Summary
Servant Season 1, Episode 10, “Balloon” presented all the ideas in one dramatic finale that was overindulgent and not worth the wait.
This recap of Apple TV+ Series Servant Season 1 Episode 10, “Balloon” – the finale contains significant spoilers.
- Read the recap of the ninth episode.
A lot happened in the finale of Servant so let’s break down M. Night Shyamalan’s end to his Apple TV+ series.
Episode 10, “Balloon”, opens up with Sean preparing Jericho’s placenta. As he slices and dices it, he gives his theory on consuming the child’s placenta before blending it and adding it to the croquembouche. The finale ends on Sean’s weirdest dish.
Leanne moves the balloons around and Toby tells her she looks nice — it’s Jericho’s birthday. Guests arrive and Leanne serves champagne while looking intensely at Dorothy. Julia and Natalie show up.
Dorothy gives her guests a speech — she tells everyone where Jericho was born; she endured 11-hour labour. She sees a baby doll at the party and zones out a little.
Servant Episode 10, “Balloon”, swiftly turns on its head when Julian suspects Leanne’s uncle is going to arrive at the party after seeing Jericho’s christening video. The young black girl with the doll heads upstairs and a curious Dorothy notices and follows her. She introduces herself; the doll is called Pamela. Dorothy holds the doll and experiences flashes of a dead Jericho. Dorothy throws the doll down the stairs.
Julian waits outside in anticipation of Leanne’s Uncle. He asks the PI to take the uncle down if he sees him, but the PI takes it as a joke. Toby serves the croquembouche to the guests and when they ask what’s in it, he suggests some kind of liver — we all know what’s really in it.
Leanne suddenly panics about Jericho. She heads to the nursery room to find a woman holding the baby. Meanwhile, the uncle visits Sean in the wine cellar. Sean immediately offers the uncle eighty-six grand to take and go. The uncle asks if Sean knows who he has welcomed into his home.
Leanne talks to the women. The woman asks what Dorothy did. Meanwhile, the uncle tells Sean how they raised Leanne as her own and how she always saw Dorothy on television — “Leanne likes to please people she loves and hurt people she doesn’t”.
Leanne tells the woman that what Dorothy did was an accident. The woman complains that the house is not right and the air is putrid. She tells Leanne that Dorothy is going to hurt her and the baby. Sean asks the uncle whose child it is but he turns a question on Sean — “What will mend poor, broken Sean?”. Sean suddenly blurts splinters and confesses he hasn’t been able to taste anything since Leanne arrived. Julian enters the cellar and tries to intervene but Sean appears transfixed and tells the uncle he wants Jericho to stay — “I want my son back”.
Back to Leanne in Servant Episode 10, “Balloon”. She asks the woman why Dorothy and Sean do not deserve a second chance but the woman tells Leanne the house is changing her. Dorothy walks in and Aunt May introduces herself. Dorothy tells the aunt that Leanne is one of the family now. When Dorothy leaves the room, Aunt May asks Leanne to come home — when she wakes tomorrow, he will be gone. No more dolls, no more pretending. You are our servant, not hers”.
Downstairs back at the party, Dorothy’s father makes a complimentary speech about Dorothy and Sean. But Sean is in deep thought while they all make a toast to Jericho. He asks the uncle if the baby is theirs for life.
Dorothy is struck by Aunt May’s appearance and says she looks familiar. All of a sudden, the police turn up regarding a missing child. For a few seconds, there is tension in the room and Sean clenches his fists, but it turns out the young black girl at the party entered their home without her parents — panic over and removes the theory entirely that the baby is kidnapped.
As the party ends, Sean tells Julian that he cannot feel or taste anything — the uncle and aunt stand outside of the window, waiting for Leanne. There’s a rough storm starting and Sean tells Julian that Leanne brought Jericho back.
In her room, Leanne is crying naked, knelt down next to her bed with the whip ready. Toby knocks on the door but gets no response. Dorothy and Sean put Jericho to bed and they admire their baby.
As we edge closer to the final revelations, the aunt and uncle stand outside the house looking menacing at the PI. Dorothy suddenly investigates old news footage of herself. She finds a news scene of a “standoff in Wilmington” where police agents were fighting against a violent religious cult. She sees an image of the religious cult leader — it’s Aunt May. Dorothy suddenly panics and checks around the house. Meanwhile, Sean tests his hand on a lit hob to see if he can feel pain. Leanne heads outside with one of the balloons.
Dorothy checks Jericho’s room and has a brief flashback. Leanne walks down the street and there is a large group of cult members waiting for her. She faces her aunt and uncle, and the entire group does one huge group hug — Leanne is back where she belongs. A police officer briefly sees the large congregation but when he reverses his police car, they are gone.
Servant Season 1, Episode 10, “Balloon”, the finale, ends with Dorothy looking into the cot and picking up the baby — it’s a doll again and she drops it back into the cot.
Servant had plenty of ideas that came to fruition in the finale but they all came at the end with previous chapters giving us snippets of what is to come. It all felt squashed into one episode. I do not feel it was necessary releasing this series on a weekly basis because ultimately, by the time we reach the conclusion it felt less impactful as the answers were not entirely impressive. Servant would have been best served as a series released in one batch. Also, the penultimate episode was far more rewarding than the finale itself.
