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.

I wonder if Serena feels justified in taking the baby given that she sacrificed the ability to have one of her own to the cause - that shooting meant she would never be able to have her own baby and so perhaps she sees this as her right, or her reward for staying true to the cause.

I have conflicting views about her - seeing all the “before” stuff has been fascinating. It will be interesting to see how the dynamic changes between her & Fred if he does survive - what if he’s badly injured (in a life changing way) How will the regime manage that? They can’t just bin him off - he’d be a survivor of a terrorist attack, a war hero. But she’d have to take control.

She wouldn't be allowed to take control though. Not outside the home.

If Fred is incapacitated or dead, surely the baby would go to another Commander - June is Offred not Ofserena, she belongs to him, to his status.

This was his project, his new centre, and it's been bombed on his watch, under his eye, if you like. If he survives I can't help feeling that he'll be presented publicly as a martyr, and privately relieved of all position and responsibility. His security wasn't good enough, his team failed to prevent...

Or else he'll rise to the top because all his detractors will be dead.

Is it right that the majority of the fertility issues have been caused my nuclear plants along the San Andreas fault line falling apart due to earthquakes? Therefore just a problem in North and south America? Surely this would affect fertility in other continents. I can sort of understand why the world would want to reverse it's falling population quickly although I don't agree with how Gilead have gone about it. But surely if it's just a problem for the American continent and the while human race isn't under threat then this just goes to show that Gilead has been created for selfish reasons and Serena has supported it so that she personally can have a baby and not for the greater good.

Fred and Serena are kind of reminding me of one of those real life psychopathic couples now, who would have been bad enough alone but who are worse together than you could imagine.

They have little to no empathy, Serena seems to have flashes of it but then does something to make you realise it's not real, it's just serving her purpose. Fred has none at all.

I'm not sure Serena would love a baby. I think Serena loves the idea of a baby, but I've said before I believe if that baby grows up to remind her of June (either in looks or attitude) Serena won't react well and I'd worry for that child.

Fred doesn't give a shit. He went from touching June's bump to groping June and forcing her onto the bed. She had to use the baby to stop him raping her but I don't think he cared about the harm he could cause to that child or to June, just how he would get away with it if he did hurt her.

And the more I think about the bit where Serena told him to be a man, the more I think they both knew what she was asking of him.

And the way he spoke about it to the man before he shot the woman. It was more about him than about Serena. How do you think I felt seeing my wife shot?

Fred can casually shoot a woman in the head and drag her husband off to god knows where. That man won't have survived either, or if he did I doubt he's in one piece.

Plus, there's Gilead, and the terrorist acts it took to create it, and all the rape and murder and torture they engage in to keep it.

The casual violence Serena lashes out with, to Rita who hadn't done anything, to June, who was several months pregnant when she tried to strangle her. It's not the first time June has had a bleed after Serena has attacked her, yet Serena doesn't seem to connect it in her head.

It's strange to think that in real life it's the actress playing Serena who's pregnant and the one plying Offred who's (kind of) in a religious cult as she's a committed Scientologist!

Serena is the classic abusive husband isn’t she? Except she has more than one victim. We read about serena on MN in the form of a man who is “a great father” and “when he is nice he is so loving and kind” until it doesn’t suit him to be kind anymore.

'Is it right that the majority of the fertility issues have been caused my nuclear plants along the San Andreas fault line falling apart due to earthquakes? Therefore just a problem in North and south America? Surely this would affect fertility in other continents.'

I don't think the fertility epidemic stuff really hangs together. Margaret Atwood's grasp of human relationships and power play was always a lot stronger than her world building, and it says a lot about the anxieties that were prevalent in the 80s, which are rather different now - these days we worry about there being too many people for the land or clean water supply rather than there not being enough people. The whole infertility epidemic/ toxic waste clean up thing is the least convincing part of the whole thing for me.

Do we even know what the birthrate situation is in any countries other than Mexico? That's an intriguing point, about how it affects the morality of the whole thing.

I am going to go out on a limb now and say I feel a lot of sympathy for Serena, well the character in TV show, in the book the nuances of her flashes of empathy are not as obvious or grabbing.
She had her beliefs used to bring about a life she never imagined. She genuinely thought that if women returned to the home then the world would be a better safer place for all, and that women would be respected and have an equal place in society. Their value coming from their contribution to the family.
She is supposed to be a very intelligent individual so the frustration at seeing her intellectually inferior husband have all the power and she is now consigned to knitting and gardening must be driving her mad.
Her vision was of women raising their children and caring for their homes and husbands, and she would of course be head of the WI or mother's union.. Type thing. Listened too, respected, revered..

Well now she doesn't have anything, and no baby. The prospect of having something to do, something to focus her bored brain on must be intoxicating.
I think she knows how awful this is for June, she knows the regime is wrong but there is no way out for her either. So when June reminds her of the past life... She has to Bury all the feelings and lashes out, June reminds her too much of life before

So how does raising kids work in Gilead? None of the mums can read stories to their children, sing the alphabet song, sing one, two buckle my shoe etc! They can never help their kid practice writing their name etc. Obviously, the girls wouldn't be taught that anyway, but the boys would. How does that all pan out? The primary carer in the home is to be illiterate and innumerate?

I was wondering the same thing? And who teaches young boys? Make nursery and infant school teachers only. I guess sounder gilead rules. No reason why men can't do those jobs same as women though... So interesting that I think it is another example of the awfulness of gilead... When this maybe one example of where our current society is in a way the same as gilead. While in our society men can be early years teachers if they want, I wonder how easy it is in reality.
Margaret atwood is always ambiguous about the background worlds (read the madadam series... It's very vague) but for me that's the joy.. We can fill in and discuss what we think might have happened

Of course they could sing songs to babies and tell stories from memory

When Serena was shot, it was in the stomach/pelvic area - I wondered if they were suggesting that it was being shot that caused her to be infertile? If so, it might go some way towards explaining why she seems happy to take away the rights of other women - she assumes that they would have agreed with the people opposing her, and are therefore, in her mind, at least, somewhat complicit in taking away her fertility.

Of course, I might be overthinking this.

When Serena was being "kind" to June, she was behaving as a woman might behave with a surrogate who was carrying her baby for her. Slightly shy and afraid of saying the wrong thing. That's how deluded she is.

SDTG That's what I think too. I think that's why Serena is OK with taking the baby - she feels that the regime owes it to her as she was shot in its defence.

Scooby... That's it exactly. Serena can only cope with the whole mess /situation if she 'pretends' June is a happy surrogate.

We had the contrast of Serena being shot and the Commanders being bombed. One felt quite shocking, the other we were cheering. Yet if the terrorist had killed Serena, perhaps Gilead would never have been. A case of would you go back and kill Hitler.

I found both shocking
The realness of the bombing bit - where it all slowed down and the confusion
Found it jolting

I’m sure this has been covered already but I can’t recall. What was Serena’s Job/role before Gilead? Was she a politician?

SDTG I don't think you're overthinking at all. It's a deliberate choice by the writers/directors to have her shot there. It could have been anywhere else in her body, but was very definitely her pelvic area. Nothing is accidental in this programme.

I think Serena is unstable at best and a sociopath at worst. In the back story bits we've seen of her in series 1 and 2, she comes across as the one with the passion & vision for a fundamental religious future, where women know their place and breeding is paramount. You don't get to be that kind of nutter, without issues, so perhaps she had an awful childhood & her mum beat her, or her mum was a hard-nosed career woman - who knows - but something that left her obsessed with this kind of future and fanatical about religion.

In the flashbacks in series 1, it was definitely her wearing the trousers in the relationship and Fred trailing along in her wake, adoring her and completely under the thumb. Well, you aren't attracted to that kind of women, unless you are a bit fucked up too, so basically you have the attraction of two nutters, who now have more power than is good for them by a long, long way!

Redjellybean - excellent point re Serena's likely vision.
It wasn't that she planned it this way and didn't think it through. It's that this isn't what she planned.

In the book she is a TV evangelist if I recall correctly. Not sure if they mentioned this on the show yet.

Thanks what, that explains her already having a following and public platform.

STDG I interpreted it the same way as you. I assumed the shooting was what made her Infertile and that’s why she is so hard on June.

Thank you countess... I studied thmt.. At a level donkeys yrs ago, pretty sure I wasn't quite so astute or empathic then. Did manage a B grade though.

no they haven't mentioned that in the show yet. I think it would be great if they did, as it is so relevant to the story. Serena played a much more important role in the book - but she was older, walked with a stick, etc. The TV series has built her to be a different character.

I don't see the characters as 'sociopaths' I see them as religious fanatics, members of a cult, brainwashed amongst themselves, even the leaders.

And also, sorry this is controversial, but the book was published in 1985. The first 'test tube baby' was born in 1978, and the ethical debates about artificial insemination were in every newspaper and many scientific papers in America and Europe. We've very much used to it now but back then it was caused very deep ethical debates. The author was a university lecturer when this was all happening and must have had some pretty heavy discussions about the ethics of artificial insemination and sperm donation/egg donation, surrogacy, etc.