The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 (UK Pace) - thread 5 - SPOILER ALERT

[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

When I saw June turn her head away and try not to look at Holly, it reminded me of the scene in 'Mad Men' where Elizabeth Moss' character turns away from her newborn son when the nurse brings him in for her to feed.

Serena needs June to some degree - needed her to have a baby, needs her to feed the baby (bottle or directly on the boob) and she hates that she needs her and she hates that she needs Fred ("I gave up everything for you") she realise how weak she is and that weakness feeds her own hatred of herself.
She's lost and stuck and angry and I just hope she realise how at fault she is and does something good to try to change it before the series ends.
Her blind religious belief makes her feel better about herself but watching Eden drown she knows that it's not gods will and its twisted and fucked up.
What world does she want her 'daughter' to grow up in?

June must be feeling very guilty.

Thank you for heads up re. Wife/Martha. I think I missed the Martha when I was messing about going from watching it on my phone to the TV.

Definitely need to watch the whole programme again.

I find Serena’s character so captivating. She totally manipulates me into feeling sympathy for her even after everything she stands for and everything she has done.

Does anyone else wonder how, if all goes well and somehow June escapes, will she be honest to Luke about Nick? Where does her heart lie now? She could very well be faced with that impossible choice one day.

I do wonder if having a daughter will make Serena see it all differently. Eden was apparently the perfect Gilead girl but even she turned out to be more driven by her humanity than by the teachings of the state. Surely Serena must see that the future can’t be bright for a baby girl. No reading or writing, submitting to men. No woman would want that for a daughter.

Yes, June always finds it in herself to check how Serena is. I could not be that nice.

I do think that SJ is realising the horrors of Gilead though. She felt ‘safe’ before as a Commander’s wife she has status and, as long as she believes in Gilead and it’s values, she’s fairly untouchable. But now Eden’s death has turned that on its head. Eden was a young girl and a true believer but she made one teenage mistake and that was it. Serena realises that Nicole is not untouchable and that she will inevitably become a teen who will make errors of judgment.

I think Serena has realised what lies in store for the baby, that even if a woman does what is expected of her she can never be free in gilead. The baby will never be educated and has no future.

I agree it’s dawning in Serena what a hell Gilead is. But her having June feed the baby wasn’t for June, she was soothing herself.

I don't believe that Serena feels she's not bonded to the baby. If it was a normal, legal in our world adoption I think she would be fine to be honest! And letting June feed her etc... This is her trying to be the best mum she can and give her child the best start.

I agree that her horror is seeing her baby girls future and how awful it could be. One mistake and she will die or be punished horrifically.

Sorry, to clarify that, she had June feed the baby because she is feeling so rotten about the world she has created and needs to make herself feel better by doing something “nice” for one of her victims. She’s not doing it for the victim, she’s doing it to assuage her own guilt.

I agree that I can't feel sympathy for SJ anymore though. I tend to just hope she will do something nice enough that it will leave a gap big enough for June to escape eventually.

This may have been raised before... But siblings? Are the commanders allowed to keep a handmaiden on if they want more than one child? Or is that seen as immoral/greedy? I can see Fred trying to do that against Serena's wishes, hideous as he is.

What an episode!

The drowning scene, just horrific 😞.

The scene with Nick & June imagining their future with Holly on the beach, I cried!

Emily’s new commander - mayday or something very sinister? I can’t decide. Loved his wife.

If Josh (sorry) was the architect of Gilead then surely he's unlikely to be Mayday?

Interesting the script writers had Eden executed, while other adulterers were sent to the colonies... I am thinking of the wife who Emily murdered.
Or they become handmaids if they are fertile... Like June.

Obviously it was a plot vehicle to make Serena 'turn' which seems clunky to me.

In the original book I am sure a wife and teenage daughter are executed near the beginning.. For immoral behaviour or adultery.. But I might be remembering wrongly, but MA, did not send them to the colonies in her text.

I am sure Serena feels bonded to the baby but perhaps she has realised that she can't give her what her natural mother can.

I was sure that Emily’s new commander was going to be mayday... but I’m now leaning towards entirely the opposite.

Just musing here, but it strikes me that at one point we all feared that Eden would be June's downfall. In the end it was the other way around.

Eden was presumably fertile. Her husband certainly is. How different it could have been for them. (Obviously ignoring the forced marriage to a teenager elephant in the room).

Both Nick and June have played a part in Eden's fate. If only Nick had tried a little to be loving with her, and shown a bit more interest in her as a person, she would never have sought love elsewhere, she was so determined to be a good wife, poor kid.

@theredjellybean

They were given the chance to 'repent' but chose not to. Had they done so, I'm guessing Eden would have been 'saved' to become a Handmaid.

Yes I thought Eden was going to be a grass and be everyone's downfall in that household. I wasn't expecting her to be executed this episode.

I ended up behind on this for one reason and another.

I agree that this was/is Serena's tipping point although other things ought to have been before this

I don't think anyone hasn't said anything I hadn't thought except for :

It makes me sad that lovely Josh Lyman from West Wing is now cornering a market in "intense, creepy, old guy" at least in the last 3 things I've seen him do

(Get Out, The Post, and this )

Fred mentioned that Eden had been given a chance at being associated with the Waterford’s. I imagine after the embarrassment June has caused him he felt he needed to make a show of strength and have Eden executed. He was already almost a laughing stock amongst the other commanders (before Holly was born anyway) and had been told to get his house in line. This would have been another humiliation for him. He had to show the other commanders he isn’t a soft touch.

Fred really believes he is doing things for the benefit of others, doesn't he? Letting June see Hannah, letting Edan marry Nick, etc

What was with all that "recant your sins" stuff? Would Eden really have been spared if she'd recanted?