The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 (UK Pace) - thread 3

[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

Coming to this late, as I have just finished watching the latest episode. I think that Odette’s name was mentioned in the roll call because it was added in Moira’s head. We only heard it read out when the scene had moved into the memorial garden. So Moira heard the first few names read out then added in Odette herself just before she looked at and placed the photo.

Also agree about Luke. I hope my DH would fight harder for me!

Handmaids aren't meant to go out by themselves. Even their shopping is done with a partner. So it wouldn't matter if you couldn't so much as cross a road.
And the regime happily made Janine blind in one eye. (God, this is creepy.)

Has the news about SCOTUS given anybody the shivers?

A vacancy is available on the Supreme Court, the nomination falls to the President.

It is generally thought that he will pick an extreme conservative and that the end result will be a Conservative Right Majority

People are already stating they believe this will impact both women’s reproductive rights (Rape Cases and Abortion legislation)
And Gay Rights - including very possible repeal of the Equal Marriage Act

I can't stop feeling sorry for Serena! I've tried but I can't stop...it's a problem.

Mr Stark yes I feel it very much. Join us on the Trump threads, your input would be really welcome. Here's the latest one, in case you can't find it.

That episode was so good I shivered. In a good way.

I also noticed about Emily’s glasses in her flashback, it resonated with me as I have often watched tv series and thought I would not survive very long in a dystopian world after I had run out of contact lense solution

Agree about Luke. They must be writing him this way for a reason I think. I commented to MrMagic about Luke when he just went “meh, whatevs, I’m starving” and sauntered off to get dinner. MrMagic said, well there was nothing he could do in that situation. I said if you’d just found out there was about a 50% chance I was dead, even if you couldn’t do anything I’d expect at the very least a crease line on the forehead to indicate worry and an increased interest in finding out news, which he agreed to.

Sometimes I feel like I really have to spoon feed him

Praise be bitches!

Does anyone know how long Gilead has existed for? 5 years?

Hisashiburi 'Praise be bitch' is my favourite quote from the show. My colleague got it printed on to a bag for me for my birthday.

"Handmaids aren't meant to go out by themselves. Even their shopping is done with a partner. So it wouldn't matter if you couldn't so much as cross a road."

This is something I wonder about. Both Ofglens were usually waiting for June at her gate but how did they get there without a partner? When the Handmaids go out in pairs, one of them has to be alone even if it's just briefly to walk from next door. Ofglen would have had to be alone to collect June.

I wondered that too. May be they live just one or two houses away so the guards keep watch?

Placemarking

Hisash, I’m thinking 4years give or take. June spent time at the red centre, we don’t know how much but I’m thinking several months. Then 2 years at her first posting and approx 18 months (so far) with the Waterfords.

Praise Be Bitches is my favourite quote too. It’s printed on my phone case which was also a birthday gift

I felt sorry for Serena having to go on holiday with the creepy security commander.

I loved all the emphasis on the names. I'm pretty sure the first human right under the UN is the right to a name. I heard a program where children were asked if you had to choose between being free or having your own name what would you choose, and the majority chose having a name.

The partnership between Serena and June is interesting. I did soften a bit towards Serena in this episode. I'd love her to leave creepy Fred and run off to Canada with June and Hannah.

I thought Eden saw the handmaids uniting together in adversity and realising that she has no one. Her husband doesn't love her and she has no friends. I think Eden is going to tell on June/Serena for something.

Did anyone clock Fred telling June her belly was bigger, thus inadvertently telling Serena he'd been copping a feel on the sly?

She's Got It

Did anyone clock Fred telling June her belly was bigger, thus inadvertently telling Serena he'd been copping a feel on the sly?

Yes I spotted that. I assumed that was why Serena then told June the commander needed to rest so she would get out of her sight before she punched her.

I feel really sorry for Eden. She’s super young and had all these expectations of what her married life would be. The bit where she told June “I’m ugly” is exactly what I’d expect a girl her age to say / think in the same position. Unfortunately for her, it is her husband who isn’t all that interested in her rather than a boy her friends have set her up with.

I agree Moira’s baby was a whopping 3 monther but I think we are supposed to take him for a newborn. Moira makes a remark about along the lines that her bits are “burning” which I guess places it as just post birth.

I enjoyed the contrast between the start where the "ofcommander" names were given and the end where the real names were read out. I still like serena. Yes ok so she's probably evil but i think the show is doing a great job of creating 3 dimensional characters. We are used to seeing men who want to rush in to rescue their womenfolk but in reality a lot of people would be passive as luke- especially if he didn't really love june that much. I mean he had a baby with her, committed relationship - once a cheat always a cheat. Maybe he already had his eye out for a new mistress. It seems like he's going through the motions of grief. Its odd that he never mentions Hannah.

I have moments of liking Serena as well, and they are doing a very good job of showing how people are complex. It's very clever how they manipulate our reactions to people like that. I saw this quote from the book and it reminds me of discussions here about how people can find Serena or the Commander as sympathetic or not all bad.

"She did not believe he was a monster. He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, offkey, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation."

It is a temptation to look for the good.

The moment when June walked into the hospital room, Serena seemed so relieved & then said to Fred "Our baby's all right, it's here"... I probably shouldn't have been shocked at that, but it really bit.

Some parts of this episode really grated.

I'm not sure if I believed the whole Moira-as-a-surrogate back story, and was thinking "is this when THT jumps the shark", although it obviously does explain why Gilead rounded her up as a Handmaid due to her fertility. The baby did look far too old when he was handed over; I'm sure they used much younger looking babies for newborn Hannah and Charlotte/Angela.

The snogging in the hospital after June has seen people hanging in their front gardens and a Martha shot 🙄.

I know they showed a shot of Eden looking at the handmaids exchanging names in the grocery store, which might indicate she'll inform on them, but the store had several armed guards!!! Surely they'd notice and at least shout at them to stop talking at the very least.

But the main thing that bothered me is the killing of Ofglen's commander and his wife. They were suspected of being complicit in the bombing resulting in the deaths of 27(?) commanders and 31(?) handmaids. Surely they'd be more useful to the Gilead regime by being locked up and interrogated to get information from them about who else is involved in the resistance.

I'm not sure the Ofglen's were killed because they thought they were complicit in a useful way.

More as a lesson to everybody else to keep their household in order.

They were complicit in that they didn't know what their handmaid was up to and didn't put a stop to it.

So they killed the entire household as a way to install fear into others, to make them more watchful of the others in their house, and to make sure that people were informing on each other for fear of ending up the same way.

They can't have a Commander unaware that a 'terrorist' lives in his house. It makes him weak, it makes him foolish, it makes a mockery of the entire "under his eye" nonsense. The master of the house was unaware, and this is unforgivable to Gilead.

They don't think for one minute that Commander Glen had any useful information on Mayday or that he was part of the resistance. They punished him for not knowing and dressed it up as him being a traitor so he was a warning to everybody else to be more vigilant in their own homes.

I don’t know if this has been said already but...

Where’s June’s narration gone?!