The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 (UK Pace) - thread 2

[CruCru]

Hi all

Here is the next thread for those who are watching The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 on Channel 4. Please don't put any spoilers on this - the other thread (for those in other countries who are watching ahead of the UK) is www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/3239228-Handmaids-Tale-Season-2-SPOILERS-VIEWING-AHEAD-OF-UK-SREENING.

Yes, he didn't know in advance. He probably knew that arranged marriages happened in Gilead, but hadn't been told it was going to be his that day.

The absolute loss of control of any aspect of your life is terrifying. I guess that’s how totalitarian regimes work. Makes me feel quite panicked if I imagine myself in any of those roles.

I wonder if anyone except the absolute inner circle is happy in Gilead?

Very few people seem to be free of fear or to have freedom. Freedom to choose and to just be. Free to love and to be loved. They all seem trapped even if some put on the belief they are free.

Yes I understand, but, they are still supposed to have sex on demand so it can hardly be avoided

Who were the women deemed Real Women before?

I don't think I know anyone they'd not class as an unwoman

MaryPoppins, they never explicitly state that they shred babies born with a disability but it’s heavily implied.

That’s because you’re used to romantic pairings on screen when the actor is 15+ years older than the actress. It’s rare to see actors of similar ages in a romantic storyline.

This!

What might have happened to older people too old to be fertile eg the parents of the Waterfords? Too old to be useful I mean.
Would they have just been executed do we think?

Wasn’t one of the drivers involved in the earlier part of the escape attempt a bit more senior?

I thought in the book they just called babies who had defects 'shredders' - I didn't think they actually shredded Angela?! 😨

"Despite the delivery, when Offred later sees Janine at the Prayvaganza (chapter 33), she is looking ‘very thin, skinny almost', with ‘no smile of triumph this time'. Janine is with a new partner, and Offred realises that ‘Janine must have been transferred then.' Ofglen explains to Offred that the baby Angela ‘was a shredder after all.' Janine is now in a perilous situation: she is only allowed three chances and had already lost a baby through a late miscarriage before the birth of Angela.

it is one of the largest differences in book to series, the Janine thing.

In the book she basically goes catatonic and vacant, run mad with grief.

At least TV Janine still has hope and is possibly the most optimistic character

Is anyone else thinking of THT when hearing the news of the immigration camps in the US and the children being taken from their parents?!? They are using the excuse that their parents 'broke the law' and quoting bible references. It could easily be a scene from the show when you're watching the news. Very scary stuff.

I watched episode 6 again last night and that definitely looks like a stretched belly button and not an incision to me.

Yes, exactly that Sonia. Especially when the Bible is quoted as justification.

On a separate note, I’ve just worked out that Aunt Lydia reminds me of Anne Widdicombe.

MrStark I read an interview or something that talked about why Janine is different in the series than the book, and made into a bigger character than she was in the book.

They said that they wanted to show her in contrast to June. Janine was successfully broken in the way that June almost was. Janine is what happens if they succeed in breaking you, June is fighting so hard against that. She was the first of their group to completely break apart and the others are using her as an example of what they don't want to become. They thought it would be a good contrast in the show for the viewers to compare the two and know what June was up against.

It's mad how, knowing Aunt Lydia has abandoned her, that she still proudly quotes her almost as if she is referring to what her mother once said.

Aunt Lydia is the most powerful player in that game. Hearts and minds.

I can't remember if it was janine or another handmaid who said early in season 1, that actually they were happier in gilead than before.
They had been a street prostitute and said something like at least now they had somewhere warm and dry and safe to live, they got three meals a day and only had to have piv vanilla sex once a month with a clean man.
I am not sure why I have been thinking about this... But its interesting that if it was janine or similar how once they had a child they felt different or was it that janine was just so vulnerable to a man(the commander) showing her some affection.. She claimed they had fallen in love and were going to run away with baby Charlotte /Angela.

It wasn't Janine, it was someone else.

Wasn't it Ofglen Two? The one who had her tongue cut out.

I feel like June tried to make an ally of her after Emily and got that response, but, grateful as she was, even she had to speak out against stoning Janine. I'm not completely positive on that though

That was Ofglen Two, before her tongue was cut out, MrStark is right. I remember her saying it, but I think then the reality of that life started to hit home, because it was also Ofglen Two who shouted at Aunt Lydia that they couldn't stone Janine, and she did that before June dropped her stone.

Janine's background was being gang raped at age 14 and she had a termination, and she was made to "confess" the rape and termination as her sin and was shamed for it by Aunt Lydia, with the Handmaid's forced to join in. I think I remember them sitting in a circle saying "your fault, your fault, your fault" to her.

They used shame and violence to break her down. In the book she had a daughter who was taken from her, in the series I think it's her son that was taken, but in both they use her rape against her and break her mind down.

She thought Commander Warren was in love with her, so was happy because she thought that would mean she could keep Charlotte, so she was different to Ofglen Two who knew what was going on but at first found it preferable to how she used to live.

Soniashoe. Totally agree

I'm still watching and so confused at times but enjoying.

Thanks, yes I remember from the book and series one about janine being raped.
It has made me think though about what freedoms someone might trade for security

I also think that the scenes from the colonies are not currently adding much to the overall narrative.

However, they do serve to show the contrast between the colonies and the rest of Gilead. It is obviously hell on earth where they are sent to work and then die, but they are free to use their proper names, talk openly, be true to their sexuality and practice their religion. They have many more "freedom tos" than people living elsewhere in Gilead.

I wonder about the guards in the colonies.

I know they have their faces covered and protective clothing on but that can't be a safe job even so.

Which makes me wonder, why are they doing it? How did they get selected to do it?

You would have to really believe in the cause to want to work in the colonies, and they seem to have a lot of people out there keeping the women in line (have we seen any men sent there?) so I wonder if it's some kind of punishment job, or if it's done on a kind of rota, or if those guards are econo-people from the nearby cleaner areas who have been healthy enough to avoid the radiation but still not wanted in the cleaner areas of the country.