Servant Season 2 Episode 5 Cake Review- King Cakes, The Epiphany, And Uncle George

Nell Tiger Free gives a chilling performance in a riveting Servant Season 2 Episode 5 that sets the stage for the back half of the season.

What a difference five episodes make. In Season 1, Leanne was timid and painfully shy. She was the model of a perfect nanny for baby Jericho. This season, she is a woman who has found her voice even as she has lost her freedom. Servant Season 2 Episode 5 served up the cake and let us eat it too.

When you lose one sense, the other senses may make adjustments to accommodate. A news story about a blind restaurant is yet another not so subtle clue that nothing else can be the same without sight, literal or figurative. Food tastes differently, and attraction grows at a different rate. Instead of turning a blind eye, Facing the truth has always been a significant theme in this series.

In Servant Season 2 Episode 5, director Lisa Brühlmann(Blue My Mind) hit us over the head with it. Brühlmann, who also directed Servant Season 1 Episode 8 Boba has a talent for the kind of meticulous shot selection Servant has become known for. Don’t forget, Boba was when Dorothy and Julian’s father commented on providing a brother, and questions of cloning came up. With the sibling’s identical coloring there might still be some cloning happening here. Servant has never been subtle, and that is where the genius is because in between all the apparent weirdness and hyper attention to detail, there is genuine mystery.

Leanne’s power is growing.

Leanne has obviously learned a thing or two and is not above using some tricks to hurt Sean and Dorothy. She may not be able to escape, but she can make their lives a living Hell. Dorothy receives a tiny plastic baby from Amazon along with a ransom note. She’s desperate to get him back and immediately begins selling stuff to get the needed 200K. Sean thinks Julian sent the note and baby, but he denies it, making both of them worried this could be a trap. The irony is, of course, that it is a trap just in the opposite direction. Is that why Julian looks so sad when Dorothy hugs him and says, “family first”? Is he worried for them, or is there something else?

To go along with Leanne’s new attitude, she may have some superpowers. The question of her divinity has been there since early in Season 1. Is Leanne an angel, a demon, an innocent, or something between? In Servant, anything is possible, but it sure looks like Leanne has powers that manifest electrical differences. Like Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision, her emotions are getting the best of her, and the Christmas lights are paying for it.

Leanne used the toy to make her King cake and told Tobe a story about her mother, who only got out of bed on Sunday to eat cake in her best dress. Leanne told Tobe her mother would let her place the baby on the cake if she were good enough in the competition. In all her years in pageants, Leanne’s mother only let her place the baby four times. She never allows her to find the baby. She told Leanne only the most special could find it and it was always her mother. Leanne’s mother was a cruel, selfish woman who clearly mistreated Leanne. Nell Tiger Free’s recounting of this is harrowing and a highlight of a fabulous episode. Word choice is important, and Leanne carefully says her mother is burning, not burned or dead.

Does Leanne have the power to keep someone burning in perpetuity? If so, what else does she control? Maybe as one Reddit user predicts, this is Purgatory, and Leanne is both judge and jailor? If that’s the case, Leanne has the power to control worlds as there are numerous others involved here. Roscoe, Tobe, various vendors, and the Marinos have all interacted with different people at different times.

He’s back…..Uncle George I mean.

Just when Julian finds out Leanne duped them, Uncle George shows up. It is a rare jump scare opportunity for a show that never takes the cheap way out. As a result, it is sincerely scary. Why have Sean and Dorothy brought Uncle George back to the house? Do they still not know Leanne laid this trap for them and believe they can exchange Leanne for Jericho? Poor Uncle George looks just as dirty and disheveled as ever so wherever he has been and whatever he has been doing it doesn’t include a bath and clean change of clothes.

The one thing we know for certain is he wants “her” back. The only other female he has interacted with besides Aunt May is Leanne, so she must be his target. Did he and Aunt May approve of her employment with the Marinos, or did they get worried when Tobe kidnapped her recently? His arrival at the same time as the electric blow outs in the attic does raise the question. Is Leanne really responsible for the electrical problems, or is Uncle George?

Acknowledgment is an essential step in the healing process. Dorothy ironically tells Leanne that over breakfast. Too bad she can’t or won’t acknowledge what happened to Jericho Prime. In the spirit of acknowledgment, I freely admit, I’m hooked and am willing to go anywhere this series wants to take me. Find all our coverage and Servant theories here.

King Cakes and the Epiphany.

King Cakes are fruit cakes or bread that are usually circular with boozy glazes and icings that contain little toys inside the sponge. The people who find the trinkets should be lucky for the coming year. The cakes are circular or oval to mimic a king’s crown. Typically they are made between the end of the year and Lent. They celebrate the three kings or wise men who brought gifts to baby Jesus. Epiphany is the name of that event. In Louisiana, the person who finds the bean or baby must host the party the following year. The tradition of a tiny baby was started in the 1950s by a commercial baker McKenzie’s Bakery. France, Spain, Greece, and Latin America all have their versions of the king cake. The symbolism of a tiny baby baked into a cake isn’t lost on anyone.

Stray Straw

• Why is Leanne dressing the mannequin in Dorothy’s clothes? She is frantic and obviously angry as she wrestles with her. Was this a passive-aggressive ploy to get even with Dorothy, or might we all need to be concerned that Dorothy might soon become a doll?
• What did Leanne take from the basement to include in the cake? At first, I thought of poison, but she ate it herself. Maybe Leanne is arming herself with something to allow her to escape.
• Did you hear the squeaking in the basement ground? Leanne sure did. Is it rats or something even grosser?
• Julian gets to babysit again, and he is about as good this time as he was when he almost dropped the doll over the staircase.
• The strange video of Aunt May getting hit with a drink in a food court by teenage boys made another appearance this week. Roscoe’s vantage point of the ransom meeting was in the same spot.