Servant stars tease the season 4 conflict between Leanne and Dorothy
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The final season of Servant has begun, and things are coming to a head. Showrunner M. Night Shyamalan has been teasing his grand plan for the Apple TV+ horror series since before it premiered, and now we get to see that plan come to fruition.
"When we started, I wanted to make sure we all said, 'There's going to be an end here. We're not driven by the opportunity in front of us, but by the characters and the story that needs to be told here,'" Shyamalan tells EW. "That was important to me, because it's part of what I don't like about the medium when I can smell the vamping — where a show wanted to be three and a half seasons and instead it was six. I can smell it, and you guys can smell it, too, as you're watching it."
Shyamalan continues, "Now, at the end, I'm feeling all the joy that we got to finish, which is so rare. The actors would've kept going, Apple would've kept going, but I want the resonance of the show to be the most important part of it — that we followed the characters and we finished their story rather than something artificial motivating us to keep going."
Apple TV + Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) and Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) on 'Servant.'
The season 4 premiere of Servant, which hit Apple TV+ this week, finds Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) climactically confronting her enemies in the Church of Lesser Saints. But the real conflict is still to come — the one between Leanne and Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose).
Throughout the previous three seasons of Servant, the relationship between Dorothy and Leanne has been the most emotionally intense. Sometimes they treat each other like mother and daughter, while other times they vie for the affection of baby Jericho — whose death set the whole story in motion, especially once Leanne mysteriously brought him back to life.
Season 3 ended with Dorothy falling down a flight of stairs after a struggle with Leanne over Jericho. But if there's one thing we've learned from Servant so far, it's to never underestimate Dorothy's willpower.
"I'm in this painful recovery process, physically," Ambrose tells EW. "That just created a really fun power struggle to play. Ultimately, it builds to a pretty intense crescendo between those two, as you can imagine. But it's also just a joy. Like it's all awful, looked at a certain way, but then as an actor you're like, 'Oh great! This is so fun!'"
The power dynamic between Leanne and Dorothy has shifted quite a lot over the course of Servant. At one point, Dorothy even temporarily buried Leanne alive when she thought the girl had kidnapped her baby.
"Whether it's their conflict or it's their bond, everything between Leanne and Dorothy has been escalating for every moment of every episode," Free says. "I think that even though there's almost this kind of feud going on between the two of them, it's rooted so deeply and fully in pure love. It's very maternal, it's very mother and daughter the way that they argue. Obviously my mom's never buried me alive..."
After a laugh, Free continues, "but yeah, I think that in every moment Dorothy and Leanne are tumbling towards what could be the greatest fallout or the greatest bond of all time. Are these women going to end up fighting for each other or are they going to end up fighting against each other? I think that's just the ultimate question."
The answer awaits in season 4 of Servant.
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