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

Did Serena "get Nick involved" or was she just willing to turn a blind eye to what she could see evolving between them? My memory from that far back is not good.

Serena made the initial suggestion that June should have sex with Nick, didn't she?

Yes she approached her in the Garden

I think that if Serena feels she is owed a baby she feels she is owed it just by virtue of being Serena Joy.

As June said (about the econo family but it fits) Serena "If I'd gone to the right church, if I'd played my cards right...if I'd known I was supposed to be playing cards."

Serena, in her own mind, has done everything right, and for that reason alone she is owed a baby. Any baby. She campaigned for Gilead, she has schemed for Gilead, she has aligned herself with terrorists for Gilead, so if anybody is owed a baby in Gilead she will think it's her.

I'm fairly sure that when Nick and June had sex for the first time Serena was in the room with them. It was her idea, she took June to Nick, and although she didn't hold her down as she usually does, she was right in there with them all the same.

Thanks guys - totally missed that part. Think I need to go back and rewatch them from the start as lots of crucial scenes I seem to have missed or forgotten!

I thought Serena left the room after she brought June to Nick. She didn't stay did she?

I'm pretty sure she stayed.

She 100% stayed - and kept a watchful eye I might add!

Thanks. I need to rewatch Season 1. I've forgotten so much.

I have just rewatched series 1. I can’t wait 7days for a new fix. Serena did bring June to nick and stay in the room

I'm surprised that the American guy told Serena that she could have a baby of her own... presumably her being shot would have been reported in the press and he certainly knew a fair amount about her.

We've all inferred from the position of her being shot that it may have rendered her infertile and/or caused her to lose a baby.

Surely he would have known this too.

Or maybe it's just a little plot hole we need to ignore...

The details of her injury might not have been reported.
And if you were in her position and that happened, wouldn't you want to hush it up? Infertile is not a good look for a Gilead wife and her commander husband.

We don't know what being shot means for Serena's fertility though.

She might be fertile.

Even if not, the rest of the world hasn't given up on fertility treatments, or she might be allowed to use a surrogate in a more traditional way if it's a case of her being able to conceive but not carry a baby.

I get what you're saying, but in the days of Twitter, Facebook, Internet forums, which of course all existed pre-Gilead, the physical location of where she was shot would at least be widely rumoured, if not officially confirmed. Just think about how many students where there, many with mobile phones, no doubt.

I'm just musing this in response to a previous poster who I think said that the American might have made a mistake in saying she could have a child of her own in his attempt to get her to defect to America.

• were there

*Serena has been told she could maybe have babies of her own in Hawaii - but perhaps she can't, because of having been shot in the pelvic area. Maybe June's baby is indeed her last shot.

That's my guess. So that bloke wasn't just offering something that wasn't possible, he was reminding Serena that the baby she sees as hers is actually someone else's. Maybe that was an extra incentive for her to want to get rid of June ASAP.*

*Ooo that makes total sense

He thinks it's just that Fred's infertile

She knows that they have NOTHING that can help HER

that was an own goal on his part

Love this thread*

If he was trying to entice her with a child of her own, and he DID know her medical history, he went about it entirely the wrong way

Could he have been an Eye?

A child of her own could be a legitimate adoption though rather than a forced one like in Gilead. Or a surrogate that consents to it.

What a fascinating discussion. I have to watch each episode twice. The first time in a total state of fear and tension and the second time to really process what is happening.

I'm wondering if Nick and June might make an attempt to flee - he may well have the means to do it. He could have defected when he was in Canada but the Waterfords obviously trusted him enough to take him and he had pretty free reign there.

I have absolutely no sympathy for Serena. She is cruel and vindictive. She may well have a change of heart but IMO it will be to little too late.

I also wondered if the Hawaii baby thing is because Hawaii suffered less from the disasters that caused the infertility than other places in the US. Though if this was the case I imagine all the Gilead commanders would be booking flights in droves. (As opposed to booking flights in planes, sorry) We know from season 1 that infertility is rampant in Mexico, but I got the feeling that this was not the case in Canada, we saw the woman and little girl in the hotel, and I think there were a few more children in the scenes driving fro the airport, but can't be sure of this.

I think for many of the commanders the power and lure of Gilead is now about control - of men as much as of women - as it is about fertility. Not so for the gilead wives , who are so desperate for children because that is the only goal they now have in life, and this is where the ultimate schism will shatter Gilead as a concept. RIse up Gilead Wives!

Ps thanks for the new thread, there seems to be so much to fit into three more, or is it four more , episodes, I am on tenterhooks.

I am going to binge watch series 1 and 2 when this series is finished. Can't wait to pick up on little snippets I missed first time around.

Can't wait for tomorrow's

MrStark - I thought the canadian guy could definitely have been an Eye. She is really unlikely to be just left to her own devices; she would have at least been followed. And any interaction with 'canadians' would have been watched and reported on. Serena cannot be too careful.

And yes she did watch the sex between Nick and June - but i think she watched to make sure it was 'Gilead' sex. They then went on to have a proper, passionate go when she'd left!

viques I'm going to watch it all again too. I wanted to watch season 1 again before season 2 started, but I couldn't find it on 4 on demand. I might just buy the boxset.

I just can't feel sorry for Serena. She knowingly got involved in a coup that crushed the rights of her fellow humans and even now is physically abusive towards Rita and June, plus the awful mental abuse of June with her drip feed of news about Hannah.

Just place marking for tomorrow