“Motherhood has always been an evolutionary puzzle to me,” says Commander Lawrence to June, in yet another upsetting dinner scene of the season. He shares this after he’s warned June that her refusal to reveal where the Handmaids are will result in Hannah being hurt, which in Gilead can mean everything from having an eye torn out to death. June’s response is to tell him to go fuck himself. It stands to reason that he would be confused. Up till now, her anger, motivation, and extremely questionable decisions have been tied up with her maternal instinct to protect Hannah. June’s rise from a woman struggling to survive to Walter White-ing on the edge of irredeemable can be in some ways justified because of this drive.
Lawrence—who can come off as both an intellectual mastermind and the kind of guy on Tinder who thinks spewing nonsense Arendt ideology will get him laid–could also be talking about the Gilead project as a whole. A sizable portion of his nation duped into dehumanizing half of their population for the supposed sake of children. An entire ideology based on the survival of the collective by making it almost impossible to survive. Motherhood in Gilead is a genocidal force and a subversive one. And motherhood extends far beyond the baby we might hold in our womb or snatch from someone’s arms.
In a relentlessly bleak episode, even by Handmaid’s standards, June’s commitment to her own daughters is tested to its bloodiest limits. At this point, June is extending her Mama Bear fight to encapsulate not only Nichole and Hannah, but the Handmaids under her guidance, and even the despotic Mrs. Keyes, who terrifies me in similar ways that private school teen girls dismissively wondering why I still shop at Urban Outfitters can terrify me. We also explore the abusive dynamic Aunt Lydia has fostered with all her girls, which screams to me as being based less on vengeful spite than in the kind of petty neediness of a woman who wants to be defined only by her offspring.
But first, let’s turn to another type of baby: this episode, which represents the directorial debut of Elisabeth Moss. Quite a remarkable feat considering this is an extremely June-centric one, with her acting in almost every harrowing scene. As a director, Moss is really into cramped close ups where we can see every contorted facial expression. She is really into two-person sparring, which allowed Ann Dowd to bring her incredible talent to full force. She is also very into setting a God damn mood, with emphasis on the damn part. The vast majority of the episode is set in a prison/torture chamber that looks straight out of a Saw movie, one of Dante’s circles of hell, or the kind of Berlin nightclub I want to get shit faced in once this pandemic is over. Give the light designer a damn Emmy already, unless they already have one, in which case just keep piling those on.
It might be difficult to determine of this particular episode is so steeped in misery due to Moss’s directing or the writing, but seriously. They could have easily titled this one “Trigger Warning” for its absolute willingness to psychopathically adhere to torture as an aesthetic. It’s like the writers created a checklist of every atrocity committed by dictatorships around the world and threw them all in one episode. Physical restraints? Check. Waterboarding? Check. Ripping nails from the root? Check. Tossing women off a ledge? Check. Watching your friends get killed in front of you? Check. By the time June is shoved into a tiny box, with only a few holes for oxygen, one can’t help but feel it’s a huge metaphor for the experience of watching the previous forty-five minutes: suffocating, distressing, and like you need to watch “San Junipero” to remind yourself joy is also part of the human condition.
And though all these instances might make for stressful television viewing, they’re not nearly as interesting as the litany of recriminations Aunt Lydia and June ping-pong to each other. They’re also not nearly as interesting as Commander Lawrence laying out Gilead’s true core at that dinner, where he correctly points out, “Gilead doesn’t care about children. It cares about power.” I’ll leave you to see the thinly veiled criticism of the Republican Party in that dialogue for yourself. They’re also not nearly as anguishing as June coming face-to-face with an imprisoned Hannah, which finally pushes her to forego all her other motherly bonds and spill the secret location. Lawrence has a point. Motherhood can destroy lives.
This is an episode full of extremes. It would be tempting to say it’s indulging in the unforgiving repetitive nature of Handmaid’s, which is the show’s most fatal flaw. Except for that ending. THAT ENDING! An entire season of an industrialized breeding camp would have truly been a doubling-down of a despondent world we so have thoroughly explored, that what else is there left to say? By having June and the other Handmaids break free from that van and from Aunt Lydia’s grip, Handmaid’s might actually be running towards a creative freedom that is sorely needed. The last 10 minutes are heart-pounding, thrilling, and utterly devastating. It could be the foundation for a season that delivers big.
Stray observations
- More nods to our collective nightmare! June was looking pandemic-chic with that face mask on her way to the torture chamber, and who can ignore the echoes to last summer when Moira announces she’s going to a candlelight vigil and march? But beyond the waterboarding and manipulation of old school family values, nothing brought me back more than Aunt Lydia cross-stitching as a way to ignore the horror around her. She looks like the kind that would get into sourdough during lockdown.
- I went to an Opus Dei high school, which means I know this to be true: No one is creepier than a pious man with a kilowatt smile telling you not to be scared, right as he is about to condemn you for your sins. Reed Birney as that sadistic torture guard will forever haunt me.
- The use of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” is a reminder to everyone to listen to The Bend from start to finish.
- Canada is an exporter of sublime maple syrup, Time Hortons mystique, and queer progressive witches, as followers of Chani Nicholas and Jessica Lanyadoo can attest. Luke burying a persimmon for good luck under the recommendation of a Toronto official is definitely The Most Canadian Thing to Happen this week.
- Eyebrow watch 2021: I might need a big refresher on June and Nick’s relationship timeline because, from my understanding, the last thing June discovered about him was that he helped overthrow Gilead. That could make anyone sour on their paramour. Though that kiss didn’t make much plot sense, I’ll allow it after this year of worldwide physical deprivation. We all need a bit of dystopian romance in our lives.
- How do we feel about June’s recitation of the Handmaids’ names at the end of the episode? Poignant and moving? Or a bit too close to the #sayhername hashtag for comfort?
72 Comments
So, is there meant to be some giant banner-ad thingy at the top of every page on this site? Because my ad-blocker’s blocking it, but instead the “Google Adsplash” is taking up like three quarters of my screen.
i assumed it was a browser update / ad-blocker disconnect.
Could be. I blocked it, then blocked the underlying bit of the code that made space for it. It’s gone now.
it just went away over here. Some 1st level punk with more access than Wisdom.
I figured it was for some giant ass paid ad, but then one of them was for Kotaku Splitscreen.
I absolutely loved (in the worst way) these three episodes. They were bleak, and this episode in particular went a little too close to torture porn for my liking, but I can tell they’re breaking free from the narrative rut they’ve been in and I am here for it. I also am a sucker for a good anti-hero, and June toes the line between it and hero quite well.However, I know as a lesbian my opinion may not mean much in this arena, but I cannot for the life of me understand her continued relationship with Eyebrows. He literally tells her he was the orchestrator of putting Hannah in danger and she proceeds to be vulnerable with him about Hannah’s reception of her… why??
the mystique of Time Hortons is that they always somehow know your order in advance, and its hot and ready when you arrive, and also mostly wrong.
Wait, was the kiss supposed to be sincere? That wasn’t how it played to me. To me, it seemed like, she’s walking towards the truck, then stops, realizes that this guy being in love with her is the only advantage she has left, then goes back to codify that advantage with a big passionate kiss and exultations of love. Surely we’re not supposed to think that she’s actually in love with him, right? Because that would seem kind of out of nowhere. Unless it’s like you said and their world is just too bleak not to give in to every moment of lightness that you stumble into. I couldn’t blame them. Just watching their world gives me a stomach ache.
no, i think it was sincere by the way it was shot like a rom-com moment. I think the writers overestimate how much people care about that ship.
It was sincere, accompanied by romantic violins, and maddening, and disgusting, and offensive.
I like this take as for me it made little sense. In a terrific cast Max Mingella is a huge weak spot for me. He doesn’t convince as a powerful baddie and not sure what June sees in him apart from convenience! His wooden acting stands out. By the way, why didn’t the Handmaid’s just taser Lydia, Chuck her out and drive off in the van! Please, no more repetitive torture although the evil smiling priest-torturer was one of the more chilling villains.
By the way, why didn’t the Handmaid’s just taser Lydia, Chuck her out and drive off in the van!Our bigger suspension of disbelief problem was that it seems unlikely that there would be a way to open the van from the inside backdoor. Seems like a huge security flaw for “precious” cargo that Gilead wouldn’t want to leave as an option for “willful, wayward girls”.But hell yeah to the lack of taser on Aunt Lydia! Huge missed opportunity there!
Also the handmaids are too valuable to kill so they’re being sent to a breeding camp, but as soon as they escape the driver/guard just starts shooting them? That guy is definitely out of a job.Also also, June just spent days or weeks being tortured yet she’s still the fastest of all the handmaids? And ironic that the handmaids wouldn’t have been hit by the train if June hadn’t paused to consider killing Lydia. Every second counts!
Jesus, why didn’t I think of that? Take the damn van ladies!
Agreed about not tasering Lydia. The guard is nearby but unaware of what you’re doing. Why in the world do you leave Lydia conscious so she can alert him? Even if she didn’t taser Lydia, she could’ve at least knocked her out with it. Didn’t understand that other handmaid saying “No” when June was about to hit her. I don’t think that one was Janine so it would be karma that her convincing June in that moment not to tase/knock out/kill Lydia is what got her killed, what with Lydia raising the alarm to the guard.
He looks so much younger than Elizabeth Moss with his baby face that it squicks me out every time they touch…..“By the way, why didn’t the Handmaid’s just taser Lydia, Chuck her out and drive off in the van!”At least steal the taser, handmaids…
I think it was supposed to be sincere. The opening did include June’s message to Luke about Nichole being conceived out of love, not rape. But I’m with you in that I wasn’t buying it, either.
I think (hope) it was June saying goodbye to Nick. Their relationship can’t really go anywhere from here. If Nick had been willing to chuck everything for June I could maybe see a future, though I detest their romance. But Nick has made it clear he only wants to save June and only through “the system”.
What a disappointment this show has become. I truly feel the longer it goes, the more of a disservice it has done to Atwood’s original work, which is still an all-time great work by any standard. But this revenge story by way of a now Hunger Games-esque dystopia is just silly and sad. Who is June anymore? Simply a product of revenge? I think the show would be better if it was its own thing and not attached to the legacy of the novel anymore, because the themes its dealing with seem completely counter to what the book was attempting to say.
i feel like the ending could’ve been a lot different. they had the numbers advantage. i was screaming at june to just kick nick in the shin’s and also screaming to end lydia.i’m tired of this cycle of june doing something against gilead, june getting caught, june getting freed. they have the show planned out for 8 seasons. just give us season 8 this season or next.
I’m also sick and tired of people dying left and right, but that’s okay since it was all for June and her plan. *rolls eyes*
Agreed. And after a certain point, the Gilead officials refusing to just kill her makes no sense. Maybe they’d be justified in thinking they could contain her the first time she rebelled, weighing the potential that she would have more babies over the havoc she’s wrought against Gilead. But at this point she’s escaped like 6 separate times, has killed (directly or indirectly) like a dozen commanders, helped a handful of other handmaids escape, and sent a plane full of kids and Marthas to Canada. And in all this time she’s only made one baby for Gilead, who she quickly spirited away to Canada to be raised by an “adulterer” and a lesbian. If June didn’t have god-tier plot immunity Gilead would have just cut their losses 3 seasons ago.I mean, they tried to execute Jeanine back in s1 or 2 for a *way* lesser offense. The guard shot at all of the handmaids this episode. The rules for whether to keep handmaids alive seem real arbitrary.
Going by the lore and law of Gilead, it’s amazing to me that June still has eyes, hands and properly functioning lady parts.
Exactly. It would make sense for them to keep handmaids and any women of child bearing age alive since they’re having a fertility crisis. As you mention, Jeanine was going to get killed for way less. Same with Nick’s wife and the guardian she ran away with, but she was killed. It would’ve made more sense to turn her into a handmaid instead of executing her. They turned the wife and mother of the family that were hiding June into a handmaid early in season 2.
The one thing I could see with Eden is that she wasn’t for sure fertile, and all of the handmaids we’ve seen have had at least one child. But yeah, they definitely intended to kill Jeanine for less, and mutilated a handful of other handmaids for *way* less. I don’t remember if they’ve executed other handmaids (and I’m absolutely not going to rewatch the series to see if they did or not- these episodes are a one and done). They shot that one handmaid who eventually died, but she had a guardian’s gun and was shooting at everyone else so I can understand that they wouldn’t have time to weigh whether she would have more babies over whether she would shoot more guardians or another handmaid.
Yes! You perfectly summed up my attitude towards this episode. The scene with Commander Lawrence explicitly saying that Gilead doesn’t care about children and that they were about to torture Hannah COMPLETELY snuffed out the notion that Gilead needs to preserve June or keep her alive. Aunt Lydia telling June she was being sent to a breeding commune felt like the writers singing “HAVE NO FEAR, WE’VE GOT STORIES FOR YEARS!”
Speaking of Lydia, I was at least hoping she would come through this ep. I assume that’s where they’re heading with her character… but it should’ve come already. I think it would’ve been more interesting if June appealed to Lydia’s faith in Gilead, rather than berating her about how easily Janine ‘flipped’… Because quite frankly, I feel like Janine’s character is one of the weaker aspects of this show’s writing. They basically treat it like, oh, she has a trauma/mental illness… she has no convictions… we can make her do anything we want!Also why the fuck didn’t they just strangle Lydia and steal the van at the end? I thought that’s where it was going. Maybe it would’ve redeemed the episode somewhat… but having the secondary handmaids killed off by a fucking TRAIN of all things just made me burst out laughing at how absurd it all was. June can’t get hit by trains – she’s got 12 layers of titanium plot armor!
I think the guardian took the keys with him, but idk why June didn’t either A) kill Lydia for real or B) run away as soon as she was incapacitated. She kind of chose the worst of both worlds, which turned out ok for her (because it always does) but not Alma and Brianna. ETA: I am glad we didn’t end up with them in the breeding commune, though. I’m not opposed to more Gilead world-building but I don’t need to see yet another creative way to torture women. If we’re going to learn more about Gilead I’d like to see more from the people in charge. Maybe they could explain some of the more baffling decisions they’ve made.
What was with that other handmaid telling June “No” when she was about to hit/kill Lydia? Why in the world would she stop her? That act basically got her and the other handmaid’s killed, since Lydia raised the alarm.
Oh look, two Handmaids made past the Speeding Train of Convenience. And they’re the two top-billed actors of the group, what were the odds?
I’m doing a Lost rewatch now and those other nameless handmaids getting shot and hit by the train really felt like in season 5 of Lost when the beach was attacked by flaming arrows and all of the nameless survivors were killed, with only the named main characters surviving.Both times it was like the show was saying “We don’t care about these nameless characters, let’s get rid of them and focus on the only ones with names that the audience cares about.”
Well, redshirts are a thing since the 60s.
Yes, but even on the original Star Trek they only killed 1-2 redshirts in an episode. On the Lost episode I mentioned these were a bunch of background extras that had been there for the previous 4 seasons. And for this episode, those 4 (?) other handmaids had been there since the previous season finale – some of them had actual dialogue scenes with June. Wouldn’t exactly call them redshirts.Although they were all wearing red.
You talked about “nameless characters”. Two of the dead handmaids were nameless extras with no lines. The other two, Alma and Brianna, were named characters that had been around since season 1. The four of them were not the same. The first two were redshirts, the other two weren’t. I thought you were referring to the former.
If you had put a gun to my head and told me that 2 of those 4 handmaids had been around since season 1 I could never have told you which 2 they were, or what their names were.Those 2 may have had names and been around since season 1, but come on – all 4 of them were “redshirts”.
the showrunner basically said that they had to kill everyone off this season because they filmed during covid meaning they needed a smaller cast, and to show the consequences of june’s actions.
That is a weak excuse. You know what you do? Have the handmaids get separated during an escape/raid – June and Janine go one way, and the other 3 (4?) go another way. Then you have June/Janine wondering if the other handmaids are ok, what they’re doing, if they got captured. You don’t even need to show those other ones again, so that gets around the “smaller cast due to Covid” issue. They just decided “the audience only knows/cares about June and Janine, so let’s kill these other ones off so we don’t have to develop them or keep showing them onscreen.”
the Gilead officials refusing to just kill her makes no sense.This is the core of the issue with this kind of narrative being translated into multiple-season longform rather than a miniseries. You have a main lead with a contract and a marketing pull, all over the promotional material. It becomes The Elisabeth Moss Show. Too bad it doesn’t fit the story. June should have either escaped or died by now. Heck, why in the hell was she ready to die AFTER revealing the location of the others? She should have killed herself, like a badass operative would do, to leave her capturers with nothing. But no, June will keep being the main character forever and ever, internal consistency be damned.Also, fuck the stupid, disgusting romance angle. Guess what, you won’t find any of such nonsense in Atwood’s novel, because that’s great literature, not the torture porn version of a Hallmark movie.
When Lydia described the “birthing colony” I was disgusted, but from the show’s perspective, it makes perfect sense. There are handmaids that will never “get with the program” and will always cause trouble for Gilead, but Gilead can’t afford to kill them and lose potential children. So it makes sense that instead of leaving these “troublemakers” stationed in homes where they can get into trouble, why not put them all in one place like a prison where they work all day, and when it’s time for the ceremony the Commander and wife come to them.This is something that, from Gilead’s perspective, should’ve been done with June, Janine, etc a long time ago.
The way this season is reveling in torture-porn violence I’m surprised they weren’t sent to a facility to be come baby-birthing torsos. This is terrible.
At this point, she escaped and got recaptured how many times? Ten? Twelve? Feels like they’re aiming for a representation of the myth of Sisyphus.
Yeah, the only way I was able to justify her not being hanged last season was that she’s a handmaid and too valuable to dispose of. But then, there were handmaids being hanged last year.
Kind of seems like the only realistic hope for escape at the end there would be overwhelming the guard and taking the gun and the car. Trains aren’t THAT long, they’ve got at most a five – ten minute head start, then you’ve got the van coming after them with the armed guard, who is presumably able to call for back up. Kind of hard to see them escaping…which they *have* to do right? I really hope they’re not doing *another* iteration of June escaping and being recaptured.
Oh, freight trains are indeed that long. When Dominos pizza was 30 minutes or free and located just across the tracks, I used to time my order so the driver would leave just as the freight train passed through town. I’m fairly sure I was the one who ruined it for everyone. Sorry.
I suspect that the driver took the keys with him.
which is why you overwhelm the guard and take his shit
I really hope they’re not doing *another* iteration of June escaping and being recaptured.Isn’t that what this show is all about? It’s like a procedural at this point.
Escaping by car from Gilead doesn’t seem to work that well because of checkpoints though. Unless they were scared the driver/Guardian took the keys……
Maybe you can credit the slog of season 3 more than the pandemic but the momentum of this show is super dead. I’ll stick it out but I hope this show is done at season 5 at the most.I wish they gave the characters who died this ep more screen time and maybe some flashbacks cause that woulda helped feel more weight, albeit still a heartbreaking scene. That woulda been a more interesting show if it switched from handmaid to handmaid and their experience then June refusing to escape to get more of her friends killed.
The scene at the end where they were saying their names is a direct callback to the book.
‘Quite a remarkable feat considering this is an extremely June-centric one, with her acting in almost every harrowing scene. As a director, Moss is really into cramped close ups where we can see every contorted facial expression’I mean, this literally describes every episode whether or not Moss directs
Yeah, it feels she just told the DP “Do what you usually do. Action!”
The ending with the listing of names is a literal quote from the book. It’s how the theory that the narrator in the book was named June came to be. I’d honestly have been fine if it were a “say her name” moment considering how precious names are in the show. But it’s directly from the book.
“The Bend”
“Time Hortons”
“that he helped overthrow Gilead”
“who terrifies me in similar ways that private school teen girls dismissively wondering why I still shop at Urban Outfitters can terrify me.”is there anyone in the editing department or has G/O just cut funding for people who make writers shine?
It’s not “ chic” to be locked into a mask. The TV show has it right – it is purely an instrument of repression. But I did have to LOL for realz when Moira said the public vigil would be “crowded” considering that people in Toronto are cowering under their beds right now.All governments of every stripe care about power – that’s literally what a government is: the power to tell someone else what to do.Also, please don’t be so stupid to think 80 million Republican voters actually want women stripped of all their Constitutional rights.Last, it’s interesting how the “geniuses” of Gilead transport the entire CELL of terrorist Handmaidens in one van with NO masks, NO being locked to the vehicle, and no FACE HOODS even though that’s exactly what they did to June when she was being transporter on her own. Oh and Driver Dumb-Dumb evidently needed to take a crap in the woods (otherwise he would’ve been five yards away) instead of waiting until he got to the colony. Real competent, let me tell ya.PS – Based on the glimpses of the other prisoners in the torture center, clearly other people besides Saint June are resisting the government!
Not 80 million Republicans – just like, what 30 million? 40 million? I don’t know, it sure seems like the “mainstream” or average Republican voter today would certainly prefer a monarchical theocracy (a Christian nation wholly controlled by one man, Donald Trump, with zero checks and balances on his power – don’t lie, everyone knows that’s your ideal American government if you could have it. We just won’t let you). I have no idea why an American conservative would even watch the Handmaid’s Tale. The novel and series are a direct indictment and condemnation of far-right groups and beliefs. If Gilead were real, what side do you honestly think Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and the Trump family would end up on? Seriously.
THANK YOU!
“please don’t be so stupid to think 80 million Republican voters actually want women stripped of all their Constitutional rights.”No, but they’re fine staying in a party that wants this.
“Oh and Driver Dumb-Dumb evidently needed to take a crap in the woods (otherwise he would’ve been five yards away) instead of waiting until he got to the colony.”We have no idea how far away the colony was. Could’ve been an hour. Hard to hold it in that long, especially when you have to stop and wait for a train.
Boy, the writing on this show is so fucking bad.1. I kinda thought that they’d be going for S7 TWD torture porn with Lydia going full on Negan on June’s ass, but I really forgot how insanely stupid everyone in Gilead is. But hey, that waterboarding scene with the cross on a cloth was kinda hilarious.
2. Anyways, they’d wasted a shitton of time, plenty of resources and made complete and utter fools out of themselves before actually doing what anyone as morally corrupt as they are would have done in the first place – threatening to hurt Hannah.3. The worst part is that I can’t even believe that anyone is Gilead believes in anything at this point. They don’t even seem to be brainwashed, at this point they might as well openly admit they don’t give a fuck about God, but torture and rape are fun as hell.
I mean, they all must think that June is this crazy psycho revolutionary, right? And then she fools them once, giving them the wrong location. So she must be even crazier, a massive sinner and so far away from God that Hitler looks at her with absolute disgust, right? And yet they are so convinced that threatening her child (whom she hadn’t seen for years) 100% worked that they just shot the poor commander at the safe house before actually finding the handmaids? Seriously?4. The handmaids are being transported in handcuffs. You literally just showed us the extreme measures they took to transport June ALONE. Why would you put your very own Aunt Lydia in a van with a bunch of terrorists with barely any restraints? 5. Why wouldn’t the handmaids just try and kill Lydia, or take her as a hostage and disarm the guard? Or just attack the guard while he is taking the biggest dump in the history of dumps?More importantly, if they weren’t planning to get the truck, why wouldn’t they at least slash the tires?
6. How. Fucking. Long. Was. That. Train.7. In summation, Nick is a fool, Whitford is a fool, that other moron who was questioning June is a fool, Lydia is the worst fool of all, most handmaids are fucking dead, the endless Shitpiercer train will be blocking the road for the next couple hours while June and Janine get to the front and win the fucking war.I honestly have no idea how anyone would allow Gilead to even remain a country, much less be afraid of it.
I honestly have no idea how anyone would allow Gilead to even remain a country, much less be afraid of it.This show keeps dangling the idea of a war between Gilead and Canada, but we haven’t the faintest idea of what the powers involved are. How much of a military power is Gilead? Does it have access to the former US’s nuclear arsenal? Isn’t it already at war with what remains of the US? (By the way, wasn’t Nick sent to the front last season? What happened with that storyline?)We know Gilead isn’t even recognized by the U.N., so isn’t Canada going to receive assistance from its allies if attacked by a rogue country?
“And yet they are so convinced that threatening her child (whom she hadn’t seen for years)“Pretty sure June has seen Hannah a few times in the last couple of seasons. Didn’t she go to a school and watch her? She also had a supervised visit with her. And didn’t she break into her house? She has definitely seen Hannah a few times, within the past year.“Why wouldn’t the handmaids just try and kill Lydia” Totally agree with this. No idea why that other handmaid told June not to hit/kill her. At the very least, knock her out. From what we saw, it was Lydia who alerted the guard, so this inaction got that one handmaid shot (and potentially the others run over by the train – who knows if they would’ve been hit by it if Lydia had been unconscious/dead and hadn’t raised the alarm to the guard.“why wouldn’t they at least slash the tires?” With what? They are handcuffed and have no knives. Lydia’s taser can’t slash tires.
“How. Fucking. Long. Was. That. Train.” Have you never been driving and been stopped by a freight train? I have had to sit at a crossing for 30 minutes once. I was half expecting June and Janine to look confident on the other side of the train and then the train turned out to be a short one with Lydia and the guard able to get to them. But the length of the train shown here is average for a freight train.
After seeing the mostly glowing reviews here for this season I figured I would give it a shot and catch up, but ooof this episode might be the end (again) for me.
“5. Why wouldn’t the handmaids just try and kill Lydia, or take her as a hostage and disarm the guard?”We just got this in the UK and besides the cynicism of spending 40 mins breaking June down so she’ll make a Sophie’s Choice that doesn’t actually get anyone directly killed, why in the world does June not take the taser with her? Could have been useful…..
More torture porn. Also, June’s plot armour at this point is farcical. Aunt Lyds: “Of course we’re not going to execute you! .. Even though we’ve lost custody of you about 8 times, you’ve caused an international incident, a possible invasion, a political imprisonment, and more still!”
The “birthing colony” Lydia describes makes perfect sense for Gilead. They can’t leave someone like June in a home with a Commander, but they can’t afford to kill off a handmaid that can provide children. So why not put troublemaking handmaids like this some place where they’re kept locked up, and the Commanders/Wives come to visit them when it’s time for the ceremony. It’s horrific, but it keeps these troublemaking handmaids as a resource but locked up.
Speaking as someone who lives near a train tracks, yes, trains really can be that long, particularly freight trains like that one appeared to be. If you get stuck as one is coming by, you may as well shut off the engine because you’ll be there for 10 minutes at least.
By the way, Gilead is totally going to execute Aunt Lydia, right? At some point they’ve got to think she’s in cahoots with June, but even if they don’t it’s easy to see that the old girl has lost a step, so why not just get rid of her?
Gilead is totally going to execute Aunt Lydia, right?Not while Ann Dowd has a contract. What do you think this is, Game of Thrones?
I would’ve loved if, while they were running way, June yelled out (for the guard to hear) “Thanks for letting us go, Aunt Lydia!”
Plus if they had done this, it would have made more sense that they didn’t taser Lydia or knock her out….
This show has gotten so goddamn dumb. The endless CG train that took out the handmaids was taken right out of “The Blacklist.” Honestly, I don’t know why I watch either. I guess I have too much time invested in watching Spader chew on his cheek and Elisabeth Moss looking directly at camera.
This was such a great episode but so infuriating as well.Does June really think that Gilead will hurt/torture Hannah? This episode wants us to believe it, because June chooses to believe it, but I don’t buy it. Lawrence may say that Gilead cares about power, not children, but children are the way Gilead gets power. So there’s no way they’re going to torture an innocent child who has nothing to do with June (and as shown here, only recognizes her as someone she’s afraid of). By killing children they would be destroying their own future.This is exactly the reason why Gilead doesn’t kill June. Yes, she is a troublemaker that will never be part of Gilead. But as far as Gilead is concerned, they only have a small number of handmaids so they can’t afford to kill off any of them. As horrific as the idea is, the idea of a “birthing colony” as Lydia describes makes perfect sense for Gilead. There will be handmaids who will never “get with the program” so it makes sense to imprison them someplace where they can’t cause trouble (like they could if they were stationed in a Commander’s home) and have the Commander/Wife visit them once a month for the ceremony.As far as June giving up the other handmaids, I’m not a mother, so I can’t understand what June is feeling about willing to do this to save Hannah. Maybe every mother watching this would agree with her, but to me this just made no sense. I’ve already said why I believe Gilead would not hurt/torture Hannah, so this should’ve been an empty threat. But June basically gave up the 5 (?) other handmaids to be imprisoned again. She didn’t know about the birthing colony at this point, but she had no know what would happen to them if she gave them up – either a return to their previous status, or killed outright. I just hated June at this moment, which shouldn’t be what the viewer thinks of a show’s main character. When all the handmaids were back together, I half expected the rest of them to resent June for getting them captured again. But they all seemed to be “Oh, you turned us all in to be raped and imprisoned again, no big deal.”As for the escape, I have no idea why that other handmaid told June not to knock out (or was she going to kill her?) Lydia. Does she really care that much about Lydia, or not killing anyone, that she would tell June “No!”? Even if June agrees with this crazy request, just knock Lydia out! Or tase her – you have her taser – use it on her. As far as we know the guard is still in the woods unaware of what’s happening, so June not knocking out/killing Lydia here got that one handmaid shot, and potentially got the other ones killed by that train (if Lydia was unconscious/dead and the guard still off using the bathroom, the handmaids may have gotten across the train tracks safely).This was basically the show saying “June and Janine are the only handmaids in this group that have names that we care about, so we’re just gonna kill the others off”. I’ve seen another comment say that this was done because the show needed to work with a smaller group of actors during Covid last year so it was easier to film scenes with 2 handmaids instead of 6, but there were other ways to get around this without killing these other handmaids off. That was just lazy and bad writing.
I found the writing for this episode to be cheap and exploitative. Forty minutes of torture porn including the murders of two women as a prelude to June’s child being threatened to get her to do something. And then the Handmaids pretty much instantly escape. I feel like both these narrative choices together are cheap because June risks 10-12 lives to save her daughter’s life and it costs Mayday nothing and June a couple of days of angst at most.And I feel like the whole conceit of June being captured and not executed just doesn’t make any sense. I kind of doubt a real life repressive regime would have gone to the trouble of trying to get a location for the other women off her but once they did, it makes no logical sense for them to keep her alive. June is meant to be in her mid-30s in the show presumably, so we are meant to believe the regime is willing to risk allowing her to have any degree of freedom for the sake of one or two more children?Also if we are meant to believe Nick pulled strings to get Gilead to punish her without actually killing her, this again makes no sense since it seems it would tip his hand as being a Mayday agent/part of the resistance.