The Handmaid's Tale - Table of Contents

Season One: 

Offred
Birth Day
Late
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum
Faithful
A Woman's Place
The Other Side
Jezebels
The Bridge
Night

Season Two: 

June
Unwomen
Baggage
Other Women
Seeds
First Blood
After
Women's Work
Smart Power
The Last Ritual
Holly
Postpartum
The Word

The Handmaid's Tale - What are you going to do when they come for your daughter?

The Handmaid�s Tale: 2x12 Postpartum. 

The Handmaid�s Tale: 2x13 The Word. 

The centre of this entire season has been June�s pregnancy, and the impossible situation it has put her in. It was easy to have one single goal � saving and escaping with Hannah � last season, but now that her second daughter is born, June can�t find a way to ensure the safety of both of her children. In what was one of the hardest moments so far � in a show so filled with sheer violence and terror against women � she had to let Hannah go. She had to let her go, even though she finally shared a room with her, even though she was able to talk to her. After her breakdown, after almost escaping Gilead, after not being able to live with herself for giving Hannah up, it was the horrible bookend to that journey. 

Holly � promptly renamed Nichole by the Waterfords, who after attempting to keep June apart from her child have relented, and allowed June to stay in their household � means a whole new set of questions for June. She tried to ensure the safety of her child before she was born by collecting promises from people who were either highly untrustworthy � how bitter, to have to put her hope into Aunt Lydia � or ultimately powerless, like Rita. What June realises in this episode is that not even the Waterfords have the capacity to protect her child from what Gilead has turned into, that Fred Waterford is perhaps Nichole�s most dangerous enemy, because she wasn�t born a son. It�s a terrible lesson learned from Eden�s demise, who held her beliefs so preciously and yet, in a moment of defiance, tried to find true love, true affection, from someone who wasn�t her husband (and June spurred her on, part of that guilt she now carries with herself). In an unexpected act of bravery, she chose to die with her beloved rather than asking for forgiveness, reclaiming the very vows that Nick never truly meant when he spoke them. In a public execution in another repurposed venue, a public swimming pool, she drowned � leaving a horrified June behind, who finds an annotated bible in her possession. June realises that Eden, who has lived in Gilead since she was ten, who must have a vague memory of the world before, who was still able to read, and didn�t give it up just because it was forbidden, tried to make sense of this book for herself rather than following what Gilead was telling her. June realises that Eden was trying to find her own religion, to interpret the bible for herself, that even though she was only fifteen, she had the capacity to think freely, that she was a whole person. I think June spent a lot of time this season regarding Eden as less than a whole person, as did Nick, thinking that Gilead had stolen her spirit entirely, mistrusting her. And then June decides to bring that realisation to Mrs Waterford, remembering how they both felt when they wrote together, when June edited her words. She believes profoundly that Serena shares her belief in the power of words, and the necessity of being able to read them and write them. It�s incredible that June would trust Serena � who has committed such unspeakable sins against her � that June would see the other woman as a possible accomplice in her attempt to reclaim Eden�s humanity and intellect. 

Even more incredibly, Serena does exactly what June hopes she would. She realises what it means that someone like Eden would have such a deep-seated desire to read the bible � that it is a crime against women, even within the tight ideology of Gilead, to forbid them to read the bible, and to create a state in which reading becomes impossible to women. She brings this realisation to the elders of Gilead, and inevitably and brutally realises that the entire ideology of Gilead has nothing to do with religion, or belief, that it is all about one simple thing: to sustain male superiority at all cost. Serena has always been a true believer, and she has always believed that her own suffering and sacrifice has been for a state that mirrors her radical religious beliefs � it is only now, that she suffers the punishment for reading (for quoting the bible back at the very people who claim to defend it), that she realises that Gilead has nothing to do with her own religious beliefs, that it is a fa�ade for that old beast misogyny. 

Serena is broken, too broken to stop what will happen at the end of this episode: everything falls into place, and Nick�s machinations to ensure the safety of his daughter fall into place. In the end, it is an underground railroad of Marthas, women like Rita, who create a situation in which Holly�s freedom becomes possible. She is handed from woman to woman, until finally, the weird ways of fate have her end up in exactly the same spot as Emily. 

Emily, who has suffered so much, who believes her child and her wife lost, who has been sent to die cruelly in the colonies, who has somehow made it out alive from exacting revenge on her torturers. She comes to a breaking point in this episode as well, after being placed with one of the architects of Gilead (played by Bradley Whitford). He is hard to read, once introduced, a man who lives in a house filled with pillaged and now certainly forbidden art, with a wife who has lost her mind over her husband�s crimes. This is the man who has come up with the idea of the colonies, but we the viewers cannot truly read whether he is a depraved, cruel man, or someone who eccentrically suffers the consequences of his own actions. He tries to get to the bottom of Emily, probing her, but Emily has no capacity to tell whether he is trying to catch her out, or truly trying to decide if she is a whole human being with wishes and hopes. There is no space in Gilead for trust, or belief, so she doesn�t, and instead, at her breaking point, stabs Aunt Lydia. It seems so likely that this is the final act of revenge she will be able to perpetrate � she has been nothing but a weapon of revenge since she was separated from her family, it�s like the light in her eyes has gone out, like nothing but violence makes her shine anymore. It is so unlikely that she will make it, once again, out alive. But somehow, she does � because Commander Lawrence turns out to be a man desperate to make up for his sins. Instead of allowing her to be executed, he takes her away, puts her in a car, plays her music, arranges for her safety. This is how she ends up where Holly is � in a truck bound for Canada. 

It�s like this moment that everyone has hoped for for such a long time � for June, to finally make it out of Gilead � except like with so many other stories, we know this one cannot contain June�s escape yet. It isn�t time yet for June to find freedom, and her decision makes sense, in a way. She makes sure that Holly is as safe as she possibly can be, in a Gilead that hates women as profoundly as it does � in Emily�s hands, bound for the border. And then she turns back because she cannot bear to allow her other daughter to be raised in this country. It�s more than that � the way she lifts her head, it is almost as if she now contains all the boundless rage that Emily held, before her unlikely escape. She is ready to burn this whole place down. 

Random notes: 

My favourite scene in the final episode is when June comes to understand that it was Eden's father who turned her in - that he did not hesitate, that his love for his daughter is twisted and false, that he would be ready to see her die just this place. It makes it clear to her that there is no way to protect Holly in Gilead - that in a way, all these women, including Mrs Waterford, are already just one step away from the Unwomen in the Colonies. Gilead does not consider them human, and in the mere five years, it has managed to sever the ties between parents and children.

The other central scene is June, pleading with Serena to let her go, to help her protect their daughter. She knows that Serena loves Holly in her own way, but she also knows that she has to get Serena to the same conclusion that she has come to - that there is no way to raise a girl in Gilead. 

The Handmaid�s Tale - I tell, therefore you are.

The Handmaid�s Tale: 2x11 Holly.

Last week, when it finally became too much to discuss this show as a fictional narrative without clearly pointing out how much our world has been twisting and turning towards Gilead in the last two years, Fred and Serena raped June to induce the birth, so as to get rid of this stain on their marriage sooner, then Fred attempted to atone for raping her by sending her off to a country cottage to meet her daughter. Things went wrong, Nick was arrested, June was left alone, and close to labour, in the wilderness. The unmitigated horrors of the episode, June�s suffering, her short reunion with her daughter and her attempt to instil strength into her to bear an unbearable situation, became utterly impossible to write about without mentioning the fact that the United States is separating children from their parents and is keeping them in literal cages. 

So here we are now. 

June: I�m sorry there is so much pain in this story, I�m sorry it�s in fragments like a body caught in crossfire, or pulled apart by force, but there is nothing I can do to change it. I�ve tried to put some of the good things in as well.

We�ve never really asked this question before in the show, who June is telling her story to when she addressing a �you� in her speech, who she is recording her life for, who she is trying to reach. Sometimes she addresses it directly to Hannah, or her unborn baby, but just as many times, the identity of the �you� remains vague. It wouldn�t really fit in well with The Handmaid�s Tale if her story were specifically recorded for the purpose of exposing Gilead as what it is, like in the novel, when future scientists discuss the recordings she has left in detail, as a relic of a time long passed. June doesn�t think like that � she is too much alive, and too eager to save her children, than to consider a legacy that she is leaving of her own struggle. Even when she was given the life accounts of other people trapped in Gilead, her reaction to it wasn�t about the effect this would have if it ever get out (even though we have now seen that effect, and how it spoilt the Commander�s attempts to forge a diplomatic relationship with Canada), but the emotional overwhelming sensation of not being alone, of sharing her suffering and her grief with so many other women. 

June promised her unborn child that she would carry it to freedom, but all of those plans have fallen through. Her escape failed. She returned to the escalating horrors of the Waterford household, a place that has, if anything, become more unbearable through the emotional instability of Fred and Serena. They have wreaked havoc, and the damage is done now: June is trapped by herself in a mansion without electricity, snowed in, with no means of escaping. She is also finally as alone as she was just before she managed to almost escape, and once she accepts her situation, she proves as resilient as she was then. She figures out her resources and the options open to her: a fully pantry, a garage with a ridiculous car. She makes a plan. When Fred and Serena visit and try to find her, she hides in the house like a ghost haunting her own story, and witnesses their marriage falling apart in mutual accusations, in frustrations, in Serena�s claim that Fred has taken everything from her, even though all she ever wanted was one baby (a baby that she is stealing from someone else, a baby whose mother she helped rape). She points a gun at them � in what amounts to one of the most emotional tense moments of the show so far � but then can�t fire it, because killing another person is a transgression that is difficult to make, even in Gilead, even after what June has been through. It doesn�t matter in the end � they leave without her, without ever realising how close they came to death. 

I have mentioned before how much I think The Handmaid�s Tale owes to Underground, and how much I wish that Underground were given a chance to tell its story. Consider how much this episode thrives on June�s survival instinct, on her ability to overcome unbelievable odds � a winter cold, a house without electricity, no help from others � to deliver her own baby. Consider how the entire premise of the show The Handmaid�s Tale is that all these things that have historically happened to women, that are still happening to women all over the world, are now happening to privileged women like June. 

In what was maybe the most memorable episode of television that year. Jurnee Smollett-Bell�s Rosalee ran through swamps, buried herself, fended off a snake and drew its poison out with a leech, and did countless other things, while pregnant, to not only protect her baby, but also make it possible for that baby to be born in freedom � and for other people to be born in freedom too. In that third episode of the second season of Underground, Rosalee did what seemed superhumanly impossible, and she survived. I don�t care if this episode is a reference to Underground, or if whoever made this episode never saw Ache � having seen both, it�s impossible not to draw a line between an actual, historic account of a struggle for freedom, an actual, historic suffering that reverberates through today, caused by a racism that still costs lives, that still makes it possible for some children to be thought of as less, for some families to be thought of as less sacred than others, and this episode of The Handmaid�s Tale, in which June gives birth, by herself, against all odds, to a healthy baby girl, through the sheer strength of remembering giving birth before, to another lost child, when she was surrounded by her loved ones. And maybe this is also a good time to remember that those loved ones already broke the boundaries of what Gilead considered family, because maybe one of the most radical things that this show has done is to insist that Moira is just as much June�s family as Luke, that she, as the godmother of the child, is as much part of their family unit as Luke is. Moira was there throughout Hannah�s birth � it was June�s mother who was late, due to snow, even though she promised she would be there. 

This is an episode about June�s strength, which she finds in spite of her utter loneliness. She finds that strength within herself, even when she fails to open the garage door, when she can�t find the keys, when she is out in the snow, staring down the wild dog that is either a threat or a sign, and her water breaks. 

June: I keep on going with this limping and mutilated story because I want you to hear it. As I will hear yours too, if I ever get the chance, if I ever meet you, or if you ever escape, in the future or in heaven. By telling you anything at all I am believing in you, I believe you into being. Because I�m telling you this story, I will you into existence. I tell, therefore you are.

Random notes: 

When June, in a moment of almost absurdity, being behind the wheel of a car again, finds a Radio Free America station � transmitting from Anchorage � and then listens to Hungry Heart, it�s fucking heartbreaking. Imagine not taking for granted to drive, and to turn on a car radio. And imagine not being able to take for granted that your motherhood or fatherhood will always protect your child, that nobody would ever separate that bond.

The Handmaid's Tale - Will I ever see you again?

The Handmaid's Tale: 2x10 The Last Ritual.

Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border to at least three �tender age� shelters in south Texas, it has emerged.

Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the Rio Grande Valley shelters described play rooms of crying pre-school aged children in emotional crisis. The Associated Press learned that the government also plans to open a fourth shelter to house hundreds of young migrant children in Houston, where city leaders denounced the move on Tuesday.

Since the White House announced its zero tolerance policy in early May, more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents at the US-Mexico border, resulting in a new influx of young children requiring government care. The government has faced withering critiques over images of some of the children in cages inside US Border Patrol processing stations.

Decades after the nation�s child welfare system ended the use of orphanages over concerns about the lasting trauma to children, the administration is starting up new institutions to hold Central American toddlers that the government separated from their parents.

�The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,� said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which provides foster care and other child welfare services to migrant children. �Toddlers are being detained.� 

The Guardian: Babies and toddlers sent to 'tender age' shelters under Trump separations, June 20, 2018

The Handmaid�s Tale - It does no good to want the impossible.

The Handmaid's Tale: 2x09 Smart Power.

June:  That�s what I am now, my circumstances have been reduced. I suppose I am one of the lucky ones. I still have circumstances.
[�]
These are not small things. These are not things to be dismissed, these are things that are possible, in my reduced circumstances. This room, this house, the way to the store and back. Everything else is impossible. Hannah, Luke. A dive bar with great music. A really sharp machete. It does no good to want the impossible.

There are many people in Gilead who have very little power. This powerlessness is by design, a strategy to keep the Commanders in power in spite of their shortcomings and frequent failings. There is a hierarchy of powerlessness, from the Wives to the Marthas to the Handmaids, and Gilead has made good use of the tensions that this causes � carefully constructing a home in which women are less likely to help each other. There is also a whole mass of people that the show rarely shows, people like those who helped June when she escaped and paid so dearly for it, who are both socially and economically disadvantaged and live in a constant fear that keeps them complacent and quiet, apart from the few among them who somehow find the courage to save lives. 

The great misconception that Gilead has is that these women it subjects have no power. Or maybe Gilead is well aware and so scared of that fact that it does everything to hide the fact that they still possess power from women. When he goes on his diplomatic trip to Canada, Commander Waterford needs Serena to come with him to be what June was a few months ago � proof that Gilead does not enslave women, proof that she is willingly subjugating herself, that she chose this role freely. It is a moment loaded with tension, after what Fred did to her to punish her � she flinches, she turns her back, she is pondering her situation deeply, and with new eyes. She is to serve as proof that women aren�t oppressed or voiceless, except she is now in the process of realising that this is exactly the world that she has helped create, that she is what she never wanted to be, a trophy wife for Gilead. 

She still manages to put all of that frustration on June before she leaves � June who is in the third trimester. She tells her that she will have her leave the house as soon as the baby is born, instead of allowing her to wean the baby off as is customary. She says that it is for both of them, since they�re sick of each other, but that�s a deeply ironic statement, considering that it quite possibly signs a death warrant for June � who will either be asked to do the exact same thing again, for a different family, or be sent to the Colonies. It�s as much a direct threat as Serena can make, and maybe she is doing this because she thinks that June�s presence in the house is indirectly responsible for the complete breakdown of her marriage, for that completely skewed balance. In any case, that threat determines everything that June does from here on, because it puts a very clear end date on her attempts to protect her baby from Gilead. 

The thing about smart power is that it does not contain any inherent idea about the amount of total power that is necessary, it�s more of a statement regarding the use of whatever tools are available to fit a particular situation. It�s a good title for this episode, as a lot of characters manoeuvre with whatever they have to achieve their goals � with varying results. Commander Waterford seems to be doing well to start off with, dealing with a country desperate to begin trading with its biggest and only neighbour again, a country that is desperately looking for ways it can disregard the blatant human rights abuses in that country. That�s why Serena is there � to give the Canadian government an excuse. She is welcomed with a schedule that contains pictographs instead of words and in the best moments through the episode, she regards this world with a sense of awe � a world that she has helped to change so profoundly in Gilead, that is still the same here across the border. Women talk about how much they work. Couples kiss on the street. All the while, she is made aware of the fact that here, she is a curiosity at best, a despised symbol of a tyranny at worst. A curious child looks at her and asks her if she is a princess, a horrified mother tries to get as much distance between herself and this woman who stands for a country in which women are condemned to a life she cannot imagine. She tries to connect with her hosts but is inevitably brought back to being a Gileadean specimen. Again, it�s hard to feel sorry for her, considering she was so instrumental in creating this in the first place, and she always seems smart enough to have been able to predict that it would end like this. 

She regards this world that looks like the one she remembers. She goes to the hotel bar and orders �A Riesling by the glass, if you have it�, which must be pure nostalgia, an artefact from a life she once led in which women could walk up to bars and order alcoholic drinks, and would have one they favoured. A well-dressed man walks up next to her, orders a whiskey and lights a cigarette, as if he escaped from a world even older than the one she remembers. He offers a cigarette, and is then reprimanded for smoking inside, which is against policy (a truly great moment, considering). He then takes a seat next to Serena. 

She knows what he is straight away. She knows the whole thing is a charade, that the first person who has approached her here as anything but a complete curiosity is doing so because it�s his job: this man is from the American government, which, as we find out here, actually does represent the remaining nation reduced to Hawaii. It�s the same government that, when Luke and Moira approached its representatives after finding out that they�d send the man who has repeatedly raped June, pretended to be utterly powerless and incapable of acting, as it could not influence the Canadian government to do anything, much less arrest Serena and Fred for their actions. The one thing people like Mark Tuello still can do is this � rely on the fact that Serena is what everyone assumes her to be, a hostage to a country has despises woman. Someone who will eagerly and willingly leave everything she knows behind for a new life in Hawaii. You would think that it would sound like a tempting offer, especially after what Serena has been through so recently, but Tuello doesn�t realise what an insult to her it is to say that the baby that June is carrying isn�t hers, that it is nothing to return to. And he is, of course, utterly wrong when he promises her a baby of her own after all the research about how the fertility crisis was caused by men, because Serena knows well that she isn�t able to have children (in fact it is astonishing that Tuello�s department wouldn�t have realised that). It is a tempting promise, to write her own story, to publish it, but Serena knows that she would only be the puppet for a different country, that he is asking her because he needs her for his own propaganda. As much as it is a promise of freedom, it is also an attempt to own her in a different way. So she goes back. She pockets his Hawaiian matchbox which, back in Gilead, may as well be from Mars. 

Many other things happen, before she goes back. The home she will return now contains a desperate June who is trying to find a way to protect her baby in a future in which they will not live in the same house. She is using her own remaining power, which is to know those around her. She knows that Rita loves children, that Rita is a constant in the Waterford household. She asks her to give kindness to a child that will likely experience none from Serena and Fred � and in spite of the fact that Rita is powerless, that the Guardian in the house who is keeping them prisoner, who is a loss less kind than Nick, could break her jaw without any consequences, she says she will try her best. It�s as close as June can get to a binding promise like a godmother would give � we find out that there are no godmothers in Gilead, likely because it is a level of power, or responsibility, that Gilead doesn�t trust women with. 

This is the power that June is left with. She can appeal to Rita�s kindness, and she can appeal to Aunt Lydia�s sense of responsibility for all the children of Gilead. She is threading on thin ice, she is told that it is up to Serena whether to keep her around or not, but she knows exactly what buttons to push. She indicates that Fred is violent towards women, which is accurate, and that in her experience, men who are violent against women are the same against children. She asks Aunt Lydia for her protection, and she gets through to her, because she realises that at some point in her past, she must have lost a baby that was under her protection (in the end, she tells her � her sister�s baby, and the haunting words, �it wasn�t my fault�, considering the way she tortures her Handmaids with the idea of being punished by god). This is what she can provide the baby with, for now. Except�

Across the border, the absurdities of this world, of this delegation, play out. Moira recognises Commander Waterford, tells Luke that this is the man who is keeping June prisoner. Imagining watching that man on television, watching him being part of a diplomatic delegation to the country that gave you shelter. They are told, by the American government in exile, that their only power lies in protesting, in being heard that way � that there is no hard power that will arrest, or take any other action against, the Waterfords. Luke gets close � close enough that Fred, Serena and Nick recognise June�s photo in his arms. He shouts, powerlessly, and is ridiculed by Fred, who knows that he has all the power of a travelling diplomat behind him. Later, Nick finds him in a bar � �I know June, she is a friend� - and is first subjected to all of his rage, until Luke realises that his responsibility lies in doing more than that for June. He finds out that she is pregnant, that Nick doesn�t know where Hannah is, and asks him to tell June that he loves her, that he will never stop trying. And then, in the most decisive moment in this episode, Nick gives him the letters that have travelled so far. Consider their path, from June�s decision to work for Mayday, to convincing Moira to bring them to her before she escaped, to Rita keeping them safe for her while she was gone, to Nick keeping her from burning them, when she had almost given up � and now, almost magically, they land in Luke�s hands. 

Moira complains that they aren�t explosives, that she wants to blow Gilead up, but smart Erin (previously TBA) realises that this is exactly what they are. As much as Gilead has been trying to gain acceptance, to appear civilised, to be regarded as the kind of country that isn�t too dirty to do business with, it doesn�t take much to blow it all up. It�s ironic that Ofglen�s attack on the centre opened this channel, this opportunity, for Fred, and now this much more precise scalpel of a public relations disaster ruins it for him. Luke and Moira leak the letters. It�s enough to completely outrage the public, making it impossible for a democratically elected government to continue the diplomatic talks (at least in this for once utopian version of international relations). In this version of events, it isn�t diplomacy that is the vanguard of foreign policy � those who end up holding power, the most unlikely power of all, are those able to shape public perception, to shame the Canadian government into ceasing to deal with Gilead. They return shamed, ridiculed, shouted out of the country. One of the last things Fred sees is Moira, holding up a sign that states her name, reclaiming herself. 

And this is what Nick tells June, when he comes back. That Luke loves her, and won�t stop trying. That Moira made the miraculous, impossible escape, that should never have happened and yet did. It�s a new hope. Maybe she won�t have to rely on Rita�s kindness and Aunt Lydia�s selective protectiveness after all. Maybe they can both be free. 

Random notes: 

Title is a reference to a international relations theory, best summarised with this quote: 

We must use what has been called smart power---the full range of tools at our disposal---diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural---picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation. With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.

Hillary Clinton

Hey it�s Joel from Parenthood!

On the sidelines but quite likely with some kind of consequences, Eden once again tries to connect with her husband, by baking him cookies with actual chocolate (which, considering how trade relations with other countries go, is a true rarity in Gilead). It fails. A few scenes later, a different Guardian turns out to be very interested in her cooking, maybe opening up a whole world of possibility, of what she is missing out on. I wouldn�t disregard the possibility that young Eden is a ticking time bomb for Nick. 

In another truly horrible moment, Janine is struck down with the butt of a rifle when she speaks up against June�s new Guardian. June is dragged away before she can check if Janine is okay. 

There was a moment in the interaction between Luke and Nick where I thought that Luke would legit walk away from this moment out of complete anger without accomplishing ANYTHING to help June. Moira is so much more reliable guys. 

Pretty sure that at the end of this, Serena doesn�t agree with Fred that they are lucky in many ways. Gilead is ultimately doomed, but the hard part will be everyone who will still be lost on the way. 

There is a moment that is meant to be moving, when Moira and Luke and Erin and all the others sing �America the Beautiful� � but it inevitably falls flat, in this moment in time, to watch them grief the country they lost to Gilead, considering what it�s been like to follow the news. �This Land is Your Land�, maybe, a defiant reference to the protesters at the airports when the immigration ban first came in (but would that have been too blatant a reference?). I try to imagine what June�s mother would have thought of that, who was protesting America, not Gilead, and all those murderous tendencies that already existed when it was still a democracy. 

The Handmaid�s Tale - It was nice working with you too.

The Handmaid's Tale: 2x08 Women's Work.

So far, we have seen many implicit and explicit ways in which Gilead uses violence against women. It tortures, maims, kills. It works them to death. It steals women�s children and partners. It robs them of their names. 

The more subtle and heinous ways in which Gilead is sheer violence against women is how it steals purpose from women under the pretence of returning them to some original, higher purpose. So far, the most direct way in which we have seen that violence is in how Emily was robbed of her ability to teach at her university, how she had to stop being a teacher, how she was asked to hide away in a lab. And in the end, in the colonies, the poisoned soil does not care about the previous occupations of those that are digging it up, and putting it in bags. Neither does being a Handmaid, or being a Martha. All these women had lives before they were forced into these lives. All of them had occupations, passions, talents, intellects. 

It�s the idea of work � independent work, work freely chosen, work that matches talents, passions and intellects � giving meaning and purpose, and grace. Providing fulfilment. How powerful that concept is becomes obvious early into the episode when June regards this new, different Serena, being utterly changed by the ability of shaping Gilead to her liking. This isn�t the same unhappy Mrs Waterford that was such a threat to June. June�s way of perceiving Serena changes through editing her works, through seeing her as a writer, and someone who is finally returned to something that she is good at. The episode never really mentions that this same purpose that she is so good at led to Gilead in the first place � because it would seriously dampen the sheer joy that is the first three minutes of June seeing Serena, for the first time, like that, like a woman who had a profession and a talent for something beyond knitting and tending a garden. It�s a mutual joy and a shared one because Serena also returns June to being an editor, and so far, June hasn�t even realised that she missed that work. �In another life we could have been colleagues. In this one we are heretics�. And how does Serena feel about falling, about sinning against Gilead? �She seems pretty fucking happy�.

It�s a happiness on a timer though, because Fred Waterford has recovered, and is returning home to a place in which the women are changed. His return becomes, rather than the joy that everyone is required to perform, a dreadful event that puts an end to Serena�s influence and power, and to June�s surprising connection that she found with her. Fred is a stranger in his home now, because nothing will ever truly return these two women to who they were before they saw each other like that, before they held each other�s secrets. 

For a moment, maybe because they used to be like that, a team, Serena thinks things could be different now. That she has proved her ability to hold her own, even if it means acting against one of the codes of Gilead. Fred will finally see her as an equal again, and the intimacy only possible between equals will return to their marriage. It doesn�t happen that way. Frank thanks her for her sacrifices and then closes the door to the office on her, and once again, Serena Waterford is locked out of Gilead, banished from power. But she�s had a taste of it now, and she will never stop wanting to write the rules herself. 

This episode is about the emptiness and loneliness of being robbed of purpose. It�s at its most palatable with Eden, who is forever on her own in Nick�s apartment and doesn�t know how to fill that hole, because nothing in her life has ever prepared her that the marriage that is so central to everything in Gilead could be unfulfilling. There is no connection, no intimacy, no attempt to share from Nick. She tries everything at her disposal � making the place more homey, guessing at his needs � but in the end, this will never work, because they do not share a life. Eden isn�t loved. Their apartment will never be a refuge, or a nest, or even a home for both of them. 

The most horrible moment comes when Nick returns to find that she has gone through his trunk, and retrieved the letters that he saved from June�s attempt at burning them in the Waterford�s kitchen sink. She has just left them out, and swears she didn�t mean anything by it, but Nick doesn�t have the ability to tell naivety and a subtle threat apart. He doesn�t have any way to discern if Eden is genuine or fake, if she was sent to spy on him and destroy him, or if she is a scared fifteen year old girl who was raised to be exactly this � a wife who would never question her husband, or go through his things to find something that is incriminating. In the end, it doesn�t even really matter if Eden is real or not (I think she is) � it matters that Nick has no way of trusting her, that the way Gilead works is to make that trust impossible. And without it, marriage can�t work, and leaves nothing but empty shells of human beings behind. 

Gilead steals babies from their mothers. It took Janine�s baby away from her, and then punished her dearly when her mind fell apart after all the torture it made her endure. This is her episode � an episode in which Madeline Brewer owns every single scene she is � and it is the most unexpected ending that any episode of this show has ever served up, because it lacks the usual dread and violence. 

Through Mrs Waterford, June finds out that Charlotte, Janine�s baby, is sick. She tells Janine, because she can tell that secrets are their own form of violence, that underestimating how strong Janine is is just as unfair to her as writing her off as a crazy woman without agency. June leverages her privilege as a pregnant Handmaid, someone who cannot be touched for as long as she carries this child � and she uses her newly found connection with Serena in a way that is so much more smarter than a few weeks ago, when she showed her cards too early and asked about Hannah. For one, she isn�t asking for herself � she is asking for Janine, a mother who is concerned about her baby. And she is asking a woman who has just learned what it means to have influence in Gilead, to have the power to change things for what she thinks is the better. 

June: If Emily knew that I helped cover for the Commander with Serena, would she want me dead too? I can�t say I blame her. Stay in Gilead long enough it starts to eat you from the inside out. That�s one of the things you do. They force you to kill within yourself.

June does this because she watches Emily continue to rage not just against Gilead, but also against those who cooperate with Gilead to protect themselves, who become complacent and guilty. What does it mean to be a pragmatist, to bide her time, to wait for just the right moment? To play her cards right? Is she, is everyone else who is remaining quiet, enabling the system to continue? 

She measures her words. She makes Serena go to Fred, and ask him to circumvent the rules to save the baby. Because the leading neonatologist in the world is a woman. Fred declines, and says they must not bend the rules, they must rely on the specialists that they do have, who are unable to save the baby. 

Yet, somehow, all the gears are set in motion to save Charlotte. Janine is brought to the hospital, in spite of everything that happened. A Martha is almost entirely overwhelmed when she is asked to put the scrubs on, when a colleague refers to her as Dr. Hodgson, when she steps back into being the best neonatologist in the world after Gilead made her into a housekeeper. The whole process creates the most clear cut distinction � between us, and them � and for once, it includes Serena and June and Janine on the same side. It�s a distinction between men and women, a distinction between a Gilead that was genuinely built to save babies, and one that solely exists to cement the patriarchy under which all these pathetic, weak men thrive. 

And even then, after Serena risked so much, it turns out that Dr. Hodgson can�t do anything to save the baby. She recommends prayer, an irony that isn�t lost on anyone in the room.

Serena�s bravery in this instance accomplishes nothing but to reveal the true nature of Gilead, which we and June already knew, but Serena has been wilfully ignorant about. This place does not exist because the birth rate was dwindling and sacrifices were required to save humanity. It exists because a group of men found a way to co-opt a global catastrophe to reinvent an ancient model of patriarchy and justified it all with a few select verses (which Fred has conveniently bookmarked in his bible). When it starts to slip from their hands, when they see their utopia of male supremacy endangered, they lash out � in this case, Fred literally does so, when he punishes his wife for transgressing, for faking his signature, for trying to claim something back for herself. He does it in front of June, to humiliate her further, to truly completely wreck the idea that a meaningful idea of a union between them still exists. Like Rita and June, Serena is nothing but a decorative fixture in the household, a role that could be played by anyone, an empty vessel to be given meaning by the man in the house. She still tries to pretend, when June offers her help after and tries to be kind, but her world is fractured beyond repair. 

Women�s Work is an unusual episode because it doesn�t end on that note, or even on June, being turned away from Fred�s door. It ends on the miracle of Charlotte�s recovery in Janine�s arm, who, the next morning, after having discarded her uniform, is holding her baby and singing �I Only Want to Be With You� to her. June, before, questioned the idea that �there were still secret places, hidden in the cracks and crevices of this world, places we could make beautiful, peaceful, quiet, safe. Or at least bearable.� � but all this time, Janine has created a place just like that, and performed a miracle. 

Random notes: 

I mean I guess it�s bad to root FOR Serena, considering how much of a tool of oppression she is against women, but gosh does Yvonne Strahovski make it difficult. For a stupid second I actually wanted Serena to just ride off into the sunset with June before I checked myself. 

Serena gives June her music box back and a white rose as thanks for her help. She seems like the kind of person who would be aware of the fact that they symbolise new beginnings. 

Rita: I�ll get more honey. Eden borrowed it. I doubt I�ll ever see it again.
June: She is trying.
Rita: She is. God give me strength.

I�m so glad that Amanda Brugel is finally given enough space to shine in this role. 

Janine: Hi.
June: Blessed be the Fruit.
Janine: May the Force be With You. 

Janine started this episode as almost invincible and she finished it that way too. What a performance by Madeline Brewer. 

Finally in this episode, June quotes one of Margaret Atwood�s most famous quotes, �Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.� 

The Handmaid�s Tale � What if I don�t find her.

The Handmaid's Tale: 2x07 After.

Well jesus fuck. 

After is about remembrance. About grief. About what it feels like to lose a person that you can�t live without. And it�s one of the strongest episodes of this show so far. 

It all starts with a perfectly choreographed procession of grief for the Handmaids that perished in Ofglen�s attack. They didn�t make it out of there alive, and maybe Ofglen thought that this was an easier way out for them in any case. The Handmaids wear black, and a red veil, and the whole thing looks like someone came up with it conscious of what it would look like, the faceless Handmaids mourning their own, letting their face veils flatter away in the wind, Aunt Lydia wishing for a world free of violence. It�s an act, a government-issued ritual, lacking of feeling and authenticity. The true moment comes in the car, on the way back, when those same Handmaids realise they never even knew Ofglen�s real name. 

How can you authentically grieve for someone whose name you didn�t even know? It�s a whole procession, throughout this episode. For Gilead, the main thing that happens is that Commander Waterford is disabled for the moment and replaced by a true hardliner, Commander Cushing, who is exactly like the kind of person that gets swept to the top in moments of emergency. Someone who goes into households and kills Marthas, just for the sake of it, to cause fear and anxiety. He is a threat, not just to those who cannot defend themselves, but also to Serena, once June shares with her that Cushing doesn�t believe she was kidnapped, and wouldn�t allow her child to grow up in a house that sheltered a terrorist. It�s a terrible prospect, especially with Fred in a hospital bed � it falls to Serena to protect her house, and god how very able she is to do so. How she maybe waited for that very opportunity, to prove herself. She asks Nick if he can show her how to draft warrants, like the Commander did, and in the end, does it matter who signs the warrants? If she is perfectly capable to do so, to make decisions well in line with Gilead�s ideology, which she drafted. She�s been waiting this whole time, to take her righteous seat at the table (behind Commander Waterford�s office table) and the moment is all the more awesome (in that horrible way) because it includes June, finally armed with a pen, going over her drafts like the editor that she used to be. What a moment, Serena recognising who June used to be for the benefit of her leadership, keeping her vision of Gilead safe and sound, after Cushing caused all that death and destruction. She has him arrested and removed in Fred�s name, and nobody blinks an eye. 

At the same time, Ofglen�s act was grandiose enough to reverberate to Canada, where the American provisional government announces that a terrorist happened which caused the lives of Handmaids. Luke gives up straight away on finding out if June was among the dead, but Moira sneaks her way into a library of the anonymously dead that is as terrifying as it is a perfect mirror for what Gilead represents. It�s picture books of the dead who were never identified,  who have pieces of information attached to them that never quite add up to a full life. Moira sinks into all of that information, and we think she is, somehow, maybe, looking for June, except as the story unfolds we realise, it isn�t really June she is looking for. That this whole time that she has been so fiercely protective of June, and maybe truer to her than Luke is capable of being, in the background, there was always something else, and maybe, looking for her girlfriend/fianc� wasn�t a cover story after all. It all unfolds � the story of how Moira decided to be a surrogate mother for a baby, for the money, how a doctor guided her on the way, how June was always there, with her knowledge about pregnancy, but how in the end, after she had given birth and given away the child, the only thing left to her was learn the doctor�s name. How that doctor wasn�t her doctor anymore, when she introduced herself as Odette, and how all these worlds opened. It�s like � a tumbling, almost, this idea that for a split second, Odette was Moira fianc�, until the world took that away from her, until Gilead decided that those words had no meaning anymore. And then she finds her again, in those picture books, pictures of a dead body, of a whole person that meant so much to her, eradicated meaninglessly and without explanation. And the horrible irony of it, that Odette basically provided the same services that Gilead is now forcing upon the Handmaids against their will, and paid with her life for it. 

Grief. While the names of the Handmaids that perished are read, including the name of Ofglen, whose name nobody knew before: Lillie Fuller. Who was angry enough to kill herself and her sisters, even though none of them ever learned her name. But now, everything has changed � including the fact that there are now only 27 handmaids serving more than thirty Commanders, which means that they are forced to bring back the unwanted fertile women in the Colonies. Which means that Emily, and Janine, return into life, and the distant possibility of escape. It�s like Janine says � god has a plan for all of them, but it isn�t clear if it is the same plan for them all. 

In any case, and finally, June tells Emily her name. And tells another handmaid her name. Who tells her name, to someone else. Eden stands in the middle of all of that, not realising what she is witnessing, what it means to finally be able to bear full witness to someone else�s identity beyond being a Handmaid. It only took a few hours for Serena to realise what power she held � how much longer will it take for these women to fully realise what power they hold in their togetherness?

Random notes: 

It is truly impossible to overstate what both Yvonne Strahovsky and Samira Wiley accomplish in this episode.

 For a horrible millisecond I thought that Cushing was executing Rita. I really hope Rita makes it out of all of this alive. 

Nick�s plan to get extracted from his current mission dies with his master Commander Price, who perished in the attack. He�s instrumental in this episode in enabling Serena to draft her documents and do Fred�s work, which is interesting � he�s well aware of what a danger Cushing, unchecked, would be. 

I like that the show always leaves so much ambivalence in Moira�s and June�s relationship. It�s fairly clear that Moira loves June, and is maybe truer than her than Luke could ever be, but in this episode, the same Moira who complains about June always throwing her marital bliss in her face (one that June reveals to be a fake, untrue, as she is married to a literal manchild), Moira starts on her own course with Odette. It is a similar accusation to what June�s mother made, that June is becoming like �those assholes�, like those married people, and June is refuting it, but then, Moira is sort of doing the same thing, until it is ripped away from her so brutally. And the fact that Odette up to that point is nothing more but an anonymous corpse in the provisional government�s archives, until Moira, a person who loves her, stumbles across her. That point, that we are who we are, that we are full human beings with hopes and dreams, in the eyes of those that love us, and this is precisely where Gilead is at its most inhumane and bestial. 

The Handmaid�s Tale � I scared myself.

The Handmaid's Tale: 2x06 First Blood.

Where to begin, with this tour de force of an episode? 

Maybe with Serena Joy, this central miracle of the show. A woman who is despicable, who treats June horribly, who is the prime example of what world emerges if women tear each other down, rather than building each other up, if they become culpable in the same system of patriarchy that is limiting their own freedom. Serena Joy helped built this world, and didn�t even realise that it was a cage for herself until it was too late, that she would never have another conversation with her husband where he took her seriously, or where they would see eye-to-eye. Imagine being Serena Joy, a ball of righteous rage, or articulated ideology, and not being able to shine anymore, of being confined to the domestic sphere, with nothing left to do but to knit and oversee your Handmaid�s pregnancy .

It� all about the failure of making a meaningful connection. She fails to do it with June, as much as she tries, because as much as she attempts to become part of that pregnancy (how she travels from you to us to me, only to run into a wall), she never will be part of it. She failed to make a connection years ago, when she tried to deliver a passionate speech about conservatism at a college, and was shouted down by protestors. And then someone shot her, and took any possibility from her to ever give birth to a child of her own (and, if you consider what the strategies of the Sons of Jacob were this whole time, would it be too far to imagine that they planned all of this?). Serena Joy is a tragedy, a woman constantly raging, only containing that rage momentarily to try and make an effort for the child she thinks she will have, to realise that all that June wants is a moment with her first child, with Hannah. She will never experience a true connection again. 

And yet she is so eager for it, because it would justify the claim that she is the mother of June�s child. It�s what the doctor orders, a true connection between the wife, the Handmaid and the child that the Handmaid is bearing, and yet, within the specific constellation of the Waterford household, this connection is utterly impossible. It�s not that Serena isn�t trying: at the height of the episode she invites other Handmaids over for a tea party, an event that is just as awkward as you would expect it to be, especially when June starts talking about this old brunch place she used to go to and Serena is the only one who remembers it, and says they might have crossed each other�s path, before. All the while, the new Ofglen sits there incapable of contributing anything to the conversation since the Aunts have taken her tongue, and everyone else only comes together once they�re given an opportunity to touch June�s belly, which is another thing that entirely excludes Mrs Waterford. 

If this episode is about alienation, or how awful it is to share space with people you neither trust or know in any meaningful way, Nick is at the height of it. He is married to a fifteen year old girl who subtly threatens to June that she will report him as a gender traitor if he doesn�t have the god-ordered sex with her soon, and June doesn�t hesitate to order him to perform, if it means saving his life. It�s horrid, in every sense of the word, because Eden is no longer capable of even conceiving of a world where that would be considered rape, which it is, while Nick is still very much of that world. 

Nick is trapped, not as much as June is, but still. He has to have sex with someone that he considers a child. He has to become the person that would do that, because it�s what Gilead is making him become. It�s similar to that moment when the Handmaids start killing convicted criminals � the whole system thrives on people not getting out of it clean. Everyone is made responsible for the terrible acts. In the end, he ends up asking for a transferral away from June, from Commander Waterford. He asks for June�s safety but how would that ever be guaranteed? 

And June, June promised this new child she would grow up in freedom, but she is also still fighting to see Hannah again, and maybe save her, because the one thing she couldn�t forgive herself for was giving up on her when she tried to cross the border. Serena will never give her anything, but Mr Waterford does, because he has no concept of how far June would go to free her daughter. Fred constantly underestimates the capabilities of the women he is surrounded with. 

And then, the event that Fred has been working towards so hard: the opening of the Rachel and Leah Centre. A place that looks as far removed from what we know as the Red Centre as possible, a corporate fa�ade for socially justified rape. All glass and concrete. It will maybe earn him his space as an envoy to Canada, where he is so eager to go, it is the ultimate pinnacle of his career, now that his home life is falling into place and he is expecting a child. He has given June a picture of Hannah, because he has no idea how far she would go to get her back, and she sees his weakness, his vanity, from miles off. But it doesn�t even take June to bring him back � it�s one Handmaid, one woman, walking into the building, sheer revenge on her mind for what Gilead has taken from her. Ofglen, the new Ofglen, robbed of her speech for trying to save Janine, blows this shit up. And then X-Ray Spex refute loudly that little girls should be seen, not heard. 

Random notes: 

This is just a periodic reminder that Serena Joy as a character wouldn�t work if it weren�t for what Yvonne Strahovski accomplishes, which is enormous. 

Great work also in showing how passionate Serena is in her gardening, because she is barren and can no longer bear children. 

What a time for Fred Waterford to say, This is America. 

The Handmaid�s Tale � So that happened.

The Handmaid�s Tale: 2x05 Seeds. 

For a show that already started bleakly, and has spent so much time on the misery and violence that Gilead inflicts upon woman, it is terrifying that Seeds manages to go even further than that. After last time, June is without hope � she is attempting, desperately, to be rid of all her edges, to do what Gilead asks her to, to be an empty shell of a human being who is nothing but a carrier for the baby inside of her. Gilead wants its women to be incubators, but once June takes this to its extremes � refusing to engage in conversation, or show any kind of emotion, approval or disapproval, not even Mrs Waterford is happy with her. She is nervous, on edge, attempting to create an experience of a pregnancy that isn�t hers, all the while being observed by Aunt Lydia, who is taking suspicious notes on everything that is happening (the Aunts being one exception to the rule that women cannot write or read). What she ends up doing, out of frustration, or spite, or fear, is trying to get the Commander to get rid of Nick, who she knows is the true father of the child, and who has begun to speak up for June, because nobody else will: except what, for a moment, looks like Nick being transferred somewhere else (when Fred makes that appeal to his boss, we know it won�t end that way, as that same person placed Nick where he is to inform on Commander Waterford, and would have no intention to see him leave). 

What happens instead is more horrifying, as it reveals another side to Gilead. Nick and a few other highly regarded Guardians are married off � to child brides, in a mass marriage, hidden under facial veils. The reveal is horrible � that Gilead would take children, and give them away to its more priced young men, to keep them in line � and Rita�s �so that happened� is the perfect summary of it. It is only a small piece in what is happening to June in this episode, who starts to bleed early into it, somehow in spite of being under constant observation hides it, and then finally collapses � or rather, maybe, jumps � out of a window, when the attention is for a full second away from her, and instead on Nick�s new bride Eden. 

That bride is everything Gilead has been working towards. In an awkward conversation between her and Mrs Waterford, Serena attempts to prepare Eden for marriage, trying to tell her that there can be mutual joy in it � but this girl has been indoctrinated by Gilead, and knows no other world anymore. She is everything Gilead was trying to attempt in removing literacy and history from women�s minds. She believes that lust is a sin, that marriage is solely for the creation of children, that she is subservient to her husband. It�s an interesting moment between Serena, who has been unfulfilled by a marriage that she still wants to be fulfilling, intellectually and physically, and a girl who can�t even imagine anymore that marriage could be between equals. This is the world that Serena helped to build with her own hands, and it�s fairly clear that she is at least partly as horrified about it as we are when watching it. It is also exactly what June fears so much for the child she is carrying, who somehow, miraculously, survives the bleeding and the fall. 

June: Hey, listen to me, Okay? I will not let you grow up in this place. I won�t do it. Do you hear me? They do not own you. And they do not own what you will become. Do you hear me? I�m gonna get you out of here. I�m going to get us out of here. I promise you. I promise.

It�s a full journey, in that regard, from a place of no hope at all to a place of renewed defiance and purpose. It ties in with Emily�s journey, which to me at least was the more emotionally devastating part of this episode. It is absurd to believe that hope could be found in a place like the Colonies that works women to death, that is specifically designed to literally break them apart, into pieces, before granting them an undignified death. Emily hasn�t had hope for a long while, maybe that moment at the airport when she saw her wife and son leave and knew that she would never join them where they were going, and she has replaced that hope and love with pure revenge. But revenge isn�t nourishing, and Emily is someone who by nature nourishes, as she shows when she cares for her fellow inmates to the best of her ability, with kindness and gentleness. Janine, on the other hand, has suffered through similar torture, and yet still holds on stubbornly to her belief that god holds them both in his palms. 

It such a good and unexpected choice that The Handmaid�s Tale would choose to pair these two characters, who have made the greatest journey, with the addition of Moira, on this show. Janine a few months ago was mean and occasionally cruel, lashing out at everyone after losing an eye, incapable of comprehending what was happening to her, until they took away her baby and all of her hopes for the future. And still, somehow, the Janine that arrives at the Colonies and sees the misery there holds on stubbornly to the hope that god is looking out for them, in spite of everything that she sees. And Emily is drawn to her, maybe mainly because she is a familiar face, and tries to genuinely save her, help her survive this inherently unsurvivable place. 

Emily is so trapped in her idea that this is hell that she can barely see the other things that are happening � that two women fell in love there, Kit and Fiona, and are supporting each other unconditionally. They are exactly what Nick reads, after his wedding. They cling to each other even though they both know that their time together is limited, and that the Aunts still have ways of making this worse, for both of them. There is dignity in this kind of love, and in this refusal of a system that doesn�t just hate women, but any kind of true emotion. Janine sees it, and suggests a wedding ceremony, performed by a Rabbi. This ceremony is everything that Nick�s isn�t � it is true, and real, and they are surrounded by people who love and support them. It is all of these things in spite of the fact that Kit doesn�t even last the night, that she dies before their wedding flowers even wilt. 

And here is Emily, raging against Janine�s attempt to find dignity in this place, until she realises that she is right. 

Emily: This place is hell, and covering it up in flowers doesn�t change anything.
Janine: So what, we come here, we work, we die. Kit�s going to die happy, so what�s the problem.
Emily: Gilead took your eye, they took my clit, now we are cows being worked to death, and we�re dressing up the slaughterhouse for them.
Janine: Cows don�t get married.

Janine, in her own special way that is so very far removed from who Emily has been her whole life, insists on their humanity and inherent dignity. It is a refusal of Gilead, but one that takes a radically different shape than Emily�s (the flashbacks of her excursion in the 4WD are a reminder of that, before every episode begins). Emily understands that, in the end, when she fixes up the flowers on Kit�s body. 

Random notes: 

Seeds of hope, seeds of revenge, literal seeds (when Janine takes joy in dandelion, and makes a wish).

It's a good choice that to symbolise June's complete loss of hope, she burns the letters that she is keeping, which once gave her so much hope just because they proved to her that there were so many other voices of women in the same situation, all with a whole world inside of them to share. Maybe the most interesting thing about this adaptation of Margaret Atwood's book (which went with "The" over "A") is that maybe this isn't actually June's tale after all.

Eden is played by Sydney Sweeney from the sadly prematurely cancelled Everything Sucks!

Serena calls the �Prayvaganza� �not one of the Commander�s better efforts� which is as far as Serena goes these days in terms of sick burns. 

It�s interesting that Nick, defiantly chooses to tell the Commander that he hopes that God will grant him a child of his own, only to find June�s body moments later. I suppose at this point and through Serena�s very deliberate hints, he knows that Nick is the father of the Son that Aunt Lydia has promised. 

At this point in time I care mostly about Janine and Emily somehow getting out of this story alive, but I know how thin the chances for that are. We don�t even really know where the Colonies are � they look like a flyover state, but could really be anywhere. 

I cried when the Rabbi recited the Mourner�s Kaddish over Kit�s body. 

The Handmaid's Tale - Let me forget me.

The Handmaid's Tale: 2x04 Other Women.

It is always important to remember that the premise of The Handmaid�s Tale is that June, a straight white woman, never expected to experience the same kind of violence that queer people and people of colour have always had to live through in the history of the United States. She stayed longer than she should have, it took her longer to realise that being Luke�s second wife would rob her of all the rights she had always had the luxury to take for granted, and before any of it, she never quite took her mother�s activism seriously enough to engage with the arguments she was making about how deeply embedded sexism, homophobia and misogyny were in the United States even before Gilead. There is a much-used phrase in German that I�ve never head in English before � it translates roughly to �resist the beginnings� (�nip it in the bud� doesn�t quite capture it) and it means keeping an open eye for all the traces of a coming dictatorship. June�s mother always had her eyes peeled for it, to the detriment of her daughter, who never caught her attention as much as her political activism did � but at the same time, June has always been wilfully ignorant, and has only recently traced back the beginnings of Gilead. 

June: I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant, then I would not know how ignorant I was.

The ignorance she scolds herself about will escalate in this episode, as her return to the Waterford household forces her to remember every single time that her own actions have brought terrible consequences for another person. She returns against the will of Serena, after Aunt Lydia offers her a way out of an unbearable prison � she can continue to be June, bear her child in captivity and then be killed, or she can be Offred, who was kidnapped, and enjoy the small luxuries of being part of a household. I watched June�s face, her sheer anger, her stoicism, and I thought that she was making the choice to return because there would be more possible ways out, more ways to resist, outside of the Red Centre. Now that the episode is done, I�m not so sure. 

The June at the beginning of the episode has found some kind of meaning in her mother�s activism, in the bravery that has very likely cost her her life. She has also just been captured after getting so close to true freedom.  Returned to the Waterfords, she is stubborn � calling Serena by her name, reminding her that Serena�s baby is safe as long as Hannah is, refusing to follow the conventions of the ceremonies connected to a Handmaid giving birth, where nothing is meant to remind anyone that the wives aren�t the true biological mothers. At the same time, everybody else bears the cost. Ofsamuel, June�s connection to Mayday, tells her that the organisation is no longer rescuing Handmaids � she was the last failed attempt. She also shares that the new Ofglen, who stood up for Janine, had her tongue cut out. All consequences of June�s actions, directly and indirectly. 

When June is stubborn, when she disregards convention, she is no longer the one to bear the cost � after an initial attempt to strangle her, Serena is reminded that June now carries her child, that she cannot physically punish her if she wants that baby safe. So Rita is the one who is hit, who has to survive an increasingly hostile household with an instable and violent Serena Joy lashing out. June slowly comes to this realisation: that she can find edification and pride in her own resistance very easily because she isn�t the one who pays for it. It reminds her of before, when Luke�s first wife begged her to allow them to work out their difficulties, to save their marriage. June insisted it was Luke�s choice, and when Annie, months or years later, walks out on them out with their baby, she is devastated. 

But --  here�s the caveat. If we follow this argument, that June is selfish because other people bear the cost for her freedom, then what does this say about Gilead? If June is the one who is responsible for all this suffering, not the actual culprits � Luke, back in the day, Serena and Aunt Lydia now � then how can we even think of an effective resistance against Gilead? June realises that being able to marry and love who she wants hurt Annie, that fleeing an impossible situation meant the end of Mayday saving other Handmaids, that everyone refusing to stone Janine to death cost Ofglen dearly � but all of these acts are acts of freedom, of liberty, of taking back something that was stolen with violence in the first place. 

It culminates in Aunt Lydia, taking June to the wall, pointing at a man hanging there � a man she recognises as the kind stranger who did not leave her behind, who gave her shelter. Aunt Lydia tells her he was killed because of her, that his wife is now a Handmaid, because of her, that her child, Adam, has been taken away, because of June�s actions. It�s a horrifying call-back of an earlier scene, back in the Red Centre, when Janine retold the story of her rape and was then asked to take responsibility for the actions of her rapists. More than that, the other women were asked to accuse her of these crimes, to become perpetrators in this act of collective misogyny. 

It�s Annie�s old accusation, that June wrecks lives like they don�t matter � except this whole argument hides the true fact that Gilead is what has killed this kind and gentle man, that Gilead is the system of violence in which people perish. Asking June to accept the blame for these acts of violence, and then reinterpreting them, reframing them as a lesson that God has taught June, is a way of absolving Gilead. June did not truly choose for them, if anything, their act of kindness edified them, was a testament to their bravery in the face of a tyranny. And then, because Aunt Lydia believes that all of this is for the good of society, because everything is as twisted in her head as Gilead is � she offers absolution. She suggests that these sins against other people were committed by June, who escaped, not Offred, who was kidnapped. That June can be dead and free as long as Offred is without guilt, but forever trapped. 

And Elisabeth Moss� face never really gives it away, what happens in these moments. If she buys it. If she takes the easy way out where everything can be easier and lighter as long as she gives up, and becomes Offred. She asks for forgiveness, and to be returned to the home. She says she isn�t worthy yet, but she is trying to become a good woman. She does not have to bear June�s guilt, her fault. 

June: I have done something wrong, something so huge I can�t even see it. Something that�s drowning me I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. Please god, let Hannah forget me. Let me forget me.

And perhaps � perhaps her guilt isn�t in allowing these people to die, accepting their help to get closer to freedom. Maybe the thing that June cannot forgive herself for is giving up Hannah, trying to cross the border without her. And maybe, if she just repeats these phrases over and over in her head, she can forget that she did that. But maybe something else is happening, and June is just going deeper underground, and waiting for a better opportunity to use what she has finally learned from her mother. 

Except then, 

And this is so hard to write about. The complexities of June�s character in this moment, the way she is destroyed, because she could not flee, but also destroyed because she tried to flee without her daughter. Walking out and ignoring Nick, her one connection to not being Offred in this household, her one connection to having been the person who chose to escape. 

The song that The Handmaid�s Tale chooses to play in this moment is Hate, by Cat Power, which back in 2006 was the most devastating song on The Greatest, an album that apart from this song was a complete departure from all of Chan Marshall�s previous records. It was based on an unreleased song by Nirvana that bears its central lines, and a song that is double hard to listen to if you�ve ever spent a moment reading interviews and articles about Chan Marshall�s struggle with alcohol abuse and mental health. It ends, at the very end, if you can bear to sit through it, with �I hate myself and I want to die, lines that she later, in the periods of touring where she was doing well, altered to �I don�t hate myself and I don�t want to die�. It�s an odd, odd choice for a musical cue at the end of this, once that tells rather than shows about what is still an incredibly ambivalent moment in Elisabeth Moss� acting. It takes away from what Elisabeth Moss accomplishes here, which is a question rather than an answer, because both of these things can be true: Gilead is entirely responsible for people�s suffering, but June�s attempt at freedom has caused other people to suffer more than they would have, had she not sought freedom. It puts an odd, affirmative twist on the notion that the crimes of Gilead as a totalitarian state with no regard for women�s lives are in any way to blame on one woman�s attempt to lead a life of freedom and dignity. 

Random notes: 

Rita returns the letters to June that were meant to be passed on to Mayday, and she returns them to the hiding place behind the bathtub. 

There�s a very revealing moment about Luke here, when he leaves the angry voice message to his still-wife, and afterwards tells June that she is wrecking HIS life, and only later corrects himself to say that Annie is wrecking THEIR life. 

The whole emotional horribleness and creepiness and devastating effect of Mrs Waterford creeping up the stairs to June�s room, lifting the blanket, lying down on her stomach to speak to the child she insists is hers. The way it completely objectifies June, who may as well not be there at all. The way these two women are both so fucked up, except Mrs Waterford had all the power in the world to be a wife like the one that was kind to Emily, back in the day, because there are still  - if limited � choices left to her.

This season is going to very difficult places, and it would be a lot easier if June remained strong and refused to budge, or if we at least KNEW that this was an act of hers, another attempt to become free, after learning so much more about herself in these ninety-two days. Maybe it would be a luxury to have that certainty (but then  - for a second we thought we didn�t have that certainty about Emily, when she seemed to care for the wife, but then she once again became pure revenge, so who knows).  I�ll be waiting for �The bedspread has 71 flowers.� To make a come-back, a mantra like Cayce Pollard�s �He took a duck in the face at 25 knots�.

The Handmaid�s Tale � It�s truly amazing what we can get used to.

The Handmaid's Tale: 2x03 Baggage.

June: No mother is ever completely a child�s idea of what a mother should be. And I suppose it works the other way around as well. But, despite everything, we didn�t do badly by one another. We did as well as most. I wish my mother were here so I could tell her that I finally know this. So that I could tell her I forgive her. And then ask Hannah to forgive me. 

June is biding her time in the Boston Globe offices, running through the empty hallways, doing her best to honour the memories of the people lost in the massacre. She is also piecing together the past, assembling newspaper clippings, tracing the ghosts of Gilead back in time. There are two thoughts on her mind: that leaving the United States and going across the border without Hannah would be a betrayal of her daughter, and that her mother, in the past, warned her about exactly those traces she is now finding, the traces almost everybody ignored at their own peril. Facebook groups and internet message boards of radicals, public statements with keywords like �sinful� thrown in, an undercurrent of misogyny justified by religion that has always existed. As a child, her mother took her to Take Back the Night, where women threw the names of their rapist into a pit of fire � and June remembers, still, how many pieces of paper there were, like snow. And all of these thoughts are coming back to her now, as she is pondering what it means up to give up on her own daughter to protect the child she hasn�t given birth to yet. And what it meant for her mother to see her daughter make so many choices she could not understand. 

We were recently rewatching the first season of the show, and in Luke�s episode � Crossing the Border � there was such a keen sense of what other stories The Handmaid�s Tale could tell about Gilead, if it weren�t The Handmaid�s Tale. We�ve never been as bound to June�s story as Margaret Atwood�s novel is, and there is something so enriching about seeing other perspectives, but in that episode specifically, we got a sense of a story that feels like it may have deserves its own show. The team of misfits that save Luke and sacrifice their lives when he successfully crosses over is so much closer to the survival stories we are used to seeing. It is so different from how June survives, which is a story that is barely ever told because it isn�t so obviously heroic and brave. It is, perhaps, what her mother would have wanted June to be: the strong female character of her own story. It�s fitting that it doesn�t last longer than an episode, that it fails so spectacularly, because as much as June�s mother insists that June has disappointed her hopes in her, that she has settled for Luke and Hannah and editing other people�s words, June�s way of surviving now is just as heroic and brave, even if it doesn�t fit the structure in which such heroism and bravery is usually delivered. 

There are so many things that June realises in this episode: That her mother was prescient about where the United States were going, that she saw Gilead before Gilead emerged, that she wanted her daughter to follow her ambition because maybe, if more people did, Gilead wouldn�t have happened (and I wonder how she would have felt if she had ever met Serena Joy, her evil twisted mirror image). How disappointed she was in her daughter who wanted to be a Supreme Court Justice as a child but then came to marry Luke, and have Hannah. How she never praised her for her accomplishments (there is a great moment in a conversation between them before her wedding, the way June says �whattt� in a way that indicates how often she has been reprimanded for her choices), and instead praised Moira. June also gets a glimpse of the life she would have had if she hadn�t been Luke�s second wife � a grim, grey life of fear, of being afraid of the neighbours, of having no rights of her own, but at least being able to be with her child. 

June is supposed to be taken across the border, but something goes wrong; she is almost left to die, except a man who fears for his life shows compassion (which is bravery, not stupidity). HE takes her home with him to his wife and child to protect her, even though this means putting his own family in danger. We will never know what happened to him (we know he held on to his own beliefs, regardless of how much danger they put him in, because holding on is sometimes the only thing left to do), only that they never returned to the apartment. In the end, she almost saves herself. She finds her way onto a train, wearing clothing that isn�t her own, that is so grey and so similar to what everyone else is wearing that she disappears into the anonymous crowd. She finds the right train stop, even though there is no writing and no signage to guide her. With a map given to her, she finds the airfield, remembering losing Hannah in those woods, remembering giving birth to her, remembering something good and happy about her mother, who would have raged in the colonies, who wouldn�t have had an easy or quick death there. But then, because it would have been too easy, because the months of preparation weren�t enough, everything fails. 

Raise your daughter to be a feminist; she spends all her time waiting to be rescued by men.  

Her feminist mother, who provided abortions to women, who was sent to the colonies for her bravery, wanted June to fight Gilead in the streets. She knew Gilead was going to happen, and she wanted her daughter to continue the tradition of fighting for women, of being surrounded and supported by other women. June�s choice to marry Luke and to have a career she loved hurt her, but it was June�s choice to make, and she is now punished for that choice just as severely as she would have been if she had fought. 

There is the other story. There is June, still caught in her trauma, still trying to flee to safety � but there�s also Moira, running just as fast away from all her memories across the border, incapable of being touched, incapable of forming meaningful relationships to anyone except Luke and TBA. There is something low-key lovely about their share-house situation of shared trauma and hurt, but it also works as a reminder how hard it is to exist with this shared trauma in a society that doesn't comprehend it � and it�s a true story about survivors failing to thrive once they have reached safety because all of their memories still haunt them, and the people they love aren�t saved yet. There is hope, though: Luke�s clinging on to the idea that Canada may one day invade, that this day will come sooner rather than later (maybe the empty hope of a refugee who wants to go home) -  and TBA speaks her first words, �Blessed Be the Fruit Loops�. 

Random notes: 

A great use of Santigold in the beginning. Sometimes the music cues are too on the nose, but not this time. 

One of the most haunting scenes in this episode is when June finds herself in the warehouse where all the removed signage from the Boston area has gone: deliberately removed because reading isn�t allowed for women and it is so much harder to find your way out if there is nothing to guide you. It is what went wrong for Moira, that first time. 

I can�t help but always remember that Cherry Jones played a fictionalised version of Eileen Myles in Transparent. 

June throws Commander Waterford�s �Better never means better for everyone� in Nick�s face, who won�t quite admit that he is primarily concerned with saving his own child, rather than Hannah (which might be an impossible feat anyway, but gosh do I wish that this show did something else with this character).