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.

Hi, I've been reading but haven't commented up until now. Love this series and look forward to my Sunday nights.

Does anyone else find themselves wanting to say the regular greetings, "blessed day", "under his eye" etc?

Just been thinking and they obviously have ultrasounds etc then why are they surprised when the baby is a "shredder (what an awful word)".

They don't have ultrasounds in the book. The dystopian future is not supposed to be particularly scientifically advanced, for practical and resource availability reasons that are justified with theology/dogma.

I actually thought the bit where the Commander shot the woman was a clever reminder of how terrorist thugs are often deified as rightful leaders and everyone powerful conveniently forgets about the brutality they used to grab their power.

Think about the Northern Ireland conflict or any of the totalitarian states we have now. Women often pay dearly in these struggles (as that woman did, who was she even?) but the price they pay is often overlooked in retrospect.

She was the wife/girlfriend of the gunman that shot Serena.

Does anyone else find themselves wanting to say the regular greetings, "blessed day", "under his eye" etc?

No, it's too terrifying to contemplate having to do that. Every time I hear 'under his eye' I reply 'up his nose' to the TV.

As an aside, it's interesting to google the greetings in other countries and see what they mean in English. 'Hello' they are not.

There's an advert on the channel 4 app for on demand tv which uses on me of the phrases 'blessed be' maybe when talking about finding the series to watch on demand. It's really jarring and tone deaf.

Up his nose

I thought it was interesting that fred once felt so fiercely protective of serena. Now i think he's forgotton who she was.

That's interesting Ready. I thought he was more protective of the message than of her.

It baffles me that Waterford has such a high up position in Gilead. He comes across as a feeble twerp.

I thought that until the scene in the forest. Now I think he's a feeble twerp with a twisted steel core who at bottom doesn't care one iota who he hurts. Maybe he did once, and we see that in his past tenderness to Serena, but it's long gone now.

This episode I found myself wondering what it feels like for the wives to use their husband's name to address another woman. It's another horrible way to de-humanise not just the renamed woman, but also the woman who has to accept her husband has a human possession.

Serena was clearly the driving force of that couple but the revolution silenced her and I think Fred has “taken on” aspects of who she once was, and clearly, very much enjoys using their role reversal as a kind of psychological warfare

Just watched this afternoon!

Holy shit! Completely took me by surprise, it actually took my breath away a little and i had a good five minute cry and swear at it!

That was the best moment of both series’ for me, and there have been some that really stayed with me, but that just blew me away! (Apologies for terrible pun)

I am really enjoying the exploration of good/bad, and believing that you are on the ‘right side of history’ (alarm bells FWR posters??) and how far people will go to uphold that belief, and then of course the flip side when the oppressed finally rise up but in order to do so they have to commit atrocities themselves.

In the books it is insinuated the Commander was actually a high up military leader in the war which is supposed to have preceded the events of the book, and he and Serena Joy are much older/middle-aged, so his presumed high standing (which is actually revealed in the epilogue) makes sense.

I haven't really liked the way they decided to portray the Commander and Serena Joy sympathetically in the first series, and I remember on these threads last year some people really fell for it.

However, the way they have now revealed him to be nothing but a lionised terrorist thug is really clever. The series hasn't really explored just how much some men benefit from the patriarchy (Nick doesn't really does he?), but this thrusts into focus just how spectacularly well some men do by being utterly vile and oppressive.

It shows just how good the screen writing is and also just how prophetic Margaret Atwood was in the 70s that she wrote a character who embodies the patriarch so utterly timeless.

"I haven't really liked the way they decided to portray the Commander and Serena Joy sympathetically in the first series"

I haven't liked it either, but I think it's been necessary because people are complicated and if they were just completely obviously awful all the time it would be harder to believe that they gained the support that they obviously did have, and still do have from some in Gilead.

I’m not sure Serena was the driving force in the beginning though. At the university, before her speech, it was Fred egging her on. He was even trying to change her words.

I would bet that he drip dripped Gilead’s idologies into her until she believed them completely, coerced her into writing the book. Women would be more likely to roll over, be happy to spend their lives bare foot and pregnant if it was another woman telling them that that’s what was required.

As soon as Gilead came to be, he ensured Serena’s rights, autonomy and voice were whipped away from her. It was always about his end goal.

Love reading all of the ideas on this thread 👍🏻

Serena telling Fred to be a man while she was in hospital, do you think she knew he would go out for revenge?

I thought that's what she was saying. She didn't trust the police, she wanted Fred to take matters into his own hands.

Yes, I’ve been thinking the same WitchShark

In the time before, instead of realising patriarchy is the problem, she’s internalised misogyny. Enforcing men’s expectations gave her a sense of power, she felt needed and on the same level as them.

She thought she was equal to them but she was used. The men needed Serena in the time before. They needed a female voice to air their ideas and now they’ve got what they wanted she is silenced like the rest of the women.

I want to watch the first series again...

In order to get a nuanced character they have to have layers and shades, we’d all be complaining if they were pantomime villains without any hint of an internal life

Even Aunt Lydia has more going on than meets the eye

I think that the strength of the show is that you have twinges of sympathy for absolute horrors

I loved June doing Aunt Lydia saying "We don't want you getting all roly poly".

I like how they reminded you that Serena was a driving force behind Gilead in case you felt a bit too sympathetic towards her when she was being nice to June and showing her the nursery. She was being nice to June because she is going to take her baby from her and wants it to be healthy. June was reciprocating because she was hoping to see her own daughter, and the minute she asks, Serena is furious about how manipulative and devious June is. It’s all about Serena and what Serena wants.

With the explosion and the handmaids upstairs, I was trying to rationalise it in my head ‘surely they would be happy to die if it meant taking the commanders down’. But they didn’t have a choice, and we know from the first episode with the mock-hanging that they didn’t want to die.

Would they let Serena raise ‘Fred’s’ child as a single parent?

Im so conflicted i still have some sympathy for serena!

I think Serena is truly evil, she will say and do anything to keep 'her' incubated baby safe, there are no redeeming qualities to her AFAIC.

I'm glad this explosion has happened because I feared for June after she'd given birth, Serena loathes June, that much is obvious so her life would've been unbearable. Who knows what will happen now

I know what you mean! We see flashes of Serena being so tender about babies and children, and she knows what she is doing is wrong I think that’s why see seeks June’s approval -showing her the nursery etc, she wants to pretend that this is a mutual agreement. I had suspected Serena had lost a baby and knew she was genuinely infertile, the handmaids are her only chance of getting a baby, she also knows how monstrous the means are of her getting one.