Spoilers The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

[Jayson1]

I think Putnam's death might have been partly political. He was a roadblock in terms of moving forward with that new plan in terms of dealing with the outside world. Because of his position they might have ignored the rape if he was going along with it. As it was the rape was a perfect excuse to get him out of the way.

 

[Shawnster]

Yeah, there is no T&L comparison there unless two women running away from something in a car constitutes a similarity

Yeah, that's the stereotype.

This felt like a jump the shark moment. It just felt so out of place story wise, even if it was obvious how it was going to play out.

The crazy thing about some people on YT, though, is one woman refused to believe me even after I posted the link to a clip of the ritual where the Handmaids beat the guy to death. There were no rocks anywhere in the

There was a stoning scene in the first season, though. I think it was a baby killer that the handmaids stoned. It's easy to confuse scenes from years ago and difficult to convince someone they are mistaken.

What's dubious about it?

As Dr Doom Monkey pointed out above, it's dubious Putnam was executed for the rape, even if that was the stated reason. It's more likely he was eliminated because he opposed the Bethel plan.

 

[Timewalker]

There was a stoning scene in the first season, though.

NO. THERE. WAS. NO. STONING. SCENE. (or at least not one in which anyone was actually stoned)

Yes, there was a scene in which the Handmaids were ordered to stone Janine, for the crime of endangering a baby. Janine kidnapped her daughter, Angela (whom Janine secretly named "Charlotte"), from the Putnam residence and fled. When caught, she climbed up on a bridge, intending to jump and kill both herself and the baby.

June convinced her to give Angela up, but was unable to convince her to get off the bridge rail. Janine jumped, survived, and was sentenced to stoning for endangering the baby.

June and the Handmaids were brought to the place where the Salvagings/Particicutions happen, and ordered to stone Janine. All of them held a rock, but June let hers fall to the ground. She said, "I'm sorry, Aunt Lydia," and refused to pick up the rock and throw it. The other Handmaids followed suit. Lydia prevented the idiotic guards from shooting everyone, though Ofglen #2 got her teeth knocked out for verbally protesting.

The Handmaids were dismissed, and Janine was taken away. We learned later that she'd been sent to the Colonies. The Handmaids were punished in various ways.

I've seen the first season multiple times, both watching it and from participating in discussions on several review channels. Honestly, NOBODY WAS STONED. Nobody killed a baby. We saw just a couple of episodes ago that Angela is alive and well, as Janine was allowed to hold her for a few minutes at the Putnams' house.

 

[Shawnster]

As I said, memory gets blurred over the years when only viewing an episode once.

Thank you for setting us straight.

 

[Shawnster]

I'm confused by the time frame in the flashback. How soon after June's posting at the Waterfords did Janine lose her eye?

 

[Timewalker]

I'm confused by the time frame in the flashback. How soon after June's posting at the Waterfords did Janine lose her eye?

I take it this is from tonight's episode that won't be on for me for over another 2 hours?

Anyway, Janine lost her eye in the Red Centre, before June's first posting, which wasn't the Waterfords (they were her 2nd posting if you go by the TV show, her 3rd if you go by the novel). She mouthed off to Aunt Lydia, saying "Fuck you." Lydia promptly had her hauled off to the hospital to have her eye removed. As Moira explained later, "If my right eye offends thee, pluck it out."

So to put this into the proper timeframe... maybe a couple of days after June and Janine were captured (they were in the same truck when brought to the Red Centre, as we saw in a 3rd season flashback).

 

[theenglish]

Okay, that was very odd--and disappointing. I am beginning to agree with the poster above who thought this might be a shark jumping moment.

Spoiler: Ending of Episode

From the point where they entered the hospital, the editing was so odd I thought something was off. And then when Luke showed up I thought that the whole thing was a hallucination or a dream sequence or something. At the very least, I hope we get a better explanation of how he returned in next week's episode.

 

[Shawnster]

What was the intended goal of the group in No Man's Land? Turn June over to Gilead but let Luke go?

 

[theenglish]

What was the intended goal of the group in No Man's Land? Turn June over to Gilead but let Luke go?

Based on the previous episode, I thought the goal was--

Spoiler: Episode 6

Take them both to Gilead--with Wheeler intervening to have June killed immediately. At the end, we assumed that Luke was on his way to Gilead. In the newest episode, either the group's goals were different than was implied or something happened en route.

 

[Timewalker]

June is in first place on Gilead's shit list. Luke, even though he was a prisoner in the first season, escaped years ago and only caused inconvenience. The worst of his anti-Gilead deeds are a drop in the bucket compared to everything June's done, and of course Fred's murder puts her at the top of Gilead's most-wanted list.

So I can see that they wouldn't bother with Luke, him not being on their official "to-do" list. Besides, Nick can't be the only one secretly working with Mayday.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

That last episode was for many reasons an emotional roller-coaster ride (the June/Luke scenes for one thing), but what really stood out for me was when Elisabeth Moss and Bradley Whitford both suddenly started to audition for an Emmy nomination, with Whitford letting his character's part jovial, part sarcastic mask fully slip for perhaps the very first time on the show, struggling visibly with his guilt and his self-hatred. June's has gotten very good at asking armor-piercing questions and giving "the reason you suck" speeches.

[Spoilers ahead]




June: "Stop them from marrying off Hannah".

Lawrence: "I think that's... that's out of my hands."

June: "But if I do what you want me to do, could you stop it?"

Lawrence: "Gilead's gonna Gilead. You could be with her, June. Wouldn't that make you happy?"

June: "While she's being raped by someone twice her age?"

Lawrence: "Bah, it's an arranged marriage."

June: "Fuck you! Fuck you! All the girls, all the women raped, tortured, abused, in a world that you created, you sick fuck!"

Lawrence: "You think I don't know? You think I don't know the misery that I've caused? You think... you think I'm unaware? I was trying to save humanity. And, you know, I did. I fucking did it. Then it got away, away from me. It went septic. You think I wouldn't take it back? I would take it all back, I'd let the whole fucking human race just die out, just so I wouldn't have... have Gilead on my conscience."

June: "So do something."

Lawrence: "I am! I am! That is what New Bethlehem is, June. It's, it's a better place. It's the place we wrestle a better future out of an unchangable past. A, a place without the, the sham trials and the torture, without child brides."

June: "Hanna's gonna be a child bride."

Lawrence: "But Nichole will not! By the time she comes of age in New Bethlehem, don't you..."

June: "How? How, is that going..."

Lawrence: "Countries modernize. Countries can get better. I've seen it. We start in New Bethlehem. And with those reforms and success, five years, ten years, all of Gilead could be like that. A place that doesn't trample on human rights, a place that will let you leave. Singapore of yore, with any luck. June, I need you. Come help me fix it. June. Come to New Bethlehem, come be with your daughter. Come help me make more of of a difference in Gilead than Mayday ever will."

June: "You really believe you can fix it?"

Lawrence: "I have to. I have to believe it. I have no choice. It's either that or, or yeah... kill myself, like Eleanor, you know. One or the other."

--------------


I also believe that Lawrence could very well be dead by the end of this season. Because despite everything he's still trying to rationalize things, because he's trying to "fix" Gilead like you could have "fixed" the Third Reich. He still doesn't understand that the best way, maybe the only way, to really change Gilead would be for him to strap on a suicide vest and go into a high commander's meeting. Mark Tuello pretty much foreshadowed Lawrence's eventual fate IMO in that other scene where he said that Lawrence might be Gilead's Gorbachev, but his sucessors would be Gilead's Putins.

 

[Shawnster]

Am I the only one who feels the situation with Hannah is going to go very deep south?

I've not read Testament, so I don't know anything.

 

[Timewalker]

Am I the only one who feels the situation with Hannah is going to go very deep south?

I've not read Testament, so I don't know anything.

I expected the garden to be hit with a bomb, but since Hannah is part of The Testaments, they can't kill her off.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Am I the only one who feels the situation with Hannah is going to go very deep south?

I've not read Testament, so I don't know anything.

Current events on the TV show barely mirror those in The Testaments. No military strike on the Wives School, no New Bethlehem plan, ... hell, Hannah wasn't even growing up in Gilead there.

I suppose the raid could go south in the sense that it fails to get Hannah out, but it also derails the aforementioned liberalization plans because now Gilead's hardliners are asking for a response to that provocation... either that or the occurance of an aggressive, but failed military incursion on Gilead's soil causes the U.S. remnant to get further isolated and/or fuels further anti-U.S. sentiment in Canada, ultimately leading to June taking Lawrence's offer? Canada has now a pretext to kick the Americans out and June and Luke end up in New Bethlehem... a colony of sorts where it is uncertain for how long Lawrence will actually able to shield the inhabitants from Gilead's atrocities?

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Well, not unsurprising that the rescue mission anticlimatically went FUBAR. It was basically Alaska & Hawaii attempting a military incursion on the former continental U.S., after all. At the very least Tuello (whose official position is what anyway considering he led the public vigil in the end?) managed to win back June's respect by proving that he's willing to do what's necessary... it's just so that what little is left of the U.S. military is way in over their heads.

June & Lawrence seem to have completely broken with each other now, which also leaves June with practically zero options going forward atm. Not sure how they're going to resolve this in next week's season finale. Maybe a June-Serena-Tuello alliance, which now seems more likely than ever, opens up new opportunities?

 

[theenglish]

Next season is the last for this series--and it looks like the intention is to set up The Testaments--so I would look to that book for clues about next season. It does look like motherhood has made Serena desperate enough to turn back to Tuello and offer what intel she has in exchange for immunity.

 

[Timewalker]

I'm not happy about the YT reviewer I watch yapping on about "vile Canadians" as though we're all vile.

That said, I get why there would be people in Toronto fed up with the existence of "Little America", but shooting up a vigil is going too far.

 

[theenglish]

I'm not happy about the YT reviewer I watch yapping on about "vile Canadians" as though we're all vile.

That said, I get why there would be people in Toronto fed up with the existence of "Little America", but shooting up a vigil is going too far.

Its vile, yes, but far within the realm of possibility considering what we've seen in recent years. In this case though, the Canadians are living in fear of this horrible regime armed with considerable firepower just across the border--and the act of aggression on the part of the Americans could very well bring the might of Gilead to Canada. They probably believe that harbouring Gilead refugees is already a provocation of Gilead that could bring about an invasion in the North. It is also a reflection of current reality with the populist conservative movement in the U.S. (anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, pro-Christian, pro-white, anti-women) already impacting certain parts of the Canadian population.

 

[Timewalker]

Its vile, yes, but far within the realm of possibility considering what we've seen in recent years. In this case though, the Canadians are living in fear of this horrible regime armed with considerable firepower just across the border--and the act of aggression on the part of the Americans could very well bring the might of Gilead to Canada. They probably believe that harbouring Gilead refugees is already a provocation of Gilead that could bring about an invasion in the North. It is also a reflection of current reality with the populist conservative movement in the U.S. (anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, pro-Christian, pro-white, anti-women) already impacting certain parts of the Canadian population.

Exactly. This is something a lot of American viewers don't understand.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

That season finale seemed a bit uneven.

Nick agrees to work for the U.S. government, only to end up in a Gilead jail (and probably stripped of his commander's rank?) because he had to rashly assault Lawrence in front of everyone. What was the point of his subplot with Tuello anyway, when he's not much use as an "asset" anymore now?

The supposed mastermind Joseph Lawrence also seems to have lost a couple of IQ points on his way to the top of Gilead. He needlessly managed to alienate June, Nick and Aunt Lydia, apparently leaving him with only a bunch of hardline commanders as uneasy allies. Was it the writers' intention to paint him as that dumb now? Or maybe this is their way of showing us that Lawrence's plans to "liberalize" Gilead are doomed from the start, because as the man in charge now he has to play by (and enforce) Gilead's rules after all if he doesn't want to get toppled by the commanders immediately below him.

I appreciate the irony though that June and Serena are complete equals in every way now, possibly paving the way for them teaming up to fight crime together, er, I mean save Hannah next season.