I've only just finished catching up. A terrible episode, brilliantly written and acted. So sad.
The way poor Janine was starfished on the hospital bed made me think that they've done something horrific to her - either the FGM, or sterilised her - ready for probably the colonies. She's too dangerous to be allowed to have another child. She couldn't be trusted to even be pregnant, she's too unstable.
In some ways I was so glad that they finally portrayed the vile ceremony as rape, rather than June or another woman trying to pretend it wasn't happening. The 'training' these handmaid's must have gone through doesn't bear thinking of. They're all traumatized. Thought it was heartbreaking when June and Janine were on the bridge and June was talking her down and she told Janine that one day it would 'all go back to normal'... The look they exchanged was an awful recognition that the whole regime is too broken to ever, ever be a 'normal society' again. Can you imagine the horrors of seeing an ex-Aunt in the street? Or trying to do anything normal like get a job? Never trusting anyone again.
I'm utterly hating Fred. Any thought I had that he was a bit sympathetic has gone. That look he gave the distraught June when she was sobbing and he told her to 'pull herself together' was as cold as the river that Janine hoped would end her torment. Not to mention the utterly creepy bit with poor, unraveling, wonderful Moira. My god the acting is so good!
Serena still puzzles me. I'm wondering now whether she won't turn out to be the more human of the two. Maybe it was just Fred and his weird shit with his handmaids that led to the last one killing herself? Maybe that's why when she was being taken out in a body bag, Serena hissed at Fred 'what did you think would happen?' - not because of what she'd done to the handmaid, but because of what Fred did. Maybe that's why she was so harsh with June, particularly when she first arrived and broke protocol a bit to say something 'normal' to Fred - she was trying to force that cold distance between them, because she knew what would follow if events repeated themselves.
I'm so tense awaiting various plot lines:
Where is Hannah? Is she ok?
Are they going to show us the colonies? :(
Are we being slowly led down into the twisted hell of Fred's true proclivities?
What will happen to poor Janine?
Will Moira make it anywhere? (I just think she'll be shot or strung up - she won't get far, what about papers at checkpoints etc? Someone will discover the body of the man she killed... Oh but I hope she does.)
What is it with these cold Aunts? What's Lydia's story? They've all got one... They remind me of those horrible nuns from places like the Laundrettes, ultra-religious and heartless. I agree with an earlier poster that I don't think she has any real affection for Janine - I think she's devastated about losing a rare, successfully fertile handmaid that she thought was tamed and was going to make her (as the training Aunt) look good.
It'll be awful waiting for series 2! How will we all cope?! The 4 helpers will get us through, lol - chocolate, coffee, grain and grape 😋