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 want to see Serena in a Canadian interrogation room spilling everything she knows to shut down Gilead.

But I think her pride will stop her doing that her doing that.

The birthing scene was excellent - it actually made me weirdly broody??

I have no maternal instincts. I've never given birth and I don't want to, but I was still intensely caught up in that birth scene. It made me think how much more powerful it must have been for women who have experienced that.

Serena will not spill her guts about Gilead.

Agree crunchy. She’s still far too attached to her ideology. She thinks she’s right.

What is it about watching a woman in absolute agony that makes us want to get some of that for ourselves? I had to stop watching one born every minute because it made me broody too!

I'm glad June didn't shoot. I was really tense because I thought that'd get her caught if she missed. It's often a film/TV thing that someone that's never used a gun before becomes a hot shot instantly though!

I don't see how she can leave with the baby sadly. Babies are so rare in Gilead that she'd get noticed or make a noise if somehow hidden. I wonder if she'll have to give up the baby to a rescuer in return for her escape? She'd have more time to escape if Serena actually has the baby somehow she won't be searching for her.

Also she didn't cut her ear tag out this time so presumably can be tracked by someone once alarm is raised.

Interesting with the nursery scenes and then seeing Hannah's art and some happy looking photos. Seemed to imply that perhaps Hannah is 'ok' the way a child gets used to nursery eventually. Perhaps saying it is worse for the mothers and the children adjust?

I couldn’t work out why, if Hannah lives in that house with her new parents, it was all closed up and she was taken there for the meeting and then removed afterwards?

I’ve said this before, but I really hope they do make too many series. American series often overstay their welcome and “jump the shark”, however the fact that Margaret Atwood is a producer on the series means it should be in safe hands. 10 series would be ridiculous,this isn’t Star Trek, friends or some fluffy comedy, It’s a tragedy that we all hope has a just and good ending.

She has her ear tag back in?
Then it’s not a problem to find her surely

I thought it was a summer house. So shut up for the winter.
I don't know she has her tag back in but presumed they'd tag her again especially after escaping once.

I felt like June mentally said goodbye to Hannah in this episode. She found photos of happy Hannah with her new family and then it cut to June saying goodbye to Hannah at nursery, where Hannah also went on to be happy.

I always thought the ear tags were to brand and humiliate them like cattle as opposed to a tracking device?

She does have her tag back in. But surely if they were trackers Moira would have been caught?

Yes that must be right, just to mark them out

OK, so I hope that the car belongs to someone in Mayday/whatever's still left of the underground railroad, and that they're close enough to Canada to get across the border before the alarm is raised. That could be the focus of next episode, leaving the final episode to focus on what happens to June once she's in Canada. Sorted! However, I've been over-optimistic at the end of every single episode this series, so it's unlikely to be what actually happens.

If by some amazing quirk of fate I'm right, they could then leave what happens next to Serena, Fred, Nick, Hannah and Emiliy for S3. My ideal S3 would be for the first half of the season to be about the downfall of Gilead, together with Canada-based action revolving around June's relationship with Luke which is bound to be problematic after everything they've been through, and maybe focusing on Moira's and Emily's roles in bringing about the end of Gilead. The second half could focus on whatever truth and reconciliation process is put in place - Fred is beyond redemption, but I'd like to see Lydia and Serena being forced to face up to what they did. Shall I pitch this to the writers?

I said to DP that there were only 2 episodes left, and he said that's not long to bring about he fall of Gilead, 'cos we know that it will fall'. He's only just getting the idea that things like this are happening NOW, somewhere in the world, to woman and others, and unlike TV, there may not be a happy ending, or even a resolution.

He doesn't really get how difficult it is for women everywhere, unless it is spelled out and shoved under his nose!

I didn't think about the symbolism of the wolf - I jsut saw the threat of a lone female, hindered by late pregnancy; tasty! I almost screamed at the TV when she just turned around and walked off - without taking the shovel or anything else to defend herself.

@QuackPorridgeBacon I watched the birth scene as though it happened over a short while. Not quick, there and then but a couple of hours. I thought it was a brilliant scene!

Perhaps June is desperate to save Hannah the trauma of another separation.

Gitta Sereni wrote an account of two Polish children taken from their parents by the Nazis and given to a German family who had, I think, lost their children to death or war. At the end of the war GS was part of the group who reunited the children with their original parents. The children had been kindly treated by their ‘new’ parents and felt it was their home and had forgotten their real parents. They were completely traumatised by being removed again and taken back to Poland.
It was a harrowing story with no happy solution.

@QuackPorridgeBacon I know it wasn't you who said otherwise, I mean I'm agreeing with you

I felt mixed feelings when Oprah came in the radio- like a pp said, she's wealthy, so she could get out.
I enjoyed the contrast between the hospital birth and the naked, fire lit birth scene. It was pretty intense, I was practically bearing down with her!

I definitely didn't want June to shoot, I was tense thinking don't do it, it won't work out.

I think Holly apologising to June when she arrived saying the weather kept her back was the link that the wolf represented Holly. The snow was between them physically but she's still there willing her on mentally.

I found it puzzling that June seemed to be taking (comfort?) from the breathe breathe breathe push push push scenario to help her with this birth.

Dontletthebastardsgrindyoudown That’s how I seen it. I think it was beautiful too and showed a lot of power as a woman at such a traumatic time. Made me really broody though lol

I thought the wolf was there as her mother too. Even though we haven’t met her inthe series, her mother has played such an important role I think. I wonder if she’s a bit of Margaret Atwood? There’s one scene in an episode where her mother is warning June about sleepwalking in to Gilead (not in those exact words obviously) and she’s constantly fighting isn’t she?

The ckntrast between the birth of Hannah in a highly medicalised setting and the setting her mother suggested AND the birth of holly was really well done I thought. I felt like it was yet another way that June showed her strength and proved that women are so much stronger than Gilead gives them credit for. She’s just delivered a high risk baby by herself! I also worry that this will enrage Serena even more.

FoofFighter I think it was watching it help Janine and knowing she could use some guidance of sorts without the hospital, which is how they give birth in gilead, surrounded and without a hospital so she took from that something to help her through it. That’s what I think anyway, June (if not in gilead) would have been in a hospital and felt safe and reassured, but in gilead she would be reassured in a way by Lydia, I could be wrong though.