In other news, Nick has creepy sex with his brainwashed, 15-year-old wife, otherwise she would have reported him as gay and he would have been hanged. Oh, and Ofglen apparently manages to off most of Gilead's leadership. My money is on Fred Waterford having survived while Commander Pryce and others are dead. I wonder if this means that the influence of the Waterfords in the government will grow and Gilead will become even more corrupt and morally bankrupt in the process. I mean, the Waterfords are major hypocrites who don't like to live by the rules they preach.
Finally an ending I can be happy with! And not a moment too soon because things have been very dire indeed. Of course, as triumphant as that suicide bombing was, there will unlikely lead to terrible consequences to all handmaids. I'm also left wondering how Ofglen was able to get hold of explosives, but I suppose Mayday organized everything and then offered her the opportunity to become the suicide bomber considering Gilead cut out her tongue. The whole Nick/Eden situation continues to be gross and I felt bad that Max was put in such an awkward position, especially when June noted the obvious: His reluctance will unlikely cause Eden to rat him out considering she's completely brainwashed in the world of Gilead. The episode tried it's damnedest to make Serena sympathetic, both in the flashbacks and in her softer relationship with June, but I knew it wouldn't last. Because gods forbid June ask to see Hannah even if just for a few minutes. Serena acted like June asked to commit murder. So ungrateful! The episode did give us a few lighter moments, like the world's most awkward brunch and this beautiful little exchange: "What if Nick's a gender traitor?" "I'm sure that's not true." Combined with June's smile to herself, that whole moment left me in stitches. That wasn't the only hypocrisy of that moment: Serena's sneering at the protesters about being privileged is deeply ironic considering the lifestyle she would eventually hold.
You can't have a viable society of only aristocrats and slaves. You need some sort of "middle class" and "peasantry" to do the dirty work and the routine chores, not to mention upper-level servants to the aristocrats. We see Gilead as a temporary aberration, but the people who run Gilead see themselves as creating a whole new society that they intend to be permanent. So they're setting it up to make sure it's a viable replacement for the society they overthrew. I thought it was more realistic to show that Gilead isn't easy to escape. It took Moira more than one attempt, and in the book and movie she never did get out. It's also realistic to see June backslide psychologically, as everything Aunt Lydia does is intended to terrify her into obedience. It must be how Janine was turned from a smart-mouthed woman who had nothing but contempt for the Aunts, the Red Centre, and Gilead into a meek, often-submissive woman with just a tenuous hold on reality. It wouldn't surprise me if Aunt Lydia told her that if she didn't behave, they'd remove her other eye as well. The group marriage between the Daughters and the Guardians is from the novel.
I've had a chance to catch up now, and have some further comments. It should be obvious by now that due to human nature, violence often does beget violence as the first victims take revenge, and the cycle goes on. That's why the Middle East hasn't been at peace in millennia. The campus scenes remind me of a few years ago when there were protests over Ann Coulter speaking here in Canada. Minus the shooting (since that is not the normal Canadian way of protesting), that's the reaction she would have received from a lot of people. She got really huffy when told that the speech she intended to give would be in violation of Canada's hate speech laws, so if she refused to change it, she'd best not give it in the first place. She started ranting about her "First Amendment rights"... as if she actually has those in a foreign country. We do have freedom of expression here, but there are limits when what we want to express publicly includes hate speech. As for Ofglen, I guess she must have had a 180-degree turnabout after her tongue was removed. Before, she told June that her life was much better as a Handmaid, since she had shelter, regular decent food, had kicked her drug addiction, and her Commander and his wife were nice to her. That would probably have changed, so it's not surprising to me that she would have been willing to kill herself and take as many Commanders with her as possible. Still on the subject of Ofglen... apparently the Wives are kept in the dark over other handmaids' punishments. Serena kept asking Ofglen questions, which was really cruel given that Ofglen could no longer speak. Serena kept yapping on, and I really hope it's because she didn't know, and not because it would have led up to "Why won't you answer me? Cat got your tongue?" The Waterfords are massive hypocrites, and Serena was oblivious that she herself would be expected to live by the rules she helped create. This was rubbed in her nose when Aunt Lydia started writing in a notebook, said that Aunts have a special dispensation that allows them to read and write, and further rubs it in by complaining that it was really such a nuisance. At the very least the Waterfords wanted to influence the public into accepting this "domestic feminism" crap, whether or not they intended it to be implemented via a normal election in which their "party" would win or if they did it by violently overthrowing the legitimate government. Anyone notice that really annoying verbal tic that Aunt Lydia has now? "Oh, ho, ho, ho..." as she proceeds to lecture the Commander on his marriage and household, lecture Serena about her smoking, and micromanage everything that Offred is expected to live by - including those disgusting green concoctions. That consummation scene with Nick and his child bride... yikes. But some religious groups actually do have this as a custom (the hole in the sheet). They believe that sex is for procreation, not enjoyment, so it appears that Gilead has adopted that. I couldn't help but notice just how available some very sharp objects were. Serena's knitting needles, that oversized knife the Commander had in the kitchen... I presume Nick wasn't in the building when the bomb was detonated, so it remains to be seen if he gets to actually leave the Waterfords (ie. if Commander Price dies, the transfer won't go through). I can see Nick observing Eden treating June like shit, telling her to stop doing that, and Eden wondering why the Waterfords' handmaid should matter to him.
Oh wow, that was some ending! Also of note the Catholic worded dinner prayer has been altered to remove mention of Christ. I take that as Gilead's religion has removed all reference to Christ and does not claim to be Christian. During the "wedding" a passage was read from Genesis and misapplied. The part about "and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" was not a command from God, nor was it uttered as a blessing. Rather, it was a statement of fact - the after affect of eating the forbidden fruit. Safe to conclude from the above that Gilead is an amalgamation of various religions and has picked and chosen various holy passages to give itself a veneer of respectability and piety. I doubt the entire unadulterated Bible is freely available in Gilead and, instead, the common folk only have access to abridged passages taken out of context.
There's a lot of cherry-picked stuff from Genesis, and some cherry-picked stuff from the New Testament (Aunt Lydia quoting "blessed be the meek" at June, and slapping June when she completed the quote; June was Catholic and still considers herself Catholic, at least to some extent). Women are supposed to be meek in Gilead, but they'd damn well better not get any notions about inheriting anything, let alone the Earth. As an aside, I have a button I bought at an SF convention: "The meek will inherit the Earth. The rest of us will go on to the Stars."
So, it seems like the bombing at the Red Center made Serena Joy go full Edith Wilson, leaving her in power as de facto leader of Gilead.... at least for now. She has now managed to achieve what she had always wanted from the start. It was also revealed that the number of handmaids killed in the Red Center bombing did in fact exceed the number of commanders killed, serving as kind of a follow-up to the moral questions raised in the previous episode regarding the use of violence as an instrument for political change. What cost would you be willing to accept as "collateral damage" if it meant significantly hurting Gilead's leadership in the process?
"I wish I could give you a world without violence. Without pain. That's all I ever wanted." Easily one of the most hypocritical things any Gilead (Gilean? Gileadean?) person has ever said and of course it came from Lydia, who said those with such sincerity. The closing scenes with the handmaid's telling each other their real names, followed by reading off the names of the dead handmaids in Canada with Ofglen's real name, Lillie, was a beautiful one-two punch that left me weeping tears of joy. That symmetry with June's query about Ofglen's real name mad those two moments all the more poignant. Along with Serena Joy giving June the power of the pen again, the show is finally giving me a real sense of hope. I know the road is still very long ahead, but at least there's just a bit of light near the end to guide the way. That moment with Serena Joy and June contained more redemptive power than the deliberately false steps Serena took last episode. She's far from becoming a good person, but with her quietly subverting power within the Gilead power structure while Fred is hospitalized, there's now a glimmer of decency in her that wasn't there before. Oooh, that's a very good point. I heard the numbers but I failed to compare the two. A vital morality question indeed.
Interesting that tonight's episode ended the same way as last week: with a Handmaid pressing a plunger trigger to effect a defiant revolutionary act -- but the pen is mightier than the sword (or explosive). I take it from the scenes in the embassy in Toronto that the United States still exists, and Gilead was a breakaway republic (perhaps the east coast)? What is the rest of the country like? We've heard mention of the wars in Chicago, for example, so where is the boundary? Surely California must still be a thriving area, considering it is (was) the 6th largest economy in the world.
It was mentioned in Season 1 that Anchorage, Alaska is currently the capital of the United States, while Washington DC was heavily implied to be capital of Gilead. It was also established that the U.S. flag currently depicts two full stars, with the other 48 only being represented by white outlines. The generally accepted (but unconfirmed) "Fanon" interpretation is that this is a reference to Alaska and Hawaii. So far, there hasn't been any explanation in the show how this fits with the ongoing fighting between Gileadan and United States military in Illinois, because beyond these occasional info dumps everything else has been left up to our interpretation. As far as I recall, the only major cities which were ever mentioned to be located within Gilead's boundaries are Washington, New York, and Boston though. Season 2 continues to make mentions of a "front" somewhere (Nick recently urged Commander Pryce to reassign him there). One possible interpretation is that Alaska and Hawaii were the first states to (fully) secede when Gilead took over the country, with a "true" U.S. government eventually being formed by them and the flag being changed accordingly. However, other states (or at least portions of them), and individual miliary units/bases in the "Lower 48" could have followed suit by swearing allegiance to the government up in Anchorage and launching a rebellion against Gilead. So, Alaska and Hawaii could be the only two states under "full" control of the rump U.S. government, while formal control over other states in the contiguois United States may be disputed with ongoing fighting taking place in them. Or maybe the Anchorage government managed to "liberate" other states in the Western United States and they simply haven't changed their flag accordingly because these states don't have a civilian government yet and are under military administration instead. It's like I said, they haven't given us much hard information so far... maybe that's delibarate on the part of the writers.
Btw, if you google for it, you're gonna find a couple of fan-made maps speculating on the exact extent of Gilead's territory. This map for instance is pre-dating the TV show, and it is solely based on the book (and maybe the movie?). Somewhat hilariously, this map assumes that Gilead was formed in 1986 - one year after the novel was published - which means the U.S. president who got assassinated by the Sons of Jacob was in fact Ronald Reagan. Still, it does bear a striking ressemblence to the scenario presented in the TV show: Alaska and Hawaii are part of a rump United States along with most of the Western states and they are fighting a war against Gilead (in which apparently even tactical nukes were used, hence the existence of the Colonies). However, the capital of the U.S. is Los Angeles where George H. W. Bush is running the relocated remnants of the federal government. A somewhat similar map does include information from the TV adaptation and presents a similar scenario. In this case however, the rump United States is indeed limited to just Alaska and Hawaii, and doesn't directly control the Western states. Instead the "Mayday Front" - headquartered at Salt Lake City - administers this region of the country. The mostly Midwestern states between the rebel-control areas and Gilead are disputed and propbably a warzone. I'm not sure if that Salt Lake City reference is meant to imply that Mayday was founded by Mormon rebels. The third map is pretty similar to the second one, except that Mayday is headquartered in Sacramento, and Texas has seceded from the U.S./Gilead. Also, Canada has occupied parts of the area round the Great Lakes. This fourth map assumes that the U.S. did in fact split into several different countries and territories. While the division into several territories is in itself not entirely impossible, this map still comes across as a bit preposterous. For instance, the Western states have bound together as the oddly named country of "Hesperia", and parts of the Midwest and Rust Belt are apparently controlled by armed SOCIALISTS. Okay...
The person who made up this map should have done some more research. It shows the territory of Nunavut in Canada... which did not officially exist prior to April 1, 1999. In 1986, the land included in Nunavut was still part of the Northwest Territories. Interesting point in the side notes about the UN, though. I presume in the TV series the headquarters physically located in the U.S. has been written off?
Banners at the memorial Moira visited depicted red and white stripes with a maple leaf imposed over a blue field. Perhaps a change in Canadian government as well and this banner depicts a blending of US and Canada. What was the building or location Moira visited that had the information about events in Gilead and the fallen women? US consolate? Embassy? It had a more typical US flag. Or maybe the new Canadian flag? Boston is clearly under Gilead control. The Gilead flag is red and white sunburst pattern similar to the WW II Japanese rising sun flag. Superimposed over the sun rays is a silhouette of a bird of prey, an eagle. Or was it a Dove?
I interpreted them as unofficial (?) "Little America" banners... the symbol of the growing Americans-in-exile community in Canada. They did have small "Little America" characters on top of them.
There is no way this would happen. Good will to our southern neighbors who are trying to escape a fascist government that wants to enslave or kill them is one thing. But giving up our country to do so? Nope. Why would Canada have a new flag? Just because Canada, in this show, takes in American refugees, doesn't in any way mean Canada would become American. Unless, of course, some of those refugees were to literally bite the hand that feeds them.
I'm pretty sure the Canadian flag has been seen in several episodes, though I don't remember specifics.
Because something happened within the Canadian government? Perhaps something like absorbing a portion of the (former) United States? These banners look to me to be a bit "official" as in something more than just a decorative consumer product. I don't recall seeing a Canadian flag. But this stood out to me immediately. Red and white stripes with a Canada maple leaf superimposes over a blue field.. The text above the blue field says "Little America." Maybe it's a provincial flag or, perhaps, an unofficial community flag. Although I don't recall ever seeing a Chinatown flag or a Little Italy flag in real life. Gilead Banner Interestingly, it is very similar to this: https://i.redditmedia.com/LW_r-QlUY...png?w=1024&s=73aa2da8abdfe9ac7c6a22b9c2cddfba