• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

Well, I've finally seen this last episode, and now I get why some people are livid that June didn't get in the van as well.

But I also get why June made that decision. She's still got a kid to rescue. Hannah is 10 years old.

There's just no pleasing people. If June had gotten into the van, people would have started bitching that she was abandoning Hannah..

It could have gone either way: June said her Goodbyes to Hannah... and I think she was willing to leave. But Emily's presence changed things. She had the chance to save one child with Emily, and in that moment it was clear that she would stay behind. There was no real decision to make. Especially given the way girls are married off as children: Hannah isn't so far from that fate.
 
I don't know about the TV series, but in the movie:

In the 1990 movie, Offred slits his throat after someone in Mayday leaves a knife in the drawer of her dressing table (Ofglen has already told her that Mayday might want her to kill him); she's uncertain whether or not she can actually kill him until he makes it clear he won't help her when Serena finds out about their trip to Jezebels'. Nick has her arrested for the murder, but in reality is sending her to safety with Eyes who are also part of Mayday.
The show has made him into a worse figure than the movie version. He needs something more.
 
Yeah, I get why she didn't go. But there is a lot to be said about getting out when you still can. Gilead will collapse at some point in the near future, societies like it just aren't able to function for long. Even now, it's pretty clear the entire female population is probably close to open rebellion.

That said, I do want to see Fred and the other commanders killed in awful ways.

The show has made him into a worse figure than the movie version. He needs something more.

While I understand the desire for a heinous end, I think a trial and then public execution would be a worse punishment for Fred and the rest. It's one thing to die if one thinks one's cause is righteous and will prevail. It's quite another to see what one built be destroyed and to see that one never had God's backing, one's cause was never righteous, and in the end, they really are beneath contempt.

Then hang them on the wall.
 
Errr... what?!?!
v0yik9owcojei5roiy1s.png
 
No. No. No. NO. Just stop.

That's almost as bad as the wine someone was going to market under The Handmaid's Tale banner. Thankfully, the plug was quickly pulled on that one.
 
Okay, that needs to get a cease & desist going on it (or whatever the legal term/procedure is to stop this sort of sleazy crap).

There are people selling Handmaid's Tale costumes on Etsy, but those are semi-custom made to fit the buyer (the sellers are well aware that women have a variety of different body types and don't all fit industry molds), and they're as authentic-looking as possible. They're also quite expensive, and anyone buying them is not looking for a cheap Halloween costume. A lot of women who buy them are wearing them at protests and political rallies.
 
That costume offer was not just missing the point, but making a point of ignoring the point. Good that it's gone.
 
That costume offer was not just missing the point, but making a point of ignoring the point. Good that it's gone.
Worse, in their retraction, Yandy tried to offer up "Oh, but we thought we were following the pattern of empowering women!" as an excuse.
 
No, that is not what the women at Jezebels' wear. This is, believe it or not, actually somewhat modest in comparison to what some of those women were forced to wear.
 
After several years I've read the novel for the first time (and the first time since I've seen the show) again btw.

Overall, they made pretty good use of the source material. While Season 1 serves a direct adaptation of the novel, even Season 2 features sections from the book, most notably the episode with the prayvaganza where Gilead soldiers get married to child brides. Sometimes even throwaway lines from the novel made it into the show somehow. For instance, it's mentioned at one point that Canada didn't want to enrage its powerful neighbour to the south and extradited runaway handmaids back to Gilead. As I recall, that's exactly one the things the Waterfords' diplomatic visit to Canada was about in the show, even though Gilead's attempt at getting refugees extradited by the Canadian government ultimately failed in the TV version.

For me, the most glaring deviation from the book (aside from the more well-known ones like the Waterfords being siginificantly younger on TV than in the book, Gilead not being a racially segregated Apartheid-like society any longer, and the existence of a rump U.S. government headquartered at Anchorage which had been completely absent from the novel) is a more three-dimensional depiction of the character of the Commander.

While the Joseph Fiennes version is often depicted as a downright vicious asshole, the Commander from the novel comes across as generally well-meaning, albeit in a warped, excessively paternalistic sense. He likes to thinks of himself as the good guy, and sometimes seems to exhibit genuine ignorance and naivity with regards how badly people and especially women have to suffer under the regime he helped to create. For instance, the Commander from the novel doesn't really strike me as the kind of guy who would personally order the amputation of his wife's finger. He'd probably find a reason to excuse her behavior, while conveniently ignoring the fact that such things happen all the time in Gilead in his absence. But that's just the thing: Not having to deal with any real atrocities first hand probably makes it easier for him to authorize them for others in the book.
 
Last edited:
In the novel, Serena Joy had TV and some old tapes of herself singing in a choir to amuse herself with, along with knitting scarves and gardening. Even Offred was allowed to watch TV for a few minutes on Ceremony nights. It was all propaganda, of course, but it was still more intellectual stimulation than she usually had. When one of the other Handmaids says she "heard it on the news" (in the TV series), I assume that her Commander allows her a little TV or radio, as Offred was allowed in the novel.

I noticed they also didn't have the "Faith" pillow in her room in the TV series. Apparently the ban on reading applied to absolutely everything (except for Aunts).

Have you seen the 1990 movie?
 
No, that is not what the women at Jezebels' wear. This is, believe it or not, actually somewhat modest in comparison to what some of those women were forced to wear.
I don't believe he saying they wore it in the book, the film or the series but, that it is the sort of thing some commanders might have a Jezebel wear to get their kink on.
 
Yes, in fact that was my first introduction I ever had to The Handmaid's Tale. But it has been years since I've seen it. I actually consider rewatching it now after having read the novel again.
I remember back at the time the movie was in the theatre, a friend went to see it a day or two before I did, and she blabbed the ending. I was more than a little put out, and told her, "Thanks a lot - that's not how the book ends!".

I wouldn't mind at all if the movie scene is included in the TV series - they could do it, since the same outfit owns the rights to both the TV series and the movie. They've already had some scenes lifted word for word from the movie's dialogue, and even a bit of the music from the movie was used (in the episode where Luke escapes).
 
I'm surprised no one posted this sooner: Margaret Atwood has announced on Twitter that she's writing a sequel called The Testaments, which is set 15 years after Offred's final scene and will be narrated by three different women. The novel is scheduled to be published in September 2019.

“Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.”
 
I'm surprised no one posted this sooner: Margaret Atwood has announced on Twitter that she's writing a sequel called The Testaments, which is set 15 years after Offred's final scene and will be narrated by three different women. The novel is scheduled to be published in September 2019.

“Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.”
Here's the article on CBC.ca.

And the accompanying comments... wow. There are some pretty clueless men in Canada. :angryrazz:
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top