I've just caught the episode up now, and then come here to read all your thoughts...
It was a horrible episode. Shocking and disturbing. Terrible to hear Moira say that being forced to be a whore was better than the colonies. 'A few years before your pussy wears out, all the drugs you want'. As others have said, terrible RL parallels.
June and the Commander's relationship (for want of a better word) has changed - she knows the Commander is just looking after his interests. He knows he's being watched himself, and she knows that he was disturbed by what the previous handmaid did. I think what was interesting this time is that the Commander I think does have some humanity, but it's utterly warped by the regime and the religion it's cloaked in. The regime used those with very idealistic views to push through what they wanted under the guise of religious 'cleansing'. From their pre-regime story, Fred and Serena were like that and got caught up in the whole righteous 'what's best for the world' crap...and now they're buried deep in the shit too,
Serena is scared I think. She hates the reality of the regime that she helped to build, she's utterly pointless in her own life and knows that her own future is dependent on the regime's version of success - ie getting a handmaid to conceive them a child. If that doesn't happen with June, where do they stand? Has the Commander told her he's being watched and is afraid? I think Serena gave June the box because she, like the Commander, can't afford June's stay to be a failure too. She needs June to get pregnant, and maybe she's trying to make June happier in some twisted belief that that'll help her conceive? Goodness knows.
I think the Commander took June to the 'party' (yuck) because he was once a young man in love who took his GF out on the town, and now those things are banned, even with his wife. He dressed June up and took her I think in a twisted attempt at romance, at how things used to work before it got all screwed up - he can't just take her to a bar, so he does the club thing. Maybe that's the only option? Interesting that the C was quite protective of June in the club when that other guy approached her. He doesn't want to share her - as we saw with others :( poor women - he just wanted her alone.
Nice to see Nick really does care for June. All their looks in the car when he knew what was going to happen and she wasn't sure... And then her pouring her heart out. It hurt him to see her with the C, and to know what his end game was, so he tried to end it to protect himself. June's outburst really got to him. Maybe he's a good guy and his position as an eye will save June in the end. That's what I hope.
Interesting to hear June saying that she saw Nick still - as much as she could - even though she knew Luke was alive, and she was watching him when he was asleep as she wished she had with Luke, who was 'fading'. Are her feelings for Nick stronger than for Luke now?
I think few of the main characters are wholly bad, they're just all being warped by this sick society that values nothing except power. Some are worse than others, but in the end they're all human, all fallible, and all struggling in their own roles in Gilead.
It is mighty grim. Should be on the syllabus in sixth forms and colleges everywhere, and all these issues discussed between young men and women. Only way to prevent these things happening is by people opening their eyes to the reality of such extremism and talking it through...