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

Have waited all week to watch the latest episode.
I clapped. On my own. Loved it!!

I am saddened by HULU obvs cashing in on success of first series.
I fear already we might be veering into the 'sensationalist' rather than sticking to the true premis and theme of the book only.
It was the moody photography and tight sparse dialogue and brilliant music that really made the first series such a fantastic screen adaptation. I am already finding massive plot holes in series two and dare i say it..would get bored with a looping storyline of june tries to escape/june escapes/june is recaptured/ june sees hannah/june tries to escape.....

like how does Nick seem to have complete freedom to go anywhere and be away for hours at a time, and he and june are often in the house talking together...un supervised.

how did june get out of the house and end up in the garden when she hemorrhaged at night ..and why does she not do it again..and escape...

were did ofglen get a bomb from ?

I think there were always bound to be plotholes once you opened up the story like this. I think it just depends on how involved you are whether you let them slide.

I do get annoyed with how loud june and nick chat though, in serena's living room for gods sake!

But how can she escape? There's guards on every corner of every street etc. The only way she can is with help

Place making new thread! Bring on Sunday!

I am loving this series but I don't want them to drag this out for years.

I think one more series would do it. People will lose interest and three is a good number to end on.

June has always been able to come and go as far as the garden at night, she was doing it in the first series too I think. But for a country with a population problem they have a man at every gate. There's no shortage of guards. I don't think she could get down the street without being stopped though so escape without help will be difficult.

I can't take ten years of her yo-yo-ing in and out of the house from escape to recapture and back again. Ideally for me they will resolve most things in a third series and hopefully end that series in a similar way to the book.

I completely agree Hygge
I couldn't watch endless series of June in misery on loop.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the scene where Nick consumates his marriage. Having to have sex through a hole in a sheet .

Surely that would have been incredibly painful for her? Then she said if it didn't work they could do it again! No wonder there aren't any babies with everyone having unfulfilling sex once a month.

It was discussed in detail on the previous thread, Weasels - from about page 30 on.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/3269725-The-Handmaids-Tale-Season-2-UK-Pace-thread-2?pg=31

Actually from page 28

Difficult to watch with a daughter, sometimes I try and really imagine how it would feel to be June but it’s horrific

Checking in.

I'm eagerly anticipating tonight, no idea what direction they'll go in. I hope we get some sense of what's happening in the colonies and Canada that brings it all together!

Looking forward to tonight! So sick of blooming spoilers in the headlines of the articles they try to get me to read when I open an Internet tab on my phone though. '[Character name] revealed to be [specific thing]!' type thing.

I am worried that as a result of the bombing the Gilead authorities will have a crackdown, executing and arresting people. Hope June and the other handmaids, Nick, Rita etc will be OK.

I wonder if this will be good or bad for Fred and Serena? Maybe with so many Commanders dead, he will rise to a more senior position (if indeed he survived).

I'm already feeling really impatient for tonight's episode.

I still think Fred will have survived, mostly because I think they (the programme makers) still need him in the middle of Serena and June.

He's slimy enough to slither his way out of this at a great advantage anyway, but Serena wanted June out of the house and Fred said no, then he did that whole creepy thing last week claiming he was keeping the peace between them.

Serena would be out of control if she were alone with June and the logical outcome would be to send her away until the baby was born if Fred were killed, that's if she gets to keep the baby at all.

But I don't think the producers would want that as a lot of the tension and drama comes from the two women being forced together. They need Fred for that.

I wonder if there are any newspapers in Gilead? Or any press at all?

By that - I mean is there a way that the people in control get their message and propaganda to everyone else - not a press that seeks answers to injustice and holds truth to power.

In the book they have a printing shop that printed things I think were called a Soul Scroll, and the wives would have prayers done for their friends to prove how pious they were.

I was a bit confused by that, since women aren't allowed to read, but the machine also speaks the prayers out loud (I think).

It's been a while and I forget how that worked in the book, I'm not sure if the recipients were called so they could hear the prayer down the phone or if they were sent a recording or something.

But if they do have newspapers and print it will only be for the men.

I also wonder if there is news of the outside world or even an underground newspaper? Getting caught with a radio or a newspaper or being involved in its production would probably lead to execution - but you can see how people may well be desperate to hear news from outside.

I don't think the recipient was meant to hear the prayers - iirc they were just burbling/ ticker taping away in the shop. I may be wrong though.

Muchos excited for tonight’s episode! I think Fred will be, perhaps not dead, but incapacitated to the point it looks like June’s baby will be reallocated to another commander - spurring Serena to take action (with June/against Gilead) to keep the baby.

I also agree with previous poster, I hope we hear/see the repercussions and fallout of the bombing around Gilead and Canada to see a bit more of the big picture. I hope the colonies rise up.

Maybe Fred will be injured , but like I said in the previous thread, I saw the Channel 4 trailer for the new series before it started and it showed a scene with an unscathed Fred shouting angrily at Serena and about to hit her with a belt. This scene has not yet been shown in episodes to date I think? Does anyone else remember?

He was saying something like 'if you'd been kinder to that girl, she wouldn't have ...'. But I suppose maybe that could have occurred in the time June was missing, hiding in the newspaper offices, and we will be shown it later in flashback.

So that's one reason I think Fred will be OK, plus not wanting to lose Joseph Fiennes/character of Fred.