The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2

[CruCru]

I’ve just heard that this will start in the US at the end of this month but Channel 4 haven’t said when they’ll start showing it yet.

There was a scene in Nicks’s flashbacks where another commander tells Nick he will have to sometimes report on Fred etc. I think Fred doesn’t know Nick is an Eye?

So maybe there is something in Nick’s terms that allows him the freedom or he knows he doesn’t have to report directly to him.

With the pretend hanging scene, he told June to trust him to just go with it so he likely knew that they weren’t going through with it and June could remain calm (well as calm as one could be!). In this scene he seemed to know more than the commander and Serena.

I thought the sex scene was really 'off'. June was traumatised, scared, had suffered months of abuse, thought she was going to die - steamy sex would surely be the last thing on her mind. Especially where they showed her doing it twice and asking for a third time - totally unrealistic. Playing for the male audience?

Also, Emily. If her wife was alive, why did she have an affair with a Martha? And why did she murder a wife, someone who was in reality another victim? If she had to take her anger out on someone this was not a good or fair way to do it. It makes her a very unsympathetic character now. And I liked her a lot in the last series.

Agree that the timeline re the coup and the changes in the law seemed ill-thought out. Surely Emily would have lost her job well before any public hangings.

And the shovelling nuclear waste - people are saying it is inefficient. Why? (not sciencey enough to know)

Oh good point re nick and the “trust me”. So clearly he is quite well connected if he knew she wasn’t actually at risk?

Emily likely thought she never see her wife again and found solace in a low point in her life with a Martha, much in the same way June has found solace with nick even after she found out luke was still alive, in a way their old lives are so far away from the reality they are living. As for Emily murdering a wife she was sent there for having an affair not because she didn’t agree with handmaidens being abused, she comfy states her husband was busy with the handmaiden as if she was ow when in fact she was a victim and she was party to the rapes. Emily has definitely changed as person but so has June and Moria.

I thought it was a great episode - very moving & yet disturbing.

Just caught up with Ep1 and 2.
Yes to the pp saying this is happening in the US. That and the fact this shit has happened and could so easily happen is what makes it so chilling.

I didn't understand Emily killing the wife - to me it seemed better to die fast like that than the long painful death of everyone else.

Very sobering tv.

Margaret Atwood is going to be discussing THT on R4’s Bookclub, 4pm Sunday.

Oh fab.. Margaret atwood is brilliant, I have seen her talk once at a literary thing.. She was clever, funny, sharp.. I can't wait to hear what she says.

I like the fact the women arw having sex /relationships with others.. June with nick and Emily with the Martha. This is far more realistic, people will look for comfort and solace in dreadful situations, whether they have spouses

I still haven’t watched ep2 yet and it’s TUESDAY!!!!!!! Why won’t my child go to bed at a decent time

Looking forward to catching up on the comments

I can't help thinking that the scarcity of children which led to the rise of Gilead hasn't been given much attention in the flashback scenes.

I know that the maternity ward when June gave birth to Hannah was empty, but that has pretty much been the only reference.

Instead of needing your husband's signature for birth-control pills, why not go the whole way and ban contraception?

They possibly missed a trick by having June collect Hannah from the hospital. If she had picked her up from a half-empty school with unused classrooms etc, that would have had an impact. June could still have had a very similar conversation with a member of school staff, that she'd had at the hospital.

Conversations with June's other friends (guessing she had some, other than Moira)/colleagues about how fortunate she is to have a child when they are so desperate.

Even a throwaway line when Emily showed the student the photograph of her son and wife would have an impact - I think the student's reaction was fairly standard "cute family" or words to that effect. No indication whatsoever that Emily having had a baby was the exception rather than the norm.

I'm finding this compelling but unnerving in equal measures. So easy to see how a civil war/unrest could change the dynamics and then it spiral out of control. I don't think it would take much once a government is over thrown for women to become second class citizens again. I feel men in general tolerate women being 'equal' and wouldn't take much for them to slip back to the 'good old days' of a woman knowing her place!

Brokenshoes.. The scene at the airport.. Emily's son was the only child.

My DH would be so offended by your comment cushion.
He can't watch the programme because he feels embarrassed by what these men are doing to women and society.
Like with everything, some men are total twats and some are just lovely

She did say 'men in general' whatsmymethod

Yeah I said men in general.

My two sons would also be horrified at the treatment of women's this program because I've tried to raise them to see women as equals. However if society broke down and we were all forced to ' pick a side' you don't know how people would react.

Very good point brokenshoes

In fact it wasn’t until reading your post that I remembered the empty hospital when Hannah was born. I mean that’s the entire point of gilead- that pregnancy is vanishingly rare. But that seems to be like a side story they have dropped. Oddly. I think they definitely wouldn’t waste viable uteruses by sending them to the colonies. They would have the rebellious handmaidens restrained like the woman who was chained.

Sorry if I misunderstood cushion (and moon).
I took, in gereral as meaning, the majority/most.

If society collapsed and was run like Gilead is, I know I'd be doing everything I could to save my arse and not be hung or shot. I'd love to think I'd be full of high principles and make decisions based on my current moral code, but I know that fear would change all of that for me. Horrific death frightens me, as does torture and I'd do anything to avoid it.

I imagine it is the same for most people - otherwise totalitarian regimes wouldn't exist. People are scared to whistle-blow in this country, where we are fairly well protected, so imagine how utterly unlikely it is that the average person is going to stick their head above the parapet in a regime like Gilead.

Exactly margo

Zibbidoo but we don't know that June's group of Handmaids are the only ones. There could be other set ups in what used to be New York etc. Losing two "unmanageable" Handmaids would probably be seen as "for the greater good".

No apologies necessary what, I was generalising which is a big no no on MN, but I do realise that it's not all men that only tolerate women's equality.

Am I really reading NAMing on a thread about a dystopian future where women are systemically raped?

I mean that’s the entire point of gilead

I don’t think this is true. The entire regime is not just about the falling birth rate. There’s way more to it than that - otherwise why not leave gay men alone? Why execute journalists? There’s a lot more to it than getting more babies. If babies were the only point, they could artificially inseminate all the women of proven childbearing ability/all women of the right age and keep them in some kind of hospital. There would be no need for the handmaid setup at all. MA wrote the book in the 80s - “test tube babies” were a thing then, and other dystopian novels (Brave New World for example) imagine a society where children are born without the need for sex or pregnancy at all.

Gilead is based on certain bits of the Old Testament isn’t it?

I think that the decline in birthrates etc was blamed upon having turned away from God, being accepting of homosexuality etc so society turns to God and hopes he shows favour - US goes full Westboro Baptist