The Handmaid’s Tale redeems itself with a heart-thumping season 4 finale
But, as "The Wilderness" shows, not everyone can be redeemed in the world of Gilead
TV Reviews Science fiction
I am a city girl, through and through. Nature? I don’t know her. You know why? Cause freaky shit happens in isolated places! I need to make sure my neighbors can hear both my embarrassing obsession with Jessie Ware AND my cries for help if something goes bump in the night. Give me civilization, any day.
But also, in the infamous words of Fiona Apple, the world is bullshit. When it comes to justice, its transformation into a bureaucratic labyrinth of half-measures can make the idea of a society a total scam. What’s the whole point of creating law and order, penal codes, constitutions, lengthy discourses on liberty and rights if, at the end of the day, “weak men make the world go ’round”?
Civilization and its limitations are what June is up against in the heart-thumping season finale. Reeling from the possibility of Waterford being set free to live a life of exquisite chocolate and cheese in Geneva, our favorite little bloodthirsty Handmaid is hatching a plan. And what a plan it turns out to be. After these 10 episodes, I feel confident in saying that The Handmaid’s Tale definitely redeemed itself after the season three slog. Getting out of Gilead and showcasing the insurmountable difficulties of recovering from trauma is maybe the best decision the whole production team has made since refusing to properly trim Max Minghella’s signature feature.
It’s why I don’t mind the, uh, EXTENSIVE liberties they have taken regarding international policy and political asylum throughout the whole series. I’ve read the complaints in the comments. There is no way in hell that any country would let June just saunter into Fred’s cell simply because she needs to have a face-to-face talk with him about their past.
How do I know this beyond common sense? ’Cause my dad is a career diplomat who would laugh at every depiction of diplomacy here if he knew what an Elisabeth Moss was. Given that my dad’s pick for Top TV Achievement is The Wonder Years and I had no time to catch him up on all things Gilead, it was hard to ask him to give a professional analysis of all the wrongs in it. However, from what little I could convey, he did give some feedback. First, we are not seeing enough of The Hague. Second, political asylees don’t tend to call their home countries, let alone their politicians, with the frequency I text my BFFs on any given day. There is a host of intermediaries that would need to be involved beyond “the embassy.” Third, what is a recap and is that your job? (We got off topic.)
Yes, it’s all ridiculous. But I honestly don’t care! Because all these liberties have given us engaging plot lines that are way more entertaining than seeing lawyers file motions for 10 episodes. Like June’s conversation with Fred in his cell. Poor, poor Fred. So dumb. He offers June the standard apologies from weak men that rule the world. “I’m sorry YOU were uncomfortable. I get it now that I’m a father a.k.a. I lacked all imagination or empathy to see anyone’s pain before it affected me on a personal level.” “Oh right, your name is June, look at me doing the bare minimum.” We wonder if this is where June will strike, but she is a smart woman. She understands that the justice she seeks cannot be done in the confines of civilization.
Moves are made. The first is to strike a deal with Lawrence, who promises the release of 22 female resistance fighters in exchange for one Sad Sack Fred. Mark agrees to present this to his boss because, as June points out, he can’t argue that Fred is worth more than those twenty-two lives they can save. (What’s the going rate for women? Math makes my brain hurt.) Lawrence, ominous and sharp as ever, bids farewell to June saying, “whatever happens to him before you get him, it won’t be enough.” Ahhhhhhhh, tension.
As Fred steps outside to go to the airport, he is greeted by Mark and a bunch of men from the ICC ready to arrest him. (Dad note: “yeah, once the ICC issues an order of arrest, they can pretty much do it wherever the person of interest is.”) The deal worked. In a first in history, Fred’s defense of “I am a man and I have rights” did not set him free. Instead, he is taken all the way to a bridge connection between the U.S. with Gilead. There he is met first by Lawrence who explains that Fred will be judged by the Foreign Courts Law of Gilead or some nonsense of that matter but before we can even figure out what that is, Eyebrows shows up, with a gang of Eyes ready to do his bidding. It’s really Eyes/ICE because as Nick points out, they have jurisdiction over the border and can therefore do with Fred whatever they want. Gilead—they’re just like us!
The TL;DR version: the whole episode is a journey down the rungs of the justice system. We go from international to national to border to No Man’s Land. To the hyperlocal. Artisanal justice, if you will. Completely handmade.
At first, Fred’s fate felt like it was going to end up being the Most Dramatic Fantasy Suite Date in Bachelor History Ever. Nick stops the Eyes/ICE van in the middle of pitch-as-black woods, where June emerges from the mist. But Nick quickly scurries away after a makeout sesh and June is left alone with Fred who is given a choice: gun or whistle. Poor, dumb Fred. Truly never knowing what is happening right in front of him. He chooses whistle. And June, in this final episode, finally gets what she wants.
Stray observations
- It would have cut the flow of the episode, but I really wish we would have had just one glimpse of whatever Janine and Creepy Teen are doing up in Gilead.
- My only other quibble is that the wilderness scene was too dark! It was giving me Game Of Thrones flashbacks, where I had no idea what was going on in any battle because I AM NOT A CAT AND CANNOT SEE IN THE DARK.
- Fans of the Mark-as-Baby-Daddy-Theory: I’m on your side. That convo he had with Serena where he asks her if she’ll follow Fred to Geneva was all the hint I needed. Yeah, Serena, can you please explain what you mean by “family”?
- Mark is also the winner of this week’s Most Canadian Thing to Happen. Apologizing for his tone after very mildly telling June that ambushing him is unacceptable was a fine example of the country’s national pastime.
- Luke and June are done-zo, right?
- Finally, thank you, thank you for sticking around and reading the recaps. I hope they gave you some insight, some food for thought, but mostly, some levity. I can’t face scary stuff like patriarchal dystopian nightmares without making a joke about it. We all have our coping mechanisms. Until next time.
216 Comments
having gotten used to not getting satisfaction/justice from the show, i thought fred was alive even after the beating. they didn’t show his dead body so he’s still alive! then at the end, there it was hung on the wall.i wish june had asked for janine in the deal but i understand the show needs a few characters in gilead to keep gilead in the show but still…
Yeah, Janine or even her own daughter, right? But seems like taking Fred’s life was worth more to June than saving their’s.
Well, I think it seems pretty clear from the last few minutes that June realizes her thirst for revenge has made her unfit to be a parent, at least in the short term. She basically gives Nichole to Luke and earlier in the episode she admits that she isn’t good for Hannah. I think she figured she needed to do one or the other – devote herself to parenting or devote herself to revenge, and that she couldn’t do the former without doing the latter.
Agreed. June looked up to the window at Moira and Luke and their bond in caring for Nichole, and she knew that Nichole would be safe and loved.
I dont think she shouldve ran. She shouldve stood her ground and been like “you think i did it? Prove it.”
That’s a bit harsh. The 22 were women who had risked their lives for the Resistance and been caught and imprisoned, and were therefore political prisoners. But, under Gilead’s laws, Janine and Hannah are not prisoners, so they couldn’t be part of a prisoner exchange.
taking Fred’s life was worth more to June than saving their’s.Yeah, Tuello even explicitly said last episode that they were hoping to use Fred’s intelligence to get Hannah out. They conveniently left that out of this episode’s negotiations. I expected it would be something Tuello would remind June of, but nope, apparently he didn’t think it would matter.
I’ve rationalized that June knew that prying a handmaid away from Aunt Lydia would be a lot harder than freeing a bunch of ex-Marthas who were probably officially non-persons at that point anyway, but yeah it would have been nice if she’d at least been mentioned.Also, I think some or all of them may have been involved in getting Nichole out of Gilead. If so, June owed them.
prying a handmaid away from Aunt Lydia would be a lot harderHow would it be harder for a Commander who apparently has now the power to single-handedly negotiate in person a prisoner exchange with a foreign power? Who could have stopped Lawrence from ordering a bunch of Guardians to go grab Janine and put her on a truck?
I think she didn’t get to ask for specific people. She had to take the people Joseph could get out, not the specific ones she wanted. Janine and Hannah are not possible, but 22 women Joseph has the ability to transport out are.
Do we know if June knows Janine is alive? I can’t remember if the show ever made that connection for us.
I keep thinking about why Gilead doesn’t work. Hear me out. Gilead doesn’t work because its a patriarchy. You make the connection to the motivations of men (as a whole, as a beast) and it never works. Gilead happens when women betray women; when women fight other women, when women destroy women. A man’s natural inclination is not to reproduce. Reproduction is a woman’s natural inclination. A man’s natural inclination (we’re talking about modern men) moves toward a sex-obsessed polygamy (multiple partners), not necessarily reproduction. A man wants to have as many sexual partners as possible before death or infirmity. Gilead would only thrive as a matriarchy, where the men are held captive (Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog comes to mind) and forced to surrender their sperm (and thus go against their basic biology) in order to increase the population. The narrative throws men and women under the bus, as it were, because it assumes women are weak and men are dangerous. It doesn’t work.
Gilead doesn’t not work because of “natural inclinations” (LOL) , it doesn’t work because they appear to have abandoned technological capitalism entirely and replaced it with role play feudalism. There’s nothing to offer even the higher ranking people in Gilead; does nobody miss fast food, baseball games, sweatpants? It’s very silly. If you’re dying to oppress people with religion, our current society is already set up super well for that, and you still have Netflix.
Yep. The US foreign policy towards China shows this in action. They stupidly ideated that a growing Chinese middle-class would agitate for freedom when in fact the fact things made them comfortable made them conform and accept even more control in exchange.Gilead doesn’t work because it requires the entire US population just accepting a massive decline in living standards and doing nothing to resist it when even perceived “threats” to living standards sees mass outrage.
I’m just shooting holes in Atwood’s logic as to how Gilead could function. I’m saying it makes much more sense that a matriarchy (particularly in the modern era) would be in power and not the evil, dirty, violent men. Atwood crosses a bizarre line when she makes it a war of the sexes (using blind religion as a catalyst) – that’s why The Handmaid’s Tale is science fiction and not science reality or eventuality.
It’s almost like the universe is entirely built by Atwood to be a display of how patriarchy doesn’t work and isn’t really meant to be taken literally or something and the part where men abuse their position of lordship over women is probably the only realistic aspect of it.
Yes, for convenience sake! Particularly a patriarchy with religion as a basis that would require the cruel lockdown of a group that is the majority of the population. It doesn’t work, and the series proves it, although I don’t think they intended to prove it.
Yet here you are still expecting the setting to make sense when the story is not about how that setting was established. It’s an unrealistic setting to explore themes.Person of Interest is a show that explores themes of sentient AI and morality. You wouldn’t expect complaints about how the existence of AI doesn’t work because of various computing problems…
Uh, that’s exactly what they intended to prove.
I’m saying it makes much more sense that a matriarchy (particularly in the modern era) would be in power and not the evil, dirty, violent men.
What modern nations can we look to as examples of being run by powerful matriarchies or would be if set up with the same conditions that brought on Gilead?
Yet notice what happens when democracy is already a norm, which it never was in China. China keeps trying to bait Taiwan (a democracy, developed but wages are low) with the promise of access to that huge economy and Taiwanese are like “EW NO THANK YOU GROSS”. Also it doesn’t appear to me the rich in Gilead live that much worse? Those are some NICE houses. Even the Econopeople have simple but puritanically clean apartments. Some Handmaids (well, one, the suicide bomber) even started out thinking things had gotten *better*.
Gilead doesn’t work because it requires the entire US population just accepting a massive decline in living standards
Absolutely agree w/you on the Chinese Middle Class, who “accept” government control in the same way most American Catholics “accept” the church’s stand on Birth Control — they’re sure God will forgive them even if the Church won’t.Your comment about Gilead, though? I’m looking at the Middle East and thinking maybe religious devotion, especially if the religion makes the men explicitly Top Dog and uses “outsiders” as The Enemy, might paper over a decline in standards of living because the Church&State have a convenient, ready-made scapegoat for that.
Yeah Gilead does not have the luxury of tech capitalism. And also there’s that minor nuclear war (& pollution)* that’s made some women (and men) sterile and “makes necessary” conscripting fertile women into handmade service. It’s a big deal just to get uncontaminated organic produce when the handmaids go grocery shopping. Also The Colonies are where unwomen and other undesirables are sent as punishment:https://the-handmaids-tale.fandom.com/wiki/The_Colonies*that seems to be concentrated in the U.S. and South America – Canada seems fine.
I thought the whole point was that the rich (who are basically made rich in the new system by having been notable religious zealots) thought or acted all puritanical and shit, like when white Instagram ladies go all minimalist-but-punish. Of course they still liked nice things (nice houses, good alcohol, fine clothes) but tended towards the old fashioned/traditional look, so they could justify the love of luxury as a form of purity. Think Pottery Barn meets Prosperity Gospel.
Gilead is the Saudi Arabia/Taliban wearing nice suits.
That’s why churches were the first institutions to be shut down during Covid? Bullshit.
This is . . . wow. You must love you some evopsych bullshit. Gilead happens when women betray women; when women fight other women, when women destroy women.Gilead “happens” because a patriarchy has put women in even such deeper disparity than they are in present society, so that the choice between life and death, being raped or not, is very often decided on whether you can stand to offer up another woman in your place. Women are not destroying other women in Gilead, they’re fighting for a very narrow edge upon which to continue living.
Uh no, once again, you missed my point.
Wrong. You assume women have no power. That is a sexist assumption that permits the plausibility of Gilead. Women do have power. They’ve always had the power, but they lose that power when they betray each other, or were you not paying attention to the feminist movement?
Where the FUCK is your blog — Breitbart? I want to know so I can avoid it like the plague.These societies you claim “can’t work” have been destructively working for millennia. Look at the religious patriarchies of the Middle East — or even supposedly “equal” China, where women’s rights and the “one child per family” law to limit population growth clash with five thousand years of institutional misogyny to the point where it’s largely female children who get aborted, resulting in significantly more men than women.
I wonder how long it’ll be before China turns into Gilead…?
Well, you can find my blog at http://www.upyoursanctimoniousass.com as well as the “Up Yours” blogspot. Also biteme.org.Let’s start with “destructively working.” Religious patriarchies of the Middle East do not work as functioning societies, hence they don’t work. I know you want to think that women are frail and powerless, but they are not. I’m sure you’ve heard of Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Women actually do fight back and they undermine all of the intentions of the theocracy. In spite of abortion, women continue to outpace men in all populations. China is the least of your problems. A throwback is not a society. A throwback is not a culture. A throwback is an aberration. Gilead cannot work, and the show proves it with every episode.
They may work horribly for women and non-citizens, Frequent Wire — but they work just fine for the Male Ruling Oligarchy and male subjects who reap the benefits of Masculinist Rule, or else they wouldn’t last for decades (I won’t go so far as to say “centuries” because…Western Imperialism!). I’m lost as to where you draw the line between “Works inequitably for over half the population” and “Doesn’t work at all” — to me, you seem to think they’re the same thing, which isn’t even true in the United States!
Okay, it doesn’t work because the end result is tyranny, death, and poverty. It doesn’t matter that the same practices have been used over recorded history. What matters is that it never works, because it breeds dissension and revolution.What is “Masculinist Rule?”
I think that’s where we’re on opposite sides of the line, Frequent Wire — b/c to me, “Tyranny, Death & Poverty” are signs of a horrible society but not a failed one.
Rwanda, Somalia, and Libya since we went in and killed Gaddifi are failed states, because the social order’s broken down and it’s all utter chaos. Libya while Gaddifi was alive was far from a paradise (unless you were part of the elite), but it was a functional state for forty-two years under his rule. China may currently be an authoritarian police state which heavily censors its Internet (“The Great Firewall of China’), and who has it in for Uighurs and Tibetan Buddhists, but it’s been a functional state for 72 years, and the U.S.’s biggest trading partner for over forty years.
“Women are not destroying other women in Gilead, they’re fighting for a very narrow edge upon which to continue living.”Is that your statement? I happen to have (at least) 47 examples of women destroying other women in this show.
It’s me, the guy who watches the show about a patriarchal dystopia to obsessively record every instance of women Not Being Nice
Thank you, Your Grace.I read Frequent Wire’s comment and, as a Middle-Aged White Man? My brain so utterly shorted out at his insultingly reductive take on Social Darwinism that I wasn’t capable of forming complete sentences….
Claiming all men and all women have one single “natural inclination” shows you are unfit to analyze this show…and your backwards ass likely wishes Gilead was real and that you lived there. Go away, ugh.
Not a claim, just an observation.
This is like, the most hacky 1980s standup comic kind of observation— men are ONLY horny and women want to trap them with kids and marriage? Look at what Gilead is based on. It’s a Western version of oppressive religious governments like you’d see in the modern Mideast. Controlled by men, depending on the country women have restricted to almost no rights at all, children are extremely valued— especially male heirs. Or, look to similar setups recurring over and over in world history. Atwood didn’t just make this stuff up, she did an incredible job of creating Gilead as something plausible and relatable.
I tend to ignore people who use the word, “hacky,” to describe thoughts or contemplation.
There is no “Western version of oppressive religious government.” We’ve proven that.
Gilead is Iran in the 1979 revolution. Atwood admitted this totally, even back in 1985 when the novel was published. But she was too cowardly to write about Islam (perhaps fears a Rushdie-like fatwa?). I mean, radical Islam KILLS people who criticize it. But you know who doesn’t do that? CHRISTIANS! and Atwood already hated America, Conservative Christianity and (then) Reagan (now, Trump). So she conveniently blamed fairly liberal and fair America for abuses against women that only exist in the Middle East under Islam!And gullible, Trump-hating liberals ate this up with a spoon.Pathetic.
“Atwood didn’t just make this stuff up…”Uh, yeah, she did. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what she did. She made it up. Science fiction, you see…the operative word being “fiction.”
Well it works, until it doesnt.
Have you even watched a single minute of this show? Or even so much as looked at the book? The men aren’t being held captive in this society, the women are because fertility rates were dropping and the male religious fundamentalists that control the country panicked so they created this society where they’ve enslaved the remaining fertile women against their will in order to force them to procreate.Who ungreyed this moron? Are you guys here so desperate for clicks you’re just letting in any old schmuck with a pulse?
Wow, it’s like you guys TOTALLY didn’t read what I wrote, or just cherry-picked statements out of context.
Uh yeah, I’ve been reviewing the show for two years on my blog. I’ve read the book several times. I’ve read most of Atwood’s work. I do, indeed, know whereof I speak. Do you often resort to name-calling when you can’t come up with an effective argument?
Okay. Let’s get this out of the way. The Handmaid’s Tale is a useless, meaningless soap opera, yet the takeaway, the interpretation of the story is where the value of it lies. It’s what we take from the story that actually matters, not the story itself, but the value of how we interpret that story. What has happened in the wake of The Handmaid’s Tale sickens me. This is a television show. This isn’t education. I wouldn’t even place it in the context of social commentary. It’s science fiction. Do you think the writers and producers treat this as anything other than a paycheck and steady employment? This is not a “calling.” This is not “life’s work.” This is Hulu. This is streaming. This is subscriptions. This is money. Your life experience does not apply to The Handmaid’s Tale, so I must implore you – stop treating it as personal. Stop attacking me and others for dissenting views.
Such a terrible analysis!
Did a man write this?
“Artisanal justice, if you will. Completely handmade.”Nice!Trying to make sense of international relations in this show is like trying to rationalize why every planet in Star Wars seems to consist of a single biome. It just gets in the way of what it’s actually about. As for all the one-on-one meetings, I’m sure some of that was working around COVID restrictions.Horses for courses, but far from being a slog. I think this season has been the most interesting and enjoyable since the first. The status quo has been completely shaken up and anything is possible. (Well, somehow Lydia has gone from being a complete disgrace to Boss Aunt. It would have been nice to at least see her struggle a bit more to regain her status, but I understand if the creative team didn’t feel there was time for that.) Also, some of the actors seemed to step up their games. Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahowski, and Ann Dowd always knock it out of the park, but I have a newfound appreciation for O-T Fagbenle and Max Minghella. Maybe they’ve matured as actors or maybe they just had meatier material to work with, but I thought both did great work.
Janine (Madeline Brewer) also had very little to work with and did much more with it than I expected. I hate to say it but June is the least interesting character in this show. Close-ups aside, I think everyone is pulling as much weight as Elizabeth Moss.
The big problem is that it wasn’t justice. It was vengeance, which is completely different. Go ahead and argue the point, but they are different ideas.
Gilead worships the God of the Old Testament, who is a real smiting, vengeful God, so it fits. Just doing God’s work, like those whackadoodles who run Gilead.
Gilead worships itself.
I would have preferred a more direct scene of Serena learning that she’s well and truly screwed. I didn’t really find the lynching as emotionally satisfying as they meant it to be and all through the episode I wondered why Serena assumed she would be freed too. They had no deal with her. Also, why didn’t June and co. wash up before going home? There was a nice creek right there. She was touching her baby with her filthy, bloody fingers and face.
She was touching her baby with her filthy, bloody fingers and face.It’s a metaphor.
[As producer watches rough cut of finale]We need a powerful song, a ballad almost to end the episode with. Like that Lesley Gore song “You Don’t Own Me,” but you know, less on the nose and overused. [Producer leaves room]Lead Editor: So the Lesley Gore one?
Assistant Editor: Sounds good to me.
On the nose needle drops are a tradition with this show, plus it was a callback to the pilot.
Honestly, “That’s the Way Boys Are” (aka the anti-“You Don’t Own Me”) would have been more poignant, because it would be applied ironically to the scene, and to the fact that Fred never really changed and died the same man he ever was.
Or how about “I Know What Boys Like.” That would have been way funnier than “You Don’t Own Me.”
Still a great (ironically written by two dudes) song though.
I so wish we’ll finally get “Eye of the Tiger” on one of June’s glaring into-the-camera close-ups before the show’s end, ten years from now.
Only they won’t be able to afford that, so they’ll get this instead!
[”Fired Guy” writer has entered the chat]
Ahahaha! I came here to say the exact same thing. I can’t even take the musical choices on this show. The episodes are so much more effective when they just use original score instead of the “telling AND showing” method. I also came here to say that I think this revenge fantasy arc is alright, but it does reveal the fact that this show has nothing to say. I am a feminist and harborer of many revenge fantasies of my own, don’t get me wrong, but the show set up all of the stakes that we are now supposed to respond to (the torture and murder at Gilead, the implication of innocent people in atrocities, the brutality of life outside of Gilead…. btw what’s going on in like… Nevada during all of this). They have a real problem with unevenness in writing: Serena is arguably the key to the entire dramatic arc of this story and they just stall her season after season. I was especially disappointed to see her do a full pivot from sobbing and remorseful to “you will address him as Commander!” in the last two episodes for narrative convenience… I guess the writers realized that the Waterfords apart are far less scary than as a joint force. Ditto Nick, they completely robbed every ounce of pathos from Nick and June’s farewell by having him turn up deus ex machina a-blazing. For the sake of the catharsis of June and the former midwives killing off Waterford (which I would say wasn’t all that cathartic, truth be told), we traded the probably much more satisfying catharsis of watching him ripped apart in Gilead by horrors of his own making. I don’t know, I totally appreciate everyone’s relief at being away from Gilead, but it’s showing how flimsy the show’s writers’ grasp on this world really is.
After last season this one was a complete and total relief- the story advanced, there was a good Canada:Gilead ratio, there was lots more Moira, and all those things definitely helped me get past all of the incredibly unbelievable things that happened- the Waterford’s fancy “cells”, people from Gilead just being able to seemingly stroll over the border (and with shower gifts, hooray!), Serena somehow getting her hands on a bevy of maternity dresses in the exact shade of blue the wives wear (the Gilead fashion section of Amazon.com, perhaps?), etc… but Fred just being handed over to June and the rest of the refugee handmaids kind of took the cake. I think it’s safe to say that Luke and June are done, he wants the wife he left behind, and she is never coming back.
Fred was confirmed as the father by the showrunner. I think that scene is a person asking how can you live with someone who beat and stood by while you were maimed
I’ll tell you what I think. Tuello is the father. Fred is sterile, and only Serena, Nick, and June know. Hence Tuello’s bizarre behavior when June confronted him while he was jogging.
I think a lot of people thought which why the showrunner addressed it, he was like nope its Fred. I got the feeling June makes Tuello uncomfortable and he was a little scared. She did threaten to kill him. I found his behavior bizarre as well, he acted unsettled.
Artisanal justice, if you will. Completely “handmade”.I see what you did there.
What a delightful play on words!
Came here to say that, so thanks!
That was insane. And amazing. And probably strains the credulity of the story right to the limit, but whatever. Worth it. That was one of the most cathartic character deaths I’ve ever seen. And anyway, I honestly find the fact that they ripped him apart with their bare hands to be far less disturbing than the fact that she forgot to wash the vengeance-blood off her hands before cuddling the baby. Probably not a great sign.
My boyfriend pointed it out about her covered in blood while carrying Nichole. I told him that both won’t last.That scene when the mailman opened Serena’s package… damn. Wedding ring and finger. I thinks that all she needs.
I loved when he shrieked.
I found that scene incredibly enjoyable and celebratory and if that doesn’t say something about my twisted psyche I don’t know what does.
Theres nothing wrong with you for feeling that.
I did too. It was no less than he deserved and if that makes me a monster, so be it. The idea that anyone could “move on” from this sort of trauma just by therapy and journaling is far-fetched.
The idea that anyone could “move on” from this sort of trauma just by therapy and journaling is far-fetched.That might be, but the trauma of having become a cold-blooded killer will just add to it, while not erasing anything. We already see June fully expects to be rejected by Luke and having to leave Nichole now.
Not to argue the artistic merits and whether it was satisfying or not, but people have moved on from genocide, slavery, torture, rape, etc pretty much every day if our miserable human existence. The idea that no one can get through what these characters got through without becoming animal murderers is kind of betrayed by the fact that we have survivors walking among us who have done no such thing. It takes a LOT of work, trauma, but yeah, there are methods other than physically tearing apart your abuser.
I’m a huge advocate for nonviolence. In all scenarios. …AND that ending was wonderfully, deeply cathartic. Violence begets violence begets violence, and here we are. You reap what you sow, indeed. I also think I’m finally team Nick, if only because June is only going to be able to be with someone who embraces her inner-psychopath. Luke is so lovely, but they are just a mismatch now, too much has happened to repair the damage. He couldn’t see June as she is to understand that she was never going to be able to just let Fred go. June and Luke both deserve to have someone who appreciates them for who they are now, not who they were before.
ok I’m confused; is the show over or not?
The season is over. The show itself claims it has four more seasons in it, but god knows how.
I have been hanging on to see how this all ends but only a fraction of the episodes have been close to satisfactory viewing. Many others were boring or even infuriating place holders that made little sense. I was hoping this was the last season. Four more seasons? I’m out.
Only four? Wasn’t there a 10-season plan or some nonsensical such at some point? I expect Canada to be under Gilead’s rule by season 6, with Fred as their martyred prophet.
that was the last straw of “the universe of the show exists only for the characters to do stuff”. June is basically the boss of Gilead now.
This season makes up the really bad last. Hell, the ending made up for last season. I was about to give up on this show, but it stepped upHonestly, Fred Waterford just seemed like the stereotypical villian that would tie up a lady on train tracks and watch the train nearby while he twists his mustache. Good riddance!
I might be the only one who is not completely satisfied by that finale. Fred’s death is okay with me, and I know the handmaids doing it is kind of cathartic and maybe is my moral compass talking, but I just hated that for June (and Emily for that matter). IF she had ANY redeemable qualities left, they went completely out the window with this one. I don’t know where she’ll go from here. She talked about being a good mother almost as if implying that she is not one and CANT be one, so is she really done trying to rescue Hannah? I think next season should be the last (it probably won’t be) and it should focus on Nick’s backstory and involvement with Gilead’s origins, and on Lawrence’s real loyalties because I’m still confused. BTW: 1) How do the Waterfords know about Zoom?
2) About your strays: if I’m not mistaken, Tuello is American, he’s representing whatever is left from the American government (I think?). I know, it can still be a very Canadian thing to do. I’m not arguing with that lol
3) As much as Fred was a villain and maybe deserving of whatever justice was coming his way, I’m gonna miss Joseph Fiennes!
Not that June hasn’t been headed this direction for a long time, but I disagree with you about Emily (who is my personal favorite bloodthirsty handmaiden). Between Aunt Lydia and Mrs. O’Conner (AKA Marisa Tomei) she seems pretty prone to violence (as well she should given her circumstances). I had to rewind the Zoom line because I was so shocked I needed to make sure it happened. Even in a dystopia you can’t get outta those Zoom meetings!
I wasn’t completely satisfied either, because the tonal shifts in the episode gave me whiplash. Plus, as someone else mentioned, not washing your hands and face before picking up a baby after basically tearing someone limb from limb, while a nice allusion to The Bacchae, seemed a bit farfetched. But otherwise an enjoyable finale to the season.
the tonal shifts in the episode And let’s not forget how they had Serena Joy do a 180 once again.
Sigh. The problem is… the TV show’s Serena Joy bears ZERO resemblance to anything in the novel. In the novel, the Waterfords are like an evil version of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. They are older, pathetic… Serena is a cripple with a cane. It is obvious why they “can’t have kids” — they are in their 50s. By making Serena beautiful — MORE beautiful by far than Elizabeth Moss! — and young, her whole character is totally different and nothing like the novel, and therefore, her motivations can’t be the same. This wasn’t the world’s best adaptation of a book in the first season, but at least you could see the bare outline of the original there. Now it’s gone to crazy town on the short bus, and it’s frankly just embarrassing hogwash — a revenge fantasy against “teh evil men” (and lest you think I am a man, or misogynist or even Trump voter — I am a woman, a lifetime feminist and a registered Democrat).
Bacchae, that’s the word I was looking for!
I seriously doubt June did any heavy lifting in that scene. June is an antagonist, manipulator, and instigator.
I am SO glad that Waterford is dead. His whole character in the past two seasons has been a stupid dumb pawn in someone else’s game. At least now we can get a story that moves past season 1.I assumed the Waterfords have both used Zoom as part of their lawyer meetings/court whatever so even if they didn’t have Zoom in Gilead they’re aware it exists.How is Serena supposed to go back to a life without Zoom and the ability to read? Does she want to? I don’t understand her motivations at all.
I don’t think Serena ever intended to return to Gilead.
I don’t think Serena ever had any intention of returning to Gilead with Fred – their plan was to go be free so she could whip the people up into a frenzy. Serena is like a lot of people – she preaches certain dictates and then gets mad when she realizes that she spun a golden web around herself. She has no intention of going back to playing the prim and proper Wife – she is going full-on televangelist now that she’s free.**IS she free? If so why was she still hanging out in the Jail Cell of Beautiful Swedish Austerity while she presumed Fred was in Geneva?
Pretty sure Serena will stay in her elegantly austere cell for the time being. She’ll be back scheming a way out of jail with the help of poor besotted Tuello, June will be back scheming a way to visit biblical revenge upon her, possibly involving the unbirth of her prospective firstborn.
Fred and Serena didn’t plan to go back to Gilead. They just betrayed their country to buy their freedom, they knew they would be executed if they went back. Serena didn’t want to live in Canada (actually I’m not sure if that’s what she meant, or just Toronto, where June and the others are), but there were many other options to negotiate with the ICC/the Americans. (Not Geneva, though. The reviewer is mistaken in thinking they were planning to live there. Fred was meant to testify and come right back).
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I think they should’ve taken Fred back to Gilead (after politely informing them Fred turned State’s evidence). That would’ve been the best revenge. Instead, they committed what could be an act of war.
She doesn’t want to go back, she said that if she did, they would take her baby and send her to the colonies or make her a handmaid. She knows she has no future there. She wants to have her baby, write her book and go back to the life of adoring fans and trolling the heathen libs that she had before she got exactly what she signed up for.
Fred and Serena basically wanted to be Trotski: exiled leaders with a lot of followers, preaching a slightly different version of gileadism (one in which women can write successful books mostly.)
Noooo Nick is boring. I want to see them set it up for The Testaments.
I think next season should be the last (it probably won’t be)I think next season will be the last season. I’m still watching because I’m invested in this story and the characters, and I want to see how it all ends. But for a lot of people, the series probably doesn’t pack the same punch as when it premiered during the early days of the Trump administration.I’ve said it here before that some of the episodes in the first two seasons were eerily prescient and could have been ripped from the headlines if they hadn’t been filmed months before real-life events took place. There were people in powerful offices who would have loved for this country to go Gilead if they had their way. But now that “adults” are running the country again, that fear isn’t as great.But the series CANNOT end until June has exacted revenge on Aunt Lydia for her many crimes.
Terrible season. Terrible finale. The first couple of episodes were fair, but it went downhill in a hurry.
It’s an awful show — pure pandering to armchair liberals who hated Trump and were furious that Hillary lost. The novel was mediocre, but an artifact of its time (80s). The TV series is inexcusable, hyperbolic B.S.
1) “We can Zoom”. I can feel Margaret Atwood turning in her grave, and she’s not even dead!2) Tuello has definitely gone native.3) Nope. Joseph Fiennes finally out of the show? Praise fucking be!
I’m sure Fred will live on in endless, maddening flashbacks.
Can anyone clarify — I thought Luke’s horror at June was just personal disappointment that she murdered someone, but the way she said “Just give me five minutes” and then repeated to Nichole how she loves her made me think she’s going to be arrested for this? Was the irony that she traded her own freedom for vengeance? Or is that not an obvious conclusion here
Mailing evidence to Fred’s estranged wife was maybe not part of a plan to stay free.
“Just give me five minutes” was June saying that she was leaving for good.
Yeah I interpreted it as she was heading back to the front. Which I think is all she’s been wanting to do ever since she left it.
Nah. She didn’t commit the act in Canada (though they’ll know it was her from the finger, I’m not sure she even could be arrested for something she did in Gilead with a man officially handed back to Gilead). I think she just knows she and Luke are done. Resistance time!
I don’t think she’s going to be arrested (there’s nobody to testify to what she did in the no man’s land, or even to report what happened to Fred). I think she’s just expecting and accepting that Luke won’t be able to get over this and they’ll have to split – which, considering the smoldering (and maddeding) romance she still has going with Nick, maybe is also her wanting to end things with Luke before hurting him even more.After all, she asked Luke “five minutes more and then I’ll go”. Not saying that in five minutes she’ll have to go due to external causes, but that Luke will want her to go.
Do we know why Nick never left Gilead? Why did he never turn on them?
Fred watched as June kissed a man she actually felt love for …And that struck Fred as “sick?” That’s one twisted mofo.Goodbye, and good riddance.
It was kind of sick, and very unsexy.
As opposed to all of the other sexiness?
Even though this made, as you stated, so very little sense, it did kick ass and was incredibly cathartic. Though the entire time they were ripping Fred to shreds all I could think is “how are these woods not more well guarded on both sides?” And also wondering whether I would get that physically close to a place that held me in chattel just for revenge. But man, it was some pretty fucking sweet revenge. Don’t let the bastards grind you down, indeed.I still have zero idea how June and Nick manage to converse enough to pull this off and I also still have no idea why the show keeps pushing that relationship. They have no chemistry and the relationship makes zero sense.
I think they have SO much chemistry. Interesting.
I agree about the lack of chemistry, though some people are feeling it. The friend I was watching with was swooning during the scene where they met at the farmhouse while I averted my gaze so she wouldn’t see me rolling my eyes. I really wish they had cast a more charismatic actor as Nick. (The movie had Aiden Quinn in his black-haired, blue-eyed physical prime, and he is a fine actor). Max Minghella may be good in other roles but I find him totally miscast in this.
It’s crazy that in adapting a book that’s about a nearly anonymous everywoman who’s powerless under an improbable but believable totalitarian patriarchy as it might exist in the Western world the series has gotten to the point where she’s the master manipulator badass with two of Gilead’s most powerful under her thumb.This was cathartic, sure, and maybe it’s okay that the story is a revenge fantasy right now, and maybe it had or will have something relevant to say about trauma or something else but I can’t help but think this isn’t what The Handsmaid’s Tale was supposed to be and that the original message that made the source material a modern classic has been lost. Atwood seems fine with it, so I guess I should be too. Maybe this is why you shouldn’t watch adaptations of your very favorite books,
I love this take because I always thought the book was meant to be about how most of us would try to ride out a coup leading to a hostile regime. You would keep your head down, try and keep your sanity and try and stay alive. I really liked the early bit of the show when they seemed cognisant of the fact that no matter what someone’s personal qualities, to this regime they are expendable.Plus the book shows that even Fred and Serena struggle to live within the confines of a society they helped create and have power in.
I can’t help but think this isn’t what The Handsmaid’s Tale was supposed to beI’ll say. Atwood seems fine with itAtwood is Canadian. She’s gonna accept she signed a contract and live with it politely smiling at the butchery they’re making of her novel.Oh well, at least Alias Grace was truly great.
She’s still a f/t script consultant for the series so she’s advising them on the details of the “butchery.” She’s not a fucking victim lol
The original book is still there for anyone who wants to read it.
That’s true but I think it’s fair to comment that the show became something wildly different than the book.It’s like if a 1984 adaptation burned through the book in season 1 then by season 4 Winston Smith and Goldberg are revolutionaries leading the proles in reclaiming London from Big Brother. I admit that would be kind of awesome to watch but you’d have to wonder what’s the message here…
The debut of “Handmaid’s Tale – the series” occurred right after the first truly viable women’s POTUS candidate lost the election. Instead, a man being sued by his rape victim, bragged on tape about “grabbing women by the pussy,” was thrice married and paid an adult movie actress to cover up an affair became POTUS. It was pointed out on this very website that all of a sudden, we went from a possible women-led political future to the most regressively patriarchal adminstration since probably the Reagan years. And the dystopia shown in the Handmaid’s Tale got a bit more.. real. It makes sense to me that it went from “this is how she survives” during that last administration to “this is how we heal, if we even can heal; this is how we can maybe achieve catharsis” in this new one.
Trans people are still being oppressed and far right conservatives champing at the bit to punish “gender traitors” (any time someone whines about having to use a different pronoun, it’s really just the slightly less malignant version of that impulse). But god, we’re all exiting collectively in a state of delayed grief; the pandemic, that administration, the exposure of society’s rotten unjust core that punishes anyone who doesn’t look and act like, well, the people in Gilead who have the most power.. Is this show a clever reaction to all of that? I highly doubt it. I’m just saying none of this happens in a vacuum.
Uh-huh, sounds like somebody doesn’t have a mind of their own. I mean, do you just regurgitate everything you hear on CNN?
CNN is too busy comparing that Dixiecrat Joe Biden to the reincarnation of FDR (a description even Bernie Sanders doesn’t really fit!) to make the kinds of talking points you’re accusing Fired, Aren’t I? of “regurgitating”.
S/He’s pointing out, quite reasonably, that #OrangeManBad isn’t nearly enough when the worst thing Trump did was speak the quiet parts of Clinton Corporate NeoLiberal Hypocrisy, Inequality & Brutality Out Loud. Biden’s back to sweeping all the barely-hidden trans/homophobia and racism of the DNC back under the rug, and having Kamala Harris stomp down the lumps while pointing to her and saying, “I’m no bigot! My VP’s a Black Woman!”…who jailed Black Single Moms for their kids’ truancy, and took bribes “Campaign Contributions” from banksters like Steve Mnuchin to not prosecute him for criminal foreclosure on Black people’s homes.
No. This person actually believes everything he or she is saying and does watch CNN and MSNBC religiously.
You and D.R. are both weird, have your weird little conversation without me please
Nope. Sorry. Free country and all…
It’s a public forum, Fired, Aren’t I…….unless you oppose Free Speech?!?!?!?
Okay, so where’s the fish…?
What specific claims did he get wrong?
But “Handmaid” Season One had to be filmed BEFORE Trump won. And anyways… Hillary was a bad candidate and ruined her own campaign. And when did liberals decide someone can’t have more than one marriage? good grief — gay marriage is OK, trans marriage is OK, polyamory is OK — but Trump gets married 3 times and he’s a monster? (How many Democrats are on their third go-round?)? Oh and no credible plaintiff ever filed any actual lawsuit against Trump for rape and no case has EVER been brought against him… I guess liberals now do not believe in “innocent until PROVEN GUILTY”? you are now guilty by innuendo?“Handmaid” was pure academic feminist hogwash in 1985 and setting it up as anti-Trump is beyond bizarre. Trump did nothing to hurt women, nor take away women’s rights. Hillary was not some great leader — she’s still whinging about losing 5 years on. You bet on the wrong horse. Also: feminism is NOT saying that “all women always do a better job”. It that women deserve equal CHANCES. Chance means YOU MIGHT FAIL. Hillary failed.That you think people are “gender traitors” for refusing to use invented pronouns…. well, what can I say? The source novel isn’t remotely about gay or trans people, but you want to make it into this. It’s not about a heroine who trounces all “teh evil men”, but an Anywoman who probably only survives in the form of her tape diaries. The TV series has taken partisan politics and totally trashed this novel. It is pathetic.
Realistic as it might’ve been, you know they can’t do four+ seasons of people keeping their heads down, right? They were widely chastised for finding reasons to keep June in Gilead under the Waterfords as long as they did. Is this honestly going to be the critique now? It’s just unadaptable? The novel implies June will either be executed or saved. Extending her story, you can’t immediately do either. They were bound to expand on the Mayday resistance, they were bound to give their protagonist some wins. And I’d avoid Atwood’s followup novel, because it ties into the show and it doesn’t sound like you’d enjoy that either.
Realistic as it might’ve been, you know they can’t do four+ seasons of people keeping their heads down, right? They were widely chastised for finding reasons to keep June in Gilead under the Waterfords as long as they did. Is this honestly going to be the critique now? It’s just unadaptable?The novel implies June will either be executed or saved. Extending her story, you can’t immediately do either. They were bound to expand on the Mayday resistance, they were bound to give their protagonist some wins. And I’d avoid Atwood’s followup novel, because it ties into the show and it doesn’t sound like you’d enjoy that either.
Realistic as it might’ve been, you know they can’t do four+ seasons of people keeping their heads down, right? They were widely chastised for finding reasons to keep June in Gilead under the Waterfords as long as they did. Is this honestly going to be the critique now? It’s just unadaptable?The novel implies June will either be executed or saved. Extending her story, you can’t immediately do either. They were bound to expand on the Mayday resistance, they were bound to give their protagonist some wins. And I’d avoid Atwood’s followup novel, because it ties into the show and it doesn’t sound like you’d enjoy that either.
Realistic as it might’ve been, you know they can’t do four+ seasons of people keeping their heads down, right? They were widely chastised for finding reasons to keep June in Gilead under the Waterfords as long as they did. Is this honestly going to be the critique now? It’s just unadaptable?The novel implies June will either be executed or saved. Extending her story, you can’t immediately do either. They were bound to expand on the Mayday resistance, they were bound to give their protagonist some wins. And I’d avoid Atwood’s followup novel, because it ties into the show and it doesn’t sound like you’d enjoy that either.
It’s crazy that in adapting a book that’s about a nearly anonymous everywoman who’s powerless under an improbable but believable totalitarian patriarchy as it might exist in the Western world the series has gotten to the point where she’s the master manipulator badass with two of Gilead’s most powerful under her thumb. I’ve been struggling with that very thing since the end of last season. In a way, it seems like Atwood’s book should almost be called “A Handmaid’s Tale” while this adaptation is leaning heavily on the “THE” of the title. It’s now a completely different beast than the novel.
And yet at the same time, watching the finale (late, I’ll admit) and the assault on Waterford just days after Cosby’s release from prison, man, does the catharsis of those women finally getting their hands on their tormenter strike a powerful tone. So what I’m thinking is that maybe it’s okay that it’s not still a particularly good adaptation of the novel because it is still something that is vital and resonant right now.
So are we to assume Luke’s kicking June out? (“Five more minutes”.) If so, that guy’s a real piece of shit.
Luke knows (and understands) what June did. It was her “Five more minutes” that indicated that she’s leaving for good; either because she expects to be arrested, or because she’s going full renegade. She had already assured herself that Nichole will be loved and cared for. She was saying goodbye to _Luke_ and that’s why he reacted the way he did.
She raped him a couple of episodes ago but he’s the piece of shit? Please explain your rationale for this, I’d love to hear it.
Explain how you think that was rape.
She held him down, he said “no”, she continued anyway.
He did not say, “no,” and, more importantly, he did not resist. Luke is at least twice her size. He could’ve punted her through the nearest window, but he didn’t. Why? You don’t rape a man the same way you would rape a woman. Do you understand? A man uses his hands, his weight. A woman would go about it with other means.
>
more importantly, he did not resist
wew lad
Am I missing something with the ending scene? Why did June tell Luke she would go? It is that she knows she’s too messed up to be around Nichole or am I missing something else?
I think it’s because earlier she said she wasn’t a good mom, she couldn’t be a good mom. She knew Luke would be horrified that she murdered someone and want her to leave. So she is leaving without making him ask.
June wanted Fred to know the terror she had felt when she and Luke were first hunted down and Hannah was taken.
It was quite a twist, in that the viewer thinks that subjecting Fred to Gilead justice (when he has been dishing on Gilead to save his own hide, and the other Commanders know it) will be justice served. Even Serena knows that she can’t set foot in Gilead again. Fred would indeed by terrified at the prospect. He knows the other commanders are more than ready to eat their own if it might raise their own profiles.
But that wouldn’t have been the terror that June wanted him to feel.
I also think the deal was larger than the prisoner exchange. Joseph Lawrence is pretty much a double agent at the highest levels, now; anything Fred could offer, would pale in comparison. Fred had become expendable … but, as always, he was clueless on that point.
Joseph Lawrence is pretty much a double agent at the highest levels, nowBetween Lawrence and Nick, basically June has enough leverage to start a coup in Gilead by now. And yet, liberating a single little girl is still beyond everyone’s reach. It’s like Hannah is Gilead’s most guarded treasure, kept in a tower and surrounded by impenetrable defenses. The last of the commanders will soon give his life than to let Hannah escape.
Yeah, I get that Hannah has to stay in Gilead or the show ends, but can we *at least* have a scene where June asks for Hannah’s return in addition to the 22 prisoners, and gets turned down? I drove me nuts that this wasn’t addressed. . .
Even though June was somewhat complicit in Eleanor’s death (she could have summoned help, and I think that Joseph Lawrence is aware that June would have checked on her), I think it went unmentioned because he understood why. With that in mind, I think that June’s testimony about his late wife’s character, her kindness and vulnerability, would have been immensely important to him. To hear that someone else thought as highly of a loved one as you did, is not something you dismiss.
Not much mention has been made of it, but I thought that that part of June’s testimony was a factor in Lawrence’s willingness to help.
what the hell did handmaid’s tale have to redeem itself for?? way to irritate the reader before they’ve even startededit: okay you think season 3 was a slog… that’s definitely a take lol
Season three was WAY BETTER than the mess this season.
I guess we’re in full antihero territory with June now?
She reminds me of one of those bad guys in movies that has a Good Point and No Wonder They’re Evil but instead of exploring how to make people not evil, they just kill that one bad guy and the movie can end.
Yeah, I thought she was turning a corner a couple episodes back when her “crazy eyes to normal eyes” ratio decreased, but I think she’s just getting better at having normal eyes when her rage/hate/PTSD takes over.
Am I the only one who does not understand what Lawrence got from all this? Gilead couldn’t make an example out of Waterford, and they lost 22 members of the resistance. What’s in it for Lawrence?
I think it’s his way of “making things right” even though he knows that’s impossible. He respects June and I think deep down, he wanted this for her…not him.
Uh, but in that case how did he explain this to all his commander friends? Losing 22 assets AND Waterford? Would they not execute him or something?
I think the Commanders were in on it. They wanted Waterford dead because they didn’t want him spilling any of their secrets. Or, at least living a life after spilling his secrets. Because he would’ve eventually written a book, went on talk shows etc. It was obvious that he was becoming a celebrity amongst the Gilead apologists/fringe/whatever you want to call them; in Canada. Plus by giving up the 22 women, it looks like a humanitarian act. 22 women were definitely worth killing Waterford to shut him up imho.
This makes sense. It grounds the scene so it doesn’t just seem like something the writers threw in as a crowd pleaser or metaphor. Everyone wants Fred dead so Lawrence sicced the freed handmaids on him, vengeance all around and everybody’s happy.
Sure, but they would want him dead as an example to scare others off, not MIA. They would have staged a public execution to show what happens to traitors. If they wanted to kill him in silence (for some reason I can’t imagine), they could’ve hit him in Canada (since obviously they have some kind of free access back and forth) and wouldn’t have to release 22 good potential brothel employees.
If you’re applying this much scrutiny to this one scene…surely there are others things in this show that have made you even more incredulous? Yes, a public execution would’ve been better. I have no idea why it went down the way it did. But if Lawrence lives, which I’m guessing he will, there’s an explanation in the next season or it is what it is. I’m fine with that! I wish there weren’t as many plot holes as there are but it’s a tv show, some are better than others. This is better than most but there are some that are much better than this; The Americans for one. And I’m sure they had plot holes too.
Another point is that if a country retrieves someone collaborating with their enemy they normally want to find out what they’ve told them before executing them
Fred still ended up on the Wall. The Eyes had him and he died with them. That makes the question of a trial and guilt simple (the Commanders were the only group they tended to be lenient to). They don’t get Serena or the baby but they make an example out of him for talking.
That would imply that the Eyes are the ruling power and not the Commanders? Which I don’t really think is the case.
Mark is American, no?
As baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and cigarettes!
The court/jail stuff doesn’t work at all — would the guards really let June be alone with Fred in that room? And the US government was gonna give them a house? I doubt that’s how it works. You get your freedom — the rest is up to you But it’s also clear he’s not intending to live in Geneva. They were talking about house-hunting in Canada, and “I’ll return a free man”. He was going there for a hearing, not permanently. Or not at all as it turned out. I don’t think Mark is the dad. Didn’t the show runner say that if Serena had slept with Mark we’d know? I think he did have a crush on her because she’s hot, but that’s it. Rather, he knew perfectly well that Serena loathes Fred and it’s all a show, maybe he thought there was good in her and she did what she had to survive in Gilead. Not anymore though. “I get it.” Oh Luke, you do not get it. I’m not on Team Eyebrows. My husband is more of a professor-y Luke. But yeah no Luke and June seem clearly done. People are talking elsewhere about June being in trouble with the law but I doubt it. Canada and the US washed their hands of Fred, they won’t have any way to prosecute (or even know) what happened just over the border.
Why would the showrunner answer the question? He wants to keep the audience in suspense. Fred was telegraphed early on as being sterile. You don’t go from being sterile to being able to produce children. Serena stepped out. Let’s be real.
Mark is also the winner of this week’s Most Canadian Thing to Happen. Apologizing for his tone after very mildly telling June that ambushing him is unacceptable was a fine example of the country’s national pastime.But… isn’t he American?
As apple pie.
I remain surprised that this still has an audience of people who can cope with its unremitting grimness. Back at the start of the second season, we were recording it on a Sunday night, and were also recording three episodes of 80s British WW2 sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo (quite the totalitarian double bill). Come Monday evening we would invariably choose to watch ‘Allo ‘Allo (basically a farce, held together with knob and boob jokes). In the end we stopped recording Handmaid’s Tale as we never in the mood to watch it.
It’s the rare show that works much better one hour per week. Way too intense to binge. I definitely couldn’t fault anyone for being put off by the grimness. For me the rebels win enough victories to keep me going. And everyone once in a while you get to see a fascist torn to shreds or blown up, which is honestly the content I crave above all else these days. Literally rewatched Band of Brothers recently just to scratch that itch.
I LOVED this episode, it hit all the marks for me even though it made very little sense. I don’t understand why everyone thinks Tuello is the dad- his question to SJW is pointed to the fact as he states just a second before that SJW saw FW commit all these heinous crimes including chopping off her own finger and she has a chance to escape and won’t. He is wondering why she is all Stockholm syndrome when she is a capable, conniving, smart woman.My lingering question is why Lawrence agreed to this? was it just revenge on Fred? It seems like he is putting a lot on the line for this… I thought maybe he would get good commander points of bringing FW back to undergo trial but then we find out he is just leading him to his death. I totally think June is heading to CO in season 5 to get Hannah & probably kill some commanders along the way- maybe to meet up with, what where they called, blackbird resistance? Her “5 more minutes” is her goodbye; she already sees herself as an outsider to the life Luke, Moira and Nichole have made for themselves, hence her “I’m not a good mother” thing.
As June testified in the ICC court, Fred insisted that the Lawrences and June ‘perform the ceremony’ while the Waterfords sat in the Lawrence parlor, and that Eleanor in particular was traumatized. It was not long after that she took her own life. That’s a pretty good reason for Lawrence to want revenge.
Fred was returning to Gilead as a prisoner anyway, and it’s probably common for prisoners to suffer “accidents” in transport.
yep that is exactly why I said “is it just revenge?”
Luke and June are done-zo, right?He’s just no longer her purpose. Her purpose now is vengeance.
I think that was apparent from the time Luke and June were reunited on the boat. There has not been a single moment of intimacy or desire (not counting that controversial “did she or didn’t she rape her husband” scene) between June and Luke that even comes close to the fireworks between June and Nick. June’s eyes literally light up whenever she sees Nick; Luke, not so much. We haven’t seen June and Luke share so much as a real, passionate kiss since the flashbacks from earlier episodes where June was Luke’s mistress.And how could Luke ever have a peaceful night’s sleep next to a murderer? Did you notice him listening to June and Emily as he washed the dinner dishes? The June he married is gone and never coming back.Nick is June’s true beloved, so how are they going to be together with their daughter that Luke and Moira are raising?
Her purpose now is vengeance.Old Testament, baby! May the lord open their bellies and spill their guts on the ground!
I was satisfied with how this season ended. If standing up and cheering all by myself as women tore Fred Waterford to pieces with their bare hands is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. But I will not be satisfied if this series ends without June exacting revenge on Aunt Lydia for all of the physical and psychological torture June suffered at her hand.But how does that happen without June going back to Gilead … again? Season 5 speculation: What if June and Serena form an unholy alliance to get Hannah and Serena’s newborn son out of Gilead?
Did anyone else experience a moment of deja vu during the conversation between Tuello and June? I know I did.
It’s weird that in the final minutes of the episode, we see the feminine monster, which is not all that dissimilar from the masculine monster. The monster is satiated at the end of a long, lonely night of carnage and mayhem, fingers ripped from hands. This is who we are; not men, not women, but we-humanity. This is what we do. We rip each other to pieces when we claim dominion.
Kind of a terrible episode. This was the weakest season thus far. The last three episodes have been absolutely, unforgivably terrible. All padding. All things we know. Nothing revelatory (except possibly for the origin of Serena’s baby).
An even more satisfying ending would have been a fast cut from June holding Nichole in her hands stained with Waterford’s blood as Luke looks on in horror, right to Serena screaming bloody murder as the contents of that envelope spill out on to her desk and she immediately understands that she is completely alone and completely fucked.
They just turned one of 20th century’s literary masterpieces into a rape & revenge flick. And that’s the show redeeming itself?
“I Spit On Your Booker Prize”
The interrogation scene was worth a re-watch.
Serena would have been so much better off if she had stuck with the strategy of separating herself from Fred and claiming she was also a victim.
But, no … she had to not only reunite with him, but resume the haughty demands of a Commander’s wife. In that interrogation it appeared that Fred was being far less than candid. The woman questioning him was actually very civil, addressing him as ‘Mr. Waterford’ and framing her questions tactfully — but there was Serena, insisting that the woman’s “contempt was completely unacceptable” and that Fred be shown respect and addressed as “Commander.” (Heck, she even greeted Mark with, “You’re late,” as though he worked for her.)
The demand for faster internet access so Fred could communicate with his ‘constituency’ – that takes on meaning in light of what we’ve seen of how those with zealous followers can use social media. The house-hunting, the security detail — whoa there. Mark even points out that Fred has confessed to “brutal crimes,” some of which Serena witnessed, and that both Fred and Serena are still in custody pending the judge’s ruling. To which Serena demands an expedited ruling.
I think Mark felt pity for her when he asked if she intended to leave with Fred as husband and wife. In that simple question, he was giving her a final chance to go back to her earlier strategy; to reject Gilead and Fred and make her own life. Whatever spark there was between Mark and Serena was extinguished, just as June and Luke are no more.
“They prefer their justice with a personal touch.”“Nooses and such.”“Yeah. My mom used to always tell me if you wanna know what they believe in, remember that they bought a shitload more copies of the Old Testament than the New.”And at that moment, my Jewish mouth fell open and my Jewish eyes went wide. WTF, Handmaid’s Tale. WT actual F. I know what they thought they were trying to say, but it says even more that no one pointed out why that line was problematic before the episode made it to its final version.
Season 5: June terrorizes Serena for 10 episodes.
I am awaiting the scene where Aunt Lydia gets it. That self-righteous cunt treated the handmaids worse than Fred.
We didn’t get it. Completely unbalanced season. As a producer, you should make every episode as if it’s going to be your last.
Did season 4 give the viewers ENORMOUSLY wonderful payoffs after slugging it out through three long seasons? Yes, it did.However:1) Remember, kids, if you lynch someone, it’s only immoral if it happens on the Gilead side of the border.2) What exactly is Nick going to say happened to Fred? Kinda hard to cover that up. Or Nick’s boner from knowing his soul wife is about to go commit murder.3) Again, lots of talk but NO explanations about the Colonies. Sigh…4) Mark: “Waterford gave us a lot of intel about the hierarchy of the Gilead government.” Fred: “Okay, first of all, everyone has the rank of Commander.” Mark: “Woah! This is great stuff.”5) Also Mark: “Hey, guess what? I am the American government, yo. Me. All by myself.”6) In another universe, there’s a FAR better show called The Handmaid’s Tale which is centered entirely on Moira, and June is this weird side character who loves killing and explosions7) Luke: “I’m starting to think I should’ve stayed married to mah first wife!”8) Gilead: “Remind me again why we have a no man’s land?”Canada: “Heck if I know, pal. Take a bag of milk with ya if you’re gonna wander around there, kay? Easy to get lost, especially at night don’tcha know.”9) June: “Should I wash my face on the long drive home in the free car I somehow magically got along with my free house? Nah!”10) Hey kids, want to go work for The Eyes? Hope you like wearing wrap-around sunglasses and ninja SWAT team costumes at night.
i feel like Moira’s character descended quickly into annoying friend who yells and thinks she can just tell everyone to be nicer and stop fighting. It’s tiresome, and a waste of such a good actor in this entire season. Very disappointing to see her be so under-used in such hacky ways.
3) Again, lots of talk but NO explanations about the Colonies. Sigh…Again, go back to S2E2, “Unwomen”. Sigh…
Did not see the mail drop coming.
I LITERALLY said to my wife “I bet it’s his finger or tongue in the envelope” and she got mad at me and said “you read a recap before we watched it?” and I had to explain that no, if I was writing it that’s what I would have done, and she STILL didn’t believe me, and then she had her friends chase me down and beat me to death and hang me in the woods (Only part of that is true)
So, wondering if sending Fred’s finger to Selena was a double F*@k You from June. 1) here’s your husband’s ring and finger and 2) maybe you can use an extra finger since your husband had yours cut off!
It just shows that those we deem to be the good are capable of perpetrating as much sadism and violence as those we deem to be the bad. I mean, could you imagine or envision chopping off somebody’s finger (either because that person wronged you or that person violated a tenet)? Either way, it’s bad medicine.
#2
Did you intend that “Completely handmade” pun? Because, well played. Bravo.
When we cut to Serena near the end of the episode in front of her computer, anyone else hoping she slowly took off a pregnancy suit and turn to kiss Mark? That, kids, would’ve been a fucking ending.
June (into the camera): “And that, my friends, is how you give someone the finger.”(Roll credits)
And let’s never mind that MARGARET ATWOOD HERSELF wrote a sequel to “Handmaid” that, while not a very good book at all… posits a totally different future for all the characters. But I guess she got buckets of money for the movie rights, so who cares.
This show cannot hold up against even the slightest bit of scrutiny. From avocados in the Canadian supermarket, Moira happening to be in Chicago at just the right time, & the incredible home these refugees live in, to the yada-yada-ing of the ICC, I much prefer this implausible & silly Handmaids Tale to the dour-AF misery loop of June in Gilead.
Late to the party, again, but is there a reason why June couldn’t ask for Hannah as part of the deal to hand Waterford over? She and Mark seemed to have the upper hand in that abandoned diner negotiation.
Assuming that Lawrence was willing to turn over prisoners to June/Canada but now regular Gilead prisoners (i.e. Hannah).
I’m really late to the party, but I hope you read this. I’ve discovered (all on my own) how much I need to be spoiled, in the narrative sense. Thanks for the recaps, and thanks for being a funny person. I don’t agree with most of your ratings, you very well might be a horrible person, but hey. Thanks.
I’ve harped on this before, I know, but there were and are viewers who believe The Handmaid’s Tale represents an analogue of current Western culture; that somehow we’ve gone back to the dark ages, and we’ve brought back female subjugation in a big way. I’d just like to direct my readers to events unfolding in Afghanistan at this very moment. This is what The Handmaid’s Tale would look like in 2021. What women and girls endure in Gilead is nothing compared to the real-life atrocities being conducted right now in Afghanistan. Our “progressive” government and President turned their backs on these women. I just thought everyone should know that.