My absolute favorite part of this episode happens at the very beginning when it’s revealed that the reason Sean is leaving the house this week is that he’s going to be the private chef for the Philadelphia Eagles. They love him. They beg for him and his lobster ice cream. Gag.
An ominous letter with no return address made it to Leanne somehow. When she opens it, it simply says, “Found you!” It’s another piece of the puzzle turning viewers sympathetic to the once-creepy Leanne, as Sean softens to her presence, so do we. So we can’t help but also be wary of who might be looking for Leanne.
Turns out, we don’t have to wait that long.
It rains the entirety of this episode, hence the title, and a soaking wet man in a haphazard suit comes to the Turners’ residence when only Leanne is home with Jericho. He addresses her as “Little Flower” and asks to see the baby. Leanne stops him from walking through the house with his shoes on – though it might have been kinder to the floors to let him keep them on after getting a look at his feet – but otherwise obeys him.
Dorothy arrives home and sees the note before her latest house guest, but is quickly introduced to Leanne’s Uncle George. He knows too much about Dorothy and gives her a present, which turns out to be a wooden figure of a chef meant to be Sean. Could this be the reason he’s suddenly got splinters in places no one should ever have splinters?
Uncle George stays for dinner. He grabs Dorothy’s arm rather roughly, stopping her from eating before they can pray over their meal. George is in the business of “salvage,” whatever that means. More importantly, he uses both his and Leanne’s napkins to absolutely wring all of the moisture out of his fish before eating it with his hands. They begin to negotiate about Leanne leaving, only to be interrupted by Julian arriving.
After hearing that Leanne’s relative was at the house, Sean had called Julian to go investigate. When Jericho starts crying, Uncle George stops Leanne from leaving the table to tend to him and Dorothy goes in her place. When she’s away, Julian asks who the fuck he is. Hilariously, he’s basically Julian because he’s, “The uncle who stepped up in the face of tragedy.” What does that sound like?
As Leanne and Uncle George do the dishes, Dorothy tells Julian that there’s no way Leanne is leaving with him. To make that possible, she invites Uncle George to spend the night and sets him up in the office. Julian also opts to stay and he has a new baby-theory: Uncle George is behind the baby swapping. Meanwhile, Dorothy gets Leanne to sign a contract in an effort to keep her with them.
Julian wakes up from a sound and goes to check on Uncle George, but can’t find him anywhere in the house. When he wakes Dorothy to tell her, they find him in Jericho’s crib with Jericho on the floor. Rather than kick his weird ass right out, Dorothy doubles down on keeping him around to convince him to let Dorothy stay.
In the morning, Dorothy takes extra care to dress in white and wear a cross necklace. She even stops Julian from eating so that Uncle George can pray. He seems appeased until it comes time for Leanne to leave with him. Dorothy encourages Leanne to confront her Uncle and stay, which she timidly does. Uncle George tells her that she’s abandoning the others and next time he’ll return with her Aunt May as well. Before he goes, he tells Dorothy, “This is a godless house.”
Sean returns after the dust has settled to find out that Dorothy has booked a baptism for Jericho in three weeks. It will be interesting to see how Sean deflects this one. Not only were they seemingly not religious before Uncle George’s visit, but he can’t reason this away as easily as he could taking Jericho to work.
Thus ends the world’s worst slumber party. Until Leanne looks out from her bedroom window and Uncle George is standing outside on the sidewalk…
It’s been interesting to watch Leanne’s slow turn from the creepiest one in the equation to winning the Turners’ trust. There’s a longer contract in play after this episode of Servant, which begs the question of how long the whole charade can be kept up. Who knows who else will show up out of the blue.
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