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.

Hello from a lurker who is loving THMT and this thread.

Does anyone know which episodes had Serena's flashbacks in series 1? I'm tempted to try and find and rewatch them to help me understand her role in setting up Gilead.

Urban dictionary definition of a sociopath - sounds like Serena to me!
"Sociopaths are people who have little to no conscience. They will lie, cheat, steal and manipulate others for their own benefit. They know exactly what they are doing, they just don't care because they don't think that way. If you are naive enough, they will brainwash you into doing exactly what they say and what they want which is the only time a sociopath is truly happy.
Sociopaths can hide this well if you haven't known them for long. They're really nice and charming at first, almost too nice, but it's extremely fake. The niceness will last until a problem occurs in which they are at fault however, you will be manipulated to believe that you are in the wrong. There is no reasoning with this person. Things have to be their way or it's the highway. They will blame you for hurting them (even if they're the ones who hurt you) or blame the world for all their problems (knowing full well they do shitty things in general). They are compulsive liars and even if they do apologize, it's never genuine. Most are anti social and have few to no friends because most people around them don't want to associate with them. However the sociopath will again tell you that "people hate me for no reason/the world is against me". The only person who will put up with a sociopath is someone who is off their rocker or someone who has absolutely no self respect, or both of those two combined."

Well.. I wasn't expecting that!!

Let's hope that most of the in charge men are dead.

Why does Nick want to leave? Is it because he can't bear to be around June when he has to service his child bride. Feels guilty/cheating?

This is episode 6 so things must start to change in the next couple of episodes surely1.

Blessed be the fruit

Fred reminds me of those men who go to strip clubs and give the strippers their business cards. He's forgotten what it is like to have a woman actually like him - he assumes that because June is polite to him, she is keen on him.

Re what it would be like having a woman who isn't allowed to read or write raising the children - wasn't that what it was like in Afghanistan for years? Women weren't allowed to go to school so I should think quite a few were illiterate.

I think it’s still like that in Afghanistan now to be honest. Malala still has Close Protection

Were we supposed to think that Serena was not only made infertile by the shooting, but she actually was pregnant and miscarried? Just some pps mentioned the actresses bump was showing (from her real life pregnancy). If she'd lost a baby, that explains her rage even more I guess.

The thing with Nick and Eden and the sheet was messed up. Please tell me there isn't a society somewhere in the real world where people have intercourse this way! Although it must have been unpleasant and painful for Eden, i don't think you can call it rape as that's what she wanted. A sanctimonious little thing, isn't she? I feel sorry for her though as she has obviously been well brainwashed by her family. I think she will probably cause trouble for Nick and/or June in the future.

As for Fred, I am pretty sure he will turn out to be alive and uninjured. Doesn't anyone remember seeing the Channel 4 trailers for the series before it started? There was a scene with Fred which hasn't yet been shown in the series, where he appeared to be whole and unscathed. (Shame!) Unless that was a flashback, of course. But I agree he seems too important a character to be disposed of yet.

I hope Ofglen did anyway manage to get rid of a whole load of 'commanders'. But how many are there in the whole of Gilead, I wonder? The regime should be destabilised by this, though.

This is episode 6 so things must start to change in the next couple of episodes surely1.

Are we sure they do change?

Yes that’s what I think we were supposed to infer Pemba, that she was pregnant

The hole in the sheet thing rings a bell like there’s a precedent for it somewhere but I’m not sure where.

Edens rape... she is 15 and the age of US Consent is 18 not 16

I think the intention is that the viewer is meant to see her as unable to consent regardless of her piety

MrsStark the “did you have sex through a hole in the sheet?” Is a line in a show or film but I can’t remember which one. I’m thinking a comedy but not sure.

Huh I’ve just googled the bedsheet thing and it was a popular myth ascribed to Orthodox Jews that they had sex that way, also very historically South American Catholics but no evidence it was ever actually a thing

Eden a raped. Her age alone makes it rape however had she been 18 she’s has been conditioned to believe she cannot refuse her husband so she has no option to consent or not. That makes it rape too.

It's not rape - the age of consent might be 18 in the US but this is not the US, this is Gilead. Their rules are completely different.

Also she's not forced to have sex with Nick because she doesn't feel she can refuse - she's the one actively pushing for something HE doesn't want. And he feels like he can't refuse as he'll be sent to the wall as a gender traitor, something Eden indirectly threatened to do if he didn't sleep with her.

So Eden can refuse?

it’s state ordered rape.

I very much doubt Eden could refuse

Just like I doubt Nick could have refused his marriage

It would look like you was against them if you said no

I'd agree with Fairfax, they're in Gilead, US rules on age of consent etc. no longer apply. And Eden was the one forcing the issue.

Nick obviously feels very uncomfortable with the whole teenage bride situation. But couldn't he try talking to her a bit more, reassuring her, and trying to be her friend? He needs to get her on side (without her finding out about June). How messed up the whole thing is.

I thought puritans under the rule of Oliver Cromwell used the hole in the sheet idea?

Why was she forcing the issue though? Was it because She wanted to lose her virginity through a hole in a sheet aged 15 to a stranger with no foreplay at all, not even a kiss in order to conceive a child? Or was it because she has been brainwashed to believe that it’s her duty and she owes her body to her husband and god whether she wants to or not?

Snopes has a page on this
www.snopes.com/fact-check/sheet-dreams-are-made-of-these/

I binge watched series 1 and up to episode 6 of seris 2 over the weekend. Its incredibly dark isn't it and frightening how much is so relevant to events going on in the world at the moment.
I've really enjoyed hearing other people's perspective on how it's all playing out.

Aunt Lydia is incredible and quite confusing at times. She's brutal and so unphased by the violence she inflicts on people yet at other moments almost maternal ti the handmaid's. I'd like to see a flash back to her past.

There are times when I feel really sorry for Serena but realistically she's a complete bitch and I think you reap what you sew, she deserves wjat is going on.

Can't wait for sunday to see the outcome of the bomb.......I have a feel Fred will be fine and could potentially be promoted if others more senior to him have died. I also don't think he's finished with Nick......I've got a horrible feeling he's going to medal with his life more. He's so jealous, you can see it a mile off

Though Gilead rules apply

This is a fictional work

The viewer is meant to feel that this is rape/child abuse

I'm not sure if Eden is completely conditioned to believe that she must repopulate Gilead, or if she knows that there will be repercussions for her / her family if she doesn't. Perhaps both. Her "schooling" was maybe similar to that of the handmaids.

"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 agree with this, they will have deliberately had her shot there.

I'm not sure if I agree it was so she can justify taking someone else's baby though.

To me it was more that this particular area of a woman's body is a battleground, it's a heavily regulated part of our bodies in a way that a man doesn't have to put up with, and it's a battleground in the show and in real life for more than one reason.

Women choosing to have sex or not. Are we sluts or prudes? Are we virgins or whores? That part of our bodies and the things we do with it are everybody's business.

Women choosing to get pregnant or choose birth control. There are those that will refuse to serve a woman with the contraception, those who would stop us having a termination. Those who think we have too many children and those who are judged for not having any at all.

Those who think a woman should have bodily autonomy and those who think a woman's body is up for grabs. Pro-Choice or Anti-Choice. Incels thinking we owe them sex so they don't have to kill us.

People who think a woman's body is less important that the clothes covering it. People who think a woman's body can be redefined. People who won't say the word ''woman" any more.

Serena was shot there for a reason but I think it was far more complex than her using it later to justify taking a baby. She could have been infertile anyway, or still fertile now. It makes no difference in Gilead because her body is lesser and not hers anyway. It belongs to the men. But in particular, that part of her body belongs to the men and the state.

Just like June's does. Nobody cares if the Handmaid's are raped, nobody cares if they want to conceive, or if they want to keep their own baby. Because women, be they wives or handmaid's, are body parts and property before they are women.

Serena was always going to take a baby. But it makes sense that she was shot in the part of her body that is at the centre of the war on women.

As far as I am concerned, Eden was raped.

She's fifteen, she was married to a stranger she had never met. A stranger who didn't know he was going to marry her until he was handed a box with rings in it moments before she stood in front of him.

We're not even sure if the Gilead state knew which stranger they were going to pair her with, or if she got Nick just by virtue of the place she was in her line.

She's been conditioned to believe in Gilead ideology and when she was told that sex could be pleasurable she rejected the idea as not godly.

She's basically a brainwashed robot who will do her duty no matter what. She has no choice and no free will.

She will have sex with her husband because that's god's plan, not because she wants to, not because they love each other, not because she enjoys it, not because she has the free will to decided if she wants it, but because she's been told that's what she's for.

She's been groomed for this by Gilead. To me that's as much a rape as the 'ceremony' is for the handmaids.

In the book women were offered the choice of becoming handmaids or going to the colonies. Rita in the book disapproves of Offred for making the choice she did. So I don’t think Fred or Serena consider that she hasn’t freely signed up to it. And can convince themselves that she is a happy surrogate.

Fred thinks she enjoys their illicit meetings and doesn’t consider that she has not got the power to refuse really. And June knows the only way to get information about the regime or Hannah is to keep Fred on side. So she has to encourage him.

I thought the Nick/Eden scene was very interesting. He was clearly terribly uncomfortable with the idea of sex with a teenager. But his hands were tied. She’s been brought up to believe in Gilead, and that her role is to bear children and keep house.

Suicide bomb was a really clever move. To have us sympathise with a suicide bomber is a brilliant move on the writers part I thought.

Looking forward to seeing the aftermath now!