Servant Recap: Edible Crickets

This recap of Apple TV+ Series Servant Season 1 Episode 5, “Cricket” contains significant spoilers. You can read the recap of the previous episode by clicking these words

Well, this was an extremely dull episode. There’s been a lot of debate recently on Apple TV+ and Disney+ releasing weekly episodes while Netflix is considering changing the format on some shows. I do feel Servant could have benefitted from the full release treatment.

Servant Episode 5 opens up with Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) trying to speak to Dorothy who has tranced-out — Sean is waiting for her downstairs. Dorothy snaps out of it and asks Leanne why she believes Sean is being so nice. Dorothy and Sean are away for the week, leaving Leanne to her devices. Sean and Julian’s Private Investigator are keeping an eye on her.

When Leanne returns from her day out with the baby, she hears Sean’s culinary chef Tobe in the basement, chopping up meat. He shows her a box of crickets. She looks irked by it.

Randomly, a woman named Wanda knocks on the door with her daughter Olivia and says she is worried that Leanne left her pram outside. After a brief chat, Wanda is worried that her boyfriend is going to get deported and asks Leanne to look after Olivia — she tells Leanne not to feed Olivia though, as she has many food allergies. Leanne and Olivia play hide and seek, and Leanne ends up in the basement and finds a rat. When Leanne reaches the ground floor, Olivia says she saw a man and that he ran outside.

When Dorothy returns, she asks Leanne to head out to buy a cake in the rain. When Leanne returns, she hears Sean and Dorothy have sex. She heads to her bedroom and reads the bible in bed, writing “Dorothy” against one of the paragraphs.

The next day, Leanne walks across the street to say hello to Olivia and Wanda, but another person answers the door and says, “we don’t have children here”. When Leanne heads back inside, she sneaks around the house to avoid the private investigator who is lurking.

In the basement, Leanne finds a baby onesie and tries to put it on the baby but Sean gets suddenly angry, and wonders where she got the clothes from.

Sean and Julian have their usual late-night chat, and Julian calls Leanne a freak. Leanne is listening nearby. She goes to bed and makes more notes in her bible — this time she writes “Sean” next to another paragraph. When Leanne wakes up, there are loads of crickets on her bed cover.

Wanda and Olivia come around again and Leanne serves Olivia ice cream. She turns away, looking out of the window and mutters how she has done nothing wrong and had no idea the onesie would be a problem. She always gets angry about having to go get the cake just so Dorothy and Sean could have had sex. Olivia starts having an allergic reaction, and as Wanda panics looking for the epi-pen, Leanne ignores the situation and asks Wanda who sent her to spy. Wanda confirms it was Julian, so Leanne walks over to Olivia and jabs her with the epi-pen.

Later that day, Sean asks Leanne if he could help try out the crickets that are injected with sugar. Leanne says, “my aunt used to say that if a cricket comes into your home, something bad is going to happen” before munching on one.

Servant Season 1, Episode 5, “Cricket” ends with Leanne going to bed; she strips herself naked and begins whipping herself. She obviously believes she should be punished.

On paper, this sounds like a decent chapter, but it was filler-esque, despite centering on Leanne.

UPDATE 14/12/2019 – This recap has a couple of comments mentioning that I missed the cricket that came back to life, meaning that Leanne has an effect on the dead.

I mean, whatever, it was still a dull chapter.

Nursery Room Log

• Dorothy is fretting about cold sores around her mouth.
• Sean has more splinters hurting him. This time in his neck.
• While Leanne is making her usual tomato soup, she notices it has gone off. When she opens the bin to empty the pan, she notices a dog food tin has been emptied. It wasn’t out of date soup