"Servant" 2.02: 'Spaceman' brings back the atmosphere
"Servant" 2.02: 'Spaceman' brings back the atmosphere
A stronger second episode livens things up.
Original Airdate: January 15, 2021
Written By: Nina Braddock & Tony Basgallop
Directed by: Julia Ducournau
Plot Summary: Roscoe unexpectedly returns with no memory of the past several days. Sean and Julian decide to hypnotize him, hoping to learn another clue to Leanne’s whereabouts.
Review:
The moment Leanne Grayson’s voice reaches Sean via his Apple Macintosh computer, the ground in the basement of the Turner house suddenly CRACKS and water (presumably from a burst pipe) begins seeping into the ground.
It is as though the barrier between our world and wherever Leanne is has been shattered by her contact, bringing back that sense that something implicitly supernatural is happening under the surface. The last time the show emphasized the crack in the ground was in Episode 7 of last year, where Leanne read that those who interfere with the duty of the Lord’s Servants will be swallowed up by the ground.
Is the cracking a direct response to the Turners essentially distracting Leanne from whatever duty she’s supposed to fulfill as a servant of God and/or the Lesser Saints? Or is it simply a sign that the Turners have not been taking good care of the basement floor that just happened to coincide with Leanne’s call?
However one chooses to interpret it, it makes for a cool final sequence that ends in an amazing backwards tracking shot and makes clear to viewers that the Servant we all know and love is back. It’s also one reason why, in hindsight, I think “Spaceman” and “Doll” should’ve been broadcast (or streamed, to be more precise) as a single two-part episode. In addition to also being directed by Julia Ducournau, “Spaceman” simply feels like a more proper season opener for a mythology-heavy show like Servant.
That final scene or “tag” is a tease certainly, but it’s one that also serves as an affirmation that Leanne and the bigger, more fantastic aspects of the show are still part of it, an affirmation I sense was missing from the premiere.
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“Spaceman” also benefits tremendously from slowing things down somewhat in the plot department and focusing more on the character relationships, while simultaneously allowing us to luxuriate in the show’s visual details.
In the center of everything this week is good old uncle Julian, who places the titular “Spaceman” suit on Doll Jericho. Like his previous outing, “Boba,” this episode is in large part about challenging Julian’s steadfast skepticism and atheism. The first Dorothy/Julian scene, which features a great overhead shot of the two lying inside the couch, places the belief/doubt conflict at the center. Dorothy chides him for being an atheist, for never having believed in anything.
Dorothy seems to be right on the money here. Thus far in the series, Julian has repeatedly refused to believe that anything unnatural was happening in the Turner home, no matter what inexplicable phenomena he encountered. Yet, as we find out towards the end, Julian apparently did once believe in something. Namely, in space. It’s not entirely clear what Julian means when the tells Natalie that he wanted to “bang on the fucking wall” of space as a child and “decided not to go” when he found out there might not be a wall.
But it does suggest that Julian too was once a child that thought everything in the world was possible. He seemed to have dreams and aspirations, only to become disillusioned with things as he grew up. Julian doesn’t stop being an atheist by the end of the episode, but cracks in his skepticism seemingly start to show.
After all, he did order that spaceman costume for Jericho and ends up dressing the Jericho doll in it. So, one can assume that, as the season continues, Julian will probably become more of a believer.
This seems all the more likely, given what we see in what is the episode’s centerpiece sequence: Roscoe’s hypnosis. I’ve mentioned before how, in lieu of Leanne, the show needed an alternative way to bring in the more surreal or genre elements into the story, and Roscoe’s memory loss fulfills that function perfectly.
We never get anything like a flashback to the “room” that Roscoe ended up in while under the care of the Lesser Saints. But the scene remains weird, atmospheric, and unsettling, in large part because of how well actor Phillip James Brennon sells Roscoe’s state of mind. His verbal description of what he has witnessed is horrifying and whether or not he had been under the influence of drugs, it is clear the man has had a traumatic experience.
All throughout though, the camera lingers on Julian, who becomes increasingly more uncomfortable with what Roscoe is saying. He seems legitimately horrified by the news of what the “man” is doing to the baby. When we consider his reactions here, his later denial of the idea that there is such a thing as a “near-death experience” and his discussion of why he decided not to go to space, we can infer that Julian himself has possibly been subject to something extremely traumatizing or life-threatening.
Perhaps there was something specific in his childhood that robbed him early on of his innocence and made him into a proud cynic? If so, then denying what had happened to Roscoe may well be a way of denying his own trauma. But that’s probably a story the show will explore another day.
As a whole, “Spaceman” feels like a more confident and self-assured episode than “Doll.” I just wish it had been released as “part two” of “Doll” or streamed on the same day, as it would help balance out the plot-heavy nature of the preceding episode with atmosphere and character work.
Grade: A-
Notes and Annotations:
Given the focus on Julian, it’s not surprising that “Spaceman” is funny. In fact, it is easily the funniest episode of Servant thus far hands down. Dorothy trying to “talk” to Jericho on the air and making her co-anchor uncomfortable is hilarious.
Even during the episode’s hypnosis sequence, the episode manages to go in for dark comedy. At one point, when Natalie tells Roscoe he’s in a safe space, Sean interjects: “No, he’s fucking not! Go back there!”
What exactly is Natalie’s job again? I mean, I know she is a kinesiologist, but now she also seems to be a hypnotherapist? Are these two professions related?
The shots of Spaceman Jericho watching the news broadcasts are both kinda cute and creepy. They suggest the little tyke is watching his mom in body, if not in spirit.
The self-flagellation on display in the cult of the lesser saints video Dorothy finds certainly seems creepy but really isn’t that far removed from real life practices.
I don’t know exactly what to make of Roscoe’s claim that there is a man the Lesser Saints worship and that man has a hook for a hand, but… Assuming that the Lesser Saints are indeed saints, then that would imply they worship God. And while I’ve never heard of God having a hook for a hand, there is a song called “Touched by the Hand of God,” one of the writers of which is a man named Peter Hook.
Did Sean answer Leanne without having checked who was calling? I mean, why respond so casually to an unfamiliar number?