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Original poster

Handmaids tale

82 replies

OttilieStonelady · 11/08/2021 10:49

I've only just started watching (not a huge TV fan). Does anyone else find it heart wrenching? Impossible to watch? I don't get emotional about TV shows. I actually feel sick watching it. I can't even explain it. I feel like I need to stop watching as I always feel really down after. Anyone else feel like this with handmaids tale (or any other TV show)?? I can't stop watching but also want to turn it off!!!

OP posts:
Original poster
OttilieStonelady · 11/08/2021 10:51

I also have a toddler which doesn't help.

OP posts:
HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime · 11/08/2021 10:51

You have to be in a mentally good place to watch it, it's not the show to watch after a hard day.

Are you familiar with the book?

Crunchymum · 11/08/2021 10:52

I haven't seen the TV show, and wouldn't want to watch after reading the book.

So bleak, so dark, so prophetic?

SachaStark2 · 11/08/2021 10:54

I’ve read the book several times, but I’ve never yet watched the show.

Many of my friends have watched it, and some of the most unexpected people (male and female alike) have been reduced to tears watching it, I know that much.

One friend described himself as “harrowed” by it.

HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime · 11/08/2021 10:54

I think what makes it a particularly difficult watch is how relatable it is. Margaret Atwood took different women's experiences from around the World and through history to make the book so although it sometimes seems farfetched, or at least far fetched when I first read it in the 00's (not so far fetched nowadays though) those things have happened to someone at sometime.

wingingmumlife · 11/08/2021 10:55

I couldn't watch it. It is definitely too dark for me.

A lot of my friends/family have recommended it and rave about it but I just felt sick when watching it.

MoaningMeowing · 11/08/2021 10:56

I definitely finding it harrowing.

I’ve not read the book and I think I got up to season 3? But it was just too much.

I heard that it was going to continue for 8/9 seasons and I just couldn’t do it for that long.

I might try the book.

SachaStark2 · 11/08/2021 10:58

That’s a good point to remember about Atwood: she’s always been adamant when discussing this book in interviews that there is NOTHING in this story that hasn’t already happened in our world.

KimDeals · 11/08/2021 10:59

Yes OP, I remember feeling like that too! When I was watching it Trump had just been voted in, and between those two things, I felt like something terrible was beginning in the world. I’ve calmed down a bit now Grin

OooohAhhhh · 11/08/2021 11:01

I love it and really enjoy my catch up episode when I've missed it on a Sunday.
It is dark, yet so strange too, which for me makes it an interesting watch.

DrSbaitso · 11/08/2021 11:02

The book is better. Much better. Both books, actually.

I found it got very formulaic and repetitive after a while, and stretched the point of believability even within its own universe. I won't do any spoilers but let's just say it is just not plausible that June would escape the kinds of punishments that get meted out to other women for equivalent or lesser acts of defiance.

It is watchable though.

RuggerHug · 11/08/2021 11:03

It's not something you can watch more than at most 2 episodes in a row of. I don't know if it would be different watching it for the first time now. When it started, I was heavily pregnant, Trump was in charge and the anti choice groups were out in force here as the repeal referendum was on but the 8th still in place here. Everything in it happened/happens/is happening now as pp said. I think that's why it hits so hard.

Original poster
OttilieStonelady · 11/08/2021 11:03

I'm not in a particularly bad place at the moment, but I was in an abusive relationship and my friends always describe my relationship with my toddler as particularly close and special. I feel that too. It's just me and him. I love him so much and we have been through some unbearable times together. Weirdly this TV show has really affected me! I've not read the book but I've always known the basic premise of it.

OP posts:
Lottapianos · 11/08/2021 11:05

I only managed two episodes and couldn't take anymore. I found it too harrowing and too sickening. I have a pretty strong stomach and enjoy dark stuff in general but couldnt cope with HT. The production and acting are great, it's just not for me

seasonalremarks · 11/08/2021 11:06

Yes it feels prophetic and but also current. I started the new season and I felt done, I couldn't watch anymore, but will reread the book.

AnneLovesGilbert · 11/08/2021 11:09

I did the book at school and have always loved it. I made it into s2 of the show before bailing. I was pregnant at the time and ended every episode feeling panicky and sick before realising tv is meant to be entertaining not harrowing and stopped doing it to myself.

I haven’t gone back to it, it was straying into gratuitous biological horror and torture porn, way past what was needed to make the point.

I’m interested in where the story goes but I can’t bring myself to actually watch it again.

emilylily · 11/08/2021 11:15

I have watched the whole series from the start but agree that you wouldn't want to watch it on a bad day and I also think it may be very triggering if you've had certain life experiences. I wouldn't ever binge watch it as it's just too bleak- one episode a week for a few weeks is just about bearable!

MazDazzle · 11/08/2021 11:15

Strangely, although I’m an absolute wimp and have had to turn off other shows, I’m always glued to THT.

I love the original book too and have read it many times. When Trump was elected it was creepy. It was like he was using it as a manual!

I thought the second book was awful. No way did it deserve the Booker prize. One review said it was like it had been written my Jessica Fletcher after she’s binged watched Buffy, which sums it up perfectly! Grin

Lavender24 · 11/08/2021 11:16

I attempted to watch it in 2017 after having a miscarriage and I had to turn it off. It was too much.

MindyStClaire · 11/08/2021 11:19

I found the early seasons harrowing, but not so much I couldn't watch. I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old so watched it with newborns and when pregnant which didn't help.

I don't find the recent seasons as difficult, although they have their moments.

NoraLuka · 11/08/2021 11:21

I started watching it at the end of 2019 and thought it was dark but I liked it. Then Covid happened and I couldn’t deal with watching the news followed by an episode of HT, and I haven’t gone back to it yet. Maybe I will one day.

KimDeals · 11/08/2021 11:24

@OttilieStonelady

I'm not in a particularly bad place at the moment, but I was in an abusive relationship and my friends always describe my relationship with my toddler as particularly close and special. I feel that too. It's just me and him. I love him so much and we have been through some unbearable times together. Weirdly this TV show has really affected me! I've not read the book but I've always known the basic premise of it.
Very understandable.

As I watched more, I found the theme in that first series, is June finding these tiny ways to have power. Even if it’s the power to have her own thoughts. I began to find it so so fascinating, human nature, the will to survive… I think you’ll enjoy it, you might see similar in it x

AnneLovesGilbert · 11/08/2021 11:38

One review said it was like it had been written my Jessica Fletcher after she’s binged watched Buffy, which sums it up perfectly!

Well I’ve got to read it now! Grin

Someone gave it to me and it’s been waiting in my book pile for ages.

SachaStark2 · 11/08/2021 11:43

I was disappointed by The Testaments, too. I enjoyed the aunt’s origin story, but found the present day stuff with the two daughters to be very bland.

And agreed, it shouldn’t have won the Booker, especially as it was a joint win with Girl, Woman, Other, which was an incredible work of fiction.

(But then, I don’t think Shuggie Bain should have won this year, either. I don’t know what is going on with the Booker Prize judges.)

seasonalremarks · 11/08/2021 11:46

I agree with AnneLovesGilbert. It definitely became too gratuitous and yes it did feel like torture porn at times (whatever that is?). It took it too far visually it was not necessary.