The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 (UK Pace) - thread 4

[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

Someone on the last thread asked for a link to the previous threads:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/3216737-The-Handmaid-s-Tale-Season-2

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

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/3290403-The-Handmaids-Tale-Season-2-UK-Pace-thread-3?pg=38

I took it that the idea with Hannah is that she has been adopted? I don't quite know how this fits in with Gilead ideals.... but surely if she was only to be a handmaid they would have them all in a unit like the red centre? Still so emotional thinking about last nights episode. It will stay with me for a while I think.

I am not sure about the pink clothing tbh.
Gilead could not justify innocent children being handmaids. There is nothing I can recall in the old testament story that gilead bases its rhetoric on that would support that. Plus if they took girls from sinning parents to be future handmaids they would not give them to parents.. They'd have a young leah and Rachel centre... Surely?

Hygge I think you have it spot on. He is such a manipulative abuser.

I thought the Handmaids were all fallen women (in Gilead terms) so some had committed adultery, been raped, been in gay couples.
June's husband was married when he met her so that's why she's handmaid status as fertile but not of the moral standard (again in Gilead terms) to be a wife.
This is possibly why June was telling Hannah to be good to her new parents. If Hannah behaves well she could be a wife. Which is still pretty awful but usually better than a handmaid's life.

On another note, I'm sure one of the wives (Angela's "mother") said to Serena "you deserve this".

Which was paralleled when Fred said it to June. The writing in this is so great.

You’re right sassenach, she did say that to serena when they were starting the fake labour ceremony.

Checking in for when I catch up on Sunday's episode

Yes, I think the handmaids are all "fallen women". The average married woman probably became an econowife. In fact, the econopeople are probably the majority in Gilead but we've only really seen them in the episode where June meets the baker and his family.

I could see how they could justify raising children like Hannah to be handmaids. There's something in the old testament about children being cursed by the sins of their fathers for generations - that could easily be twisted to create a "them & us" mentality where the "cursed" children are seen as a different, lesser, race of people. Obviously, their parents being sinners means God has cursed them too & therefore it's morally righteous for the "blessed commanders" to enact God's punishment on them. Or something!

I watched it last night but couldn't bring myself to come back to the thread until this morning. It hadn't occurred to me that Fred set June & Nick up, I just thought it was another way of him demonstrating his power to June. I was concerned with what Serena might be thinking when she was talking to the doctor & Aunt Lydia about inducing - her scornful reaction to the tea suggestion made me worried she might be thinking of other natural ways to encourage a baby along. I didn't imagine they'd do it like that though. I didn't think it was gratuitous, I don't think any of it is really supposed to be entertaining as such. It seemed more to me that they were showing Emily being raped at the beginning as a way of comparing the 2 experiences, not that one is worse than the other but like they were pointing out that the handmaids lying still & not fighting back at the time doesn't make it any less "rape". It reminds me of how some women think what happened to them wasn't rape-rape because they froze or didn't fight back hard enough.

Somebody upthread mentioned the scene where Janine was blamed for being gang raped. I'd forgotten about that.

And when Serena realised Fred had taken June to Jezebel's, she blamed her for leading him on. It's always the woman's fault & that's why Eden's playing with fire now almost as much as June. If one of the Waterfords had seen her with Isaac...

It does make Aunt Lydia's story about the man raping the handmaid a bit more incongruous though. If she genuinely believed the Gilead line, & if the handmaids had been properly brainwashed, surely they'd all have been blaming the fictional handmaid instead?

I wonder if 'Agnes' is in pink to signify that she is an 'orphan'? The clothes are all so emblematic - Serena putting her blue gown away in a wardrobe of identical blue gowns...

This episode was one of the worst (best?) I've seen. Waterford is totally playing with his power over June and tryi g to get the upper hand again, to put her in her place. He is easing his conscience by raping her by letting her see her daughter. An abuser will often blame the victim and then give them gifts.

The scene with Hannah totally broke me. I was sobbing and its haunting me today. My dds are 10, 8 and 5 and I gave them all extra cuddles and kisses last night before I went to bed.

I so want June to run away to Canada and get Hannah out somehow. On the verge of giving birth I can't see that happening.

I'm on holiday soon I can't wait another 2 weeks to find out whats going to happen!

I wonder how much Hannah's adoptive parents knew about the visit?

The Martha said to her "We talked about who you were going to see today" & the idea of a small child being sneaked away for that meeting, with the assumption that she wouldn't say or do anything to give the game away, just seems quite risky.

I think Hannah is in pink because she's a precious child and is a girl so pink. I don't believe she's being groomed to be a Handmaid as she is living with a commander and wife (her new parents 😭)

I don't think June will be back at the Waterford's for the birth - we've now seen the birth rituals, we don't need to see them twice. (it's that old tv trope of a groom practicing his vows before the wedding meaning that we won't see them in the actual wedding.)

I also wondered whether they put the Emily 'ceremony' rape scene at the beginning so that viewers would hear the warning for sexual violence and think that was it, and so be even more shocked and horrified by the second rape.

Definitely agree with those that have called it a rollercoaster of emotions. I also thought that Fred's 'treat' was a naive guilt type thing, and that he wouldn't realise how fucking hard it would be for June to have to lose her child again. But by the time the credits rolled I'm totally flipped to 'Fred planned it all'. No idea what his long term plan is, does he have any interest in the baby at all? Not even as a status symbol, or a means of keeping Selena placated? Or has his fragile male ego been so damaged by the threat of it not being his baby that he's seeking revenge and is unable to see all of the benefits a baby could bring him?

I wonder where Emily will be moved to next. Presumably if your commander is dead and you're not pregnant it's onto the next posting. Wonder if she'll go to the Waterfords?
Or if she is pregnant by that commander what happens then?
Just considering that they won't have put the commander passing away in for no reason.

I think Emily had something to do with commanders death..

theredjellybean I thought the same.

Recently been off sick so have binge watched previous episodes and just caught up on last night's. All I can say is wow. The best thing I've seen on telly for years.

I'm interested to see how it's going to all play out seeing as it's been commissioned for further seasons!

When Aunt Lydia told June about the fate of the Econo family, could that indicate the fate of the children in gilead?? I can't remember what AL said about the child. The father was put on the wall and the mother was sent to be a handmaiden....

The child was sent to new family.. Al says 'he'll never see his parents again'

'An abuser will often blame the victim and then give them gifts'

That's a really good point.

'An abuser will often blame the victim and then give them gifts'

This would happen to me. I took what Fred done as just another cruel control tactic and a way to make himself (in his owned fucked up little head) look good and kind, when in fact he is the opposite. The gifts are bribes so to speak and are used against you later on.

Harrowing episode.
Think I'm a bit in love with Nick.

I think the two different rapes reflect a bit of what is often held in society - where real rape is stranger in a dark alley and soft rape is with someone you are dating or even married to - the alledged stranger rape and handmaid losing the baby is shocking to the core for Gilead, but the monthly "ceremony" is god's will, and no different to the only relatively recent alteration to the fact that rape was not previously possible in marriage - just an extension of the marriage vows. I'm loving the parallels and mirrors, I had missed the "you deserve this"