as much as she did. Inside the car, Sean and Julian insinuate that they should leave right away, but Dorothy refuses because Jericho is still stuck with Leanne inside. She threatens to return to the house.
This is the moment where Julian and Sean are aware that they need to come clean regarding Jericho’s death. Sean starts asking Dorothy what she remembers about the August of the last year. She, frustrated, spits out that she doesn’t remember a thing about it. Sean starts recounting how he left to shoot the Gauntlet and how he felt the pressures of fatherhood mounting. Dorothy assumes that he will admit that he cheated on her until she sees Julian sobbing. Julian cries and tries to apologize for not coming, just hours before Jericho died, to help her out.
Dorothy looks at him like he is crazy. She claims that she didn’t call him until he played her voice message on his phone out loud. There’s visible confusion on Dorothy’s face. Now she is torn between being terrified of not remembering anything and wondering why she needed Julian’s help at the time.
Sean continued describing what happened without mentioning how Jericho died. He explained about Dorothy’s poor state of mental health, and he explained about the doll. Meanwhile, Dorothy is stuck with a “deer-caught-in-the-headlights” expression.
How did Dorothy remember what happened to Jericho?
Julian is still quietly sobbing while Sean is trying to talk Dorothy into remembering the moment she found their son dead in the car. Sean is, at this point, just a white noise in the background. Dorothy’s mind is flooded with memories she locked somewhere deep inside her mind, and she swore she would never ever go there. It hits her at that moment. The moment she noticed the crib was empty. The moment she opened the car to find Jericho inside, dead, after spending the afternoon in the blistering car. The moment coroners took him away. The way Sean was looking at her when he begged her to snap out of her trauma.
She starts screaming. She screams because there is no other way, or words really, to describe what she’s feeling. She tries to get out of the car, and she makes a run for the house to reassure herself that what she has remembered is not real. Julian and Sean try to stop her, and she attacks them. Even though she didn’t even begin recovering from a horrifying back injury, she summons enough strength to throw herself out of the car onto the pavement.
Leanne was aware of what would happen when Dorothy found out, and she decided to use it against Julian and Sean
Dorothy, Sean, and Julian burst into the house. Leanne greeted them calmly and collected. We don’t see whether she is holding a plastic doll or a real “Jericho.” The symbolism of that scene did not miss me since, during the whole show, we, as viewers, are not sure what’s the deal with Jericho, whether the child is truly a doll brought back to life or another kidnapped baby.
Leanne makes her case instead of denying everything that transpired in the last few months. She comes clean. She admits to “resurrecting” Jericho through the doll. She claims that she has been sent to Dorothy for a reason, to bring peace and purpose back to her life.
On the other side, we have Sean and Julian pleading with Dorothy to leave with them. They claim that Leanne kidnapped the child and that they even found the family whose newborn she kidnapped. There are lots of insults thrown her way, but Leanne is unphased by all of this. Now she has a unique chance to turn Dorothy against Sean and Julian. There is a choice in front of Dorothy now. She can leave with Julian and Sean, giving up “her” baby forever, or she can stay with Leanne forever, pretending that her baby boy never died, partially because of her fault.
We don’t get to see what choice Dorothy made since the episode leaves us with a cliffhanger. Everything will be resolved next Thursday night when the Servant’s tenth and final episode releases on AppleTV.
