The Handmaid's Tale Vol 2

[PacificDogwod]

I go to work and this is what happens: the previous thread fills up when I have pertinent things to say!

Hope nobody minds, I've taken the opportunity to start a new one before the Offspring demand food and the likes...

One of the masterful strikes of strategic genius of the new regime is the division and envy between everybody and everybody: men vs women, women in different roles vs other women, high ranking vs low ranking.
No solidarity is allowed - even the partnered Handmaids were half companion and have guard. Never knowing who might be an Eye and who to trust must be soul destroying.

I think Serena is quite a tragic figure - in the book and in the TV series. She must feel so betrayed by the ideals she fought for and that she is now kind of forced to uphold because otherwise what would her life be?? Admitting that she supporting a world view that while giving her some kind of social status by dint of her husband's role, considers her without value as she cannot have children would render everything she stands for invalid, and herself by extension.

The author who wrote a book about women being able to electrocute men by touch thereby causing a power change over (sorry, I cannot remember either name ) was talking on Radio Scotland today. She said the idea for her book came from when she wondered why so many mechanisms in society seem to go back to the fact that 'more men can throw a woman across a room than the other way around'. It's a depressing thought that physical strength underpins so much.

That episode made me feel quite sick. The cinematography is so beautiful though.

I tend to watch it straight after Poldark. In which a woman was used as a plaything by a man intent on demonstrating his power. Nothing has changed 😱

It was so grim 'we need to round up all the fertile women and have them impregnated by their superiors'.

Call it The Ceremony and have the wives attend then they won't complain. The religious element was just painted over the top. They're using religion to control the masses while carrying on enjoying whatever freedoms they like themselves. I wonder if Serena knows the extent of it.

I would guess not. She seemed to be very much a believer in the episode that showed her and Fred beforehand. Such hypocrisy. You can kind of see why the previous Offred killed herself - literally no way our.

Offred was using Moira as her mental strength. To find that Moira has given up the fight must be devastating.

It really struck me when the commander told June the professions that some of the women in Jezabels had held in a previous life, seemed like he was gloating, all those clever, successful women reduced to fuck holes for him and his pals. Horrible.

The way Nick was recruited seems very similar to the way extremists are recruited.

I said the same thing to DH.

He turned in for the night just after the 3 proto-commanders were discussing rounding up all the fertile women & how to dress up the ceremony and said it was "chilling." I think he's finding it deeply uncomfortable viewing.

Is he backing off June to protect her? And him?

When he initially declined to give his name, I thought it was so she couldn't provide details in interrogation which would reveal innappropriate depth in their relationship, but then he softened and told her. It gives her a minute amount of power over him (to take him down with her), so perhaps he's trying to even things up.

I noticed the mirror in the music box too. Serena is a complex and rather unpleasant character, though she hides the simmering rage reasonably well.

Essie
"I think the music box was given because it has a glass mirror. I think they're implying that Serena is giving June the means to kill herself, and probably did for the previous Handmaid. The fabric she hung herself with was Wife blue."
I hadn't thought of that

Good spot on the 'wife blue' scarf, by the way.

I keep thinking it all seems so far fetched. Then I realise that this stuff actually goes on in RL somewhere.

It's such compelling viewing, but at the same time it makes me feel sick

Transporting Offred across town to Jezebels really hammered home the fact these women are trafficked, I thought. Plus the sexual slavery.

The scenes at Jezebels also managed to capture a wide range of perversions and kinks without being wildly disturbing - amputees, tacit humiliation of the intellectual women, "sleeping beauty" (pills), glimpsed Ceremony with leering voyeurs. Bleurgh. It's unremitting.

And the amputee may have lost her hand to the regime - we saw a Handmaid missing a hand before.

Pregnancy tests, so the women are fertile, just not Handmaids. Another way to get them pregnant by their superiors.

I keep thinking it all seems so far fetched. Then I realise that this stuff actually goes on in RL somewhere.

So true. Everything seems to have been thought through. There was the bit when June came back from the toilet and the men approached her, stroked her arm - only backed off when Fred appeared and claimed June. Man apologies to Fred.

Probably occurs every night in many a bar in a society where we're told there's such equality we should feel bad for men that they pretty much have to harder than women now.

I've cheated and watched to series end online - does anyone know when the second series is due?

Thank goodness there's this thread, though I'm going to have to be careful not to post spoilers.

Great post re the glass in the musical box.

Yes I just cheated too. I'm going to have to watch the last three again, I think, that was a lot to take in in one sitting.

Amazingly well done. So much in there. I didn't think I'd be happy when they started to deviate from the book, but they enriched it and did such a good job of drawing out the themes and staying true to the spirit of the thing.

Is there a thread anywhere for those who are ahead of UK broadcast?

@SomethingOnce according to digital spy it will be 2018, perhaps as early as April.

Waaah, April 2018 is such a long wait...

Amazingly well done. So much in there. I didn't think I'd be happy when they started to deviate from the book, but they enriched it and did such a good job of drawing out the themes and staying true to the spirit of the thing.

Couldn't agree more.

I think that was the most disturbing episode yet, I could barely watch. I said the same to DH, I bet the commander thinks this is a treat for her and she's enjoying herself getting to 'escape' from the house. I know it's been said before but who benefits in this society. Offred's commander is one of the highest in the regime and has more freedom than most but he's trapped too, he has an Eye living under his roof, has an unhappy marriage, has to perform and act in a certain way all the time. Would most men not get bored/disenfranchised wth a regime like that

upthread someone said nothing in the series is accidental. Maybe it was intentional that when I saw what turned out to be the makeup bag I thought the lipstick was a vibrator. Added a different meaning to "Do you still remember how to use one?" "I guess we'll see, won't we" in her trapped situation. Then similarly when he got out the dress it made a metal jangling sound which I thought was handcuffs.

Am I right in thinking that her Jezebels outfit in the book was much tinier, more like a burlesque dancer's bra & frilly knickers (yellow with feathers, IIRC)? When the Commander was shaving her legs, I was wondering what they were going to do about her bikini line, but they dodged it by putting her in a frock.

I found last nights episode incredibly menacing. I felt afraid everytime the camera panned.

My reading of the music box was it was the infantilism of offred. She is treated like a child with no freedom or rights. Under normal circumstances it would be a highly inappropriate gift for an adult woman. Though after reading below about the glass theory I think that could be correct

Illegitimate, her outfit in the book was purple with feathers and far too big for her.

Ah yes. I thought last night's dress was too classy. In the book, the overtly sexy outfit added to the worry that she'd be intercepted at a check point.

I was hoping to watch last night's episode on catch up around now while the dcs are at school. Why isn't it on yet?