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

999 replies

CruCru · 02/08/2018 23:10

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

OP posts:
Kitsandkids · 06/08/2018 00:38

Interesting point Flaskfan. There have been boys (Emily's son, didn't Moira have a son?) but the recent Handmaid births have been girls. Personally I think it's just so the Handmaid mothers/we can wonder about what their lives will be like growing up under Gilead, and isn't any form of evolution etc.

WitchSharkadder · 06/08/2018 00:47

Re the paintings, all the paintings on display in Commanders houses are famous ones that currently reside in Boston’s gallery. It was a purposeful decision to show how the Sons of Jacob looted things after they overthrew the government, just like the Nazis. Another example of how there is nothing in the show that hasn’t actually happened somewhere in the real world.

(Obviously the show uses copies, not the real deal)

WitchSharkadder · 06/08/2018 00:49

I don’t think all female babies means anything. There has only been two births in the show since the inception of Gilead and they both just happened to be female. Coincidence. Although I think the writers purposely made June’s baby a girl so that they could give Serena this storyline of worrying for her ‘daughters’ future. It wouldn’t be that same for a boy perhaps.

AGnu · 06/08/2018 00:54

I actually don't think Eden would've been spared if she'd repented. I think that was more a "may Almighty God have mercy on your soul" thing so she wouldn't die a sinner.

I'm not usually one to notice the "arty" stuff like lighting/symbolism but I was really struck by the greyness of the scene where June was trying to comfort Nick afterwards & my brain kept replaying Eden saying that yellow was her favourite colour & how pleased she was when Nick remembered that. Yellow's such a bright, sunny, happy colour. There was no place for any of that when Eden was gone. Then he got up to leave & for a moment there was rain cascading down all the windows, like they were in a box in the swimming pool. Both of them just as condemned as Eden.

At the end, when June was holding Holly, I so wanted to believe that this was the turning point for Serena but I couldn't quite believe it. So many times we've thought it might be & every time she lets us down. I was just willing June to treasure every second because Holly could be taken away at any moment. It's all so precarious.

No idea how I'm going to sleep tonight. I feel more affected by the story than usual. I'll probably just lie awake half the night staring at my baby daughter & being grateful that, although our part of the world has many faults, it's not Gilead & it's not a lot of real places where her future would be very different.

viques · 06/08/2018 00:56

I am feeling so mean, I was convinced Eden was going to end up somehow betraying June and Nick and then it turns out that she was just a very young, very innocent child who had been brainwashed until she can't think straight and. in the end her own teenage hormones and immaturity betrayed her. What a corrupt and immoral place Gilead is turning out to be.

ladyme · 06/08/2018 01:16

Another fantastic episode. I'm going to be so gutted this time next week.

Thoughts: not sure nick can cope with much more. He can't hold his own baby, the child he was forced to marry and have sex with has just been murdered in front of his eyes, he's getting pushed around by Waterford.

Serena is just a bitch and I don't think she's going to turn anything around ever.

Commander Lawrence is creepy as fuck but think he likes trying to work out the rebels and he's keeping his enemies close. Would love it if he was mayday though.

And poor poor June :(

Dontletthebastardsgrindyoudown · 06/08/2018 01:44

I thought Commander Lawrence's character was brilliant. Yes he was creepy, but at times he had a "kookiness" to him that was good to see, as it's been wiped out in Gilead. He was so creepy that I think it's his "how to act in Gilead" act.

I loved the scene where the Martha trips on boxes, and then later moans stuff is in her way. When he asks "do you want a beating" and she replies "try it old man" it's so obviously sarcasm. They both know that won't happen in that house.

I think anyway. The programme surprises me every week.

Best one yet maybe!

WhirlwindHugs · 06/08/2018 06:34

Ahh, thank you Witch! I thought I recognised some of the paintings!

Hmm. Interesting.

I don't know what that says about him, are they at his house for protection or does he hoard things to keep for himself? Same applies to the Martha and his wife.

At the moment I am leaning towards keeping them for himself.

Roussette · 06/08/2018 07:17

As far as Serena, she may well show flashes of compassion but I agree with a PP, it is all for her, the breastfeeding scene is not for June, it is for her.

And the only way I would believe anything better of her, is if she turns against Gilead because then she might change from her cold heart to something human. She has shown too much cruelty AFAIC, in series 1 she was attacking and hitting June after all and her anger is there on the surface all the time.

OhHolyJesus · 06/08/2018 07:46

So going back...
Nick was the one to go back to the house in the woods and fetch June and Holly. Why didn't he make a run for a border as he has just met his daughter and would want to remove her and protect her from this world?
I don't think he got shot but he was unconscious when put in the back of the van so what happened there? Wouldn't June have told Nick Holly's name then? Was she unconscious or were others around so she couldn't speak freely?
We haven't seen any of the wives crowing over the birth of Nicole/Holly as yet.
Also each commander seems to have a posh office at home and now Fred has a new one at work (because of the baby?) don't they all go to an office where they all work like most people in a daily basis? I wonder what they do all day? How do they get paid, so they have bank accounts?

Maybe I'm a bit obsessed...🙄

TangelasVine · 06/08/2018 07:50

I also don't understand what happened with Nick and the people at the house. How did he get away? Did I miss something?

imdunkelnistgutmunkeln · 06/08/2018 07:51

Oh holy they said that 'a neighbour' found and rescued June and Holly. There was no detailed explanation of what happened to Nick.

ladyme · 06/08/2018 07:52

@OhHolyJesus I didn't get that it was nick who physically went back there. I might have missed it but you're right, he would have held the baby and they'd have had the conversation then. I thought someone else had gone to get her

Hygge · 06/08/2018 07:52

I know I said I wouldn't feel sorry for Serena after she and Fred raped June to force the labour and birth, but as a normal person it was hard not to last night.

When she tried to feed the baby and obviously couldn't, that was a moment when I could have pitied her. Then again as she sat looking at June feed the baby.

But I don't think 'motherhood' of a stolen baby has done that much to change her either.

Eden's murder is just one of thousands of murders Gilead has condoned, so having to sit with 'your' child and watch another one and face up to what you've created is the least you can do.

It might have made her realise "this could be my Nicole in 15 years" but I think Serena is still arrogant enough to believe it won't be her or her child. I can see her trying to find a way to get around something like this, in the way that she did when Fred was injured and she took over his work until he came home.

She might try to find a way to change things for her or for her baby, but I can't see her throwing Gilead away while she still has a use for it herself.

When Fred was ill she said what she (and June) had done had made things better for people, it was more relaxed and people weren't getting shot in the streets, but it was still Gilead. People were still living in a dictatorship and teenage girls are still getting drowned in swimming pools for falling in love.

I think it will all go back to "better not being better from everybody" again. If Serena can make Gilead better than it is now, it will be for her and Nicole, not for anyone else.

I think if Eden and Isaac had repented, they might still have killed Isaac and Eden would have been sent off to be a Handmaid. Nick went to sit with Eden's family after her left her, her Mum and her sister but I think a man was next to them so that might have been her Dad. But there was another couple sitting behind them looking equally distraught but not calling out, and I wondered of they were Isaac's parents.

I wonder how those parents are feeling about Gilead now? Especially as Eden's parents have another young daughter to worry about. Perhaps this murder of a young couple could become the thing the ordinary people who believe in Gilead will finally be the thing that gets them angry.

It seems a lot of people are disillusioned with what they have created. That new Commander who's wife said he thought of the colonies, is he regretting that now he's seen the reality of it?

He certainly seemed to want Aunt Lydia out of his house, and it didn't look like she'd seen it before, or if she had it must have changed since last time as she was looking quite confused and disapproving of it while they waited for him. And he almost broke his neck to get down the stairs and get her out of the door before she saw his wife. He didn't seem to like her or want her there at all.

ladyme · 06/08/2018 07:53

@TangelasVine I think that is meant to be left vague. June doesn't know, so we don't know

Hygge · 06/08/2018 07:58

Nick didn't go back to the house.

Fred said that Nick protected "our child" from some over-zealous guards but I think he meant by not letting on that June was in the house.

Aunt Lydia said that "If the neighbours hadn't found you who knows what might have happened" so it looks like someone eventually responded to the gun shot or seeing the firelight or something.

What happened to Nick hasn't been explained other than that, but it looks like the shot missed him but he was knocked out and taken away.

But he didn't go back for June. She was found by neighbours and returned to the Red Centre.

The next time we know she saw Nick since he was taken was standing in the church place with Fred when they brought the baby to try and get her milk flowing.

That might be the first time she knew he was alive since he was taken.

She told him Holly's name the first chance they had to be alone once she was back in the house.

theredjellybean · 06/08/2018 08:00

Aunt Lydia referred to June being very amazing or something like that as she had been out for a drive and then had to give birth in an abandoned house and Fred said to the other commanders when he was showing off his new office that there had been a bit of a misunderstanding with some over zealous guards and nick but it was all straightened out now.. Or words to that affect.

I think nick and the guards was just a plot red herring to get to the point June was alone in the house.
Clearly the water ford's, aunt Lydia and all are selling the story that poor offred had just gone for an small outing when nick got taken by mistake leaving her alone and luckily some neigh turned up and rescued her

JuneOsbourne · 06/08/2018 08:26

Aunt Lydia represents the establishment. Commander Waterford absolutely would not want her to witness his wife's ravings. He knows she would be duty bound to report on it.

Re him coming up with the colonies. In many ways it's not that radical an idea... Put criminals to work instead of housing them at taxpayers' expense. It's something the hard right wing in this country would get right behind. He might never have expected that the criminals in question would end up being young gay women who failed to produce a baby when raped by three or four successive commanders.

TangelasVine · 06/08/2018 08:33

I was thinking that too June about thinking up the colonies.

Also wondering though if he needs Emily for another evil plot. He knows she's a biologist. Wondering if he's thinking of some sort of human experimentation.

TangelasVine · 06/08/2018 08:36

By the way I was reading some concentration camp survivor stories which is why the experiments came to mind. He's got the air of a Nazi mastermind with the paintings and colonies.
But then also could be a harmless old man these days. The show is so well done.

JuneOsbourne · 06/08/2018 08:39

I'm not excusing him btw. Just suggesting how idealogies can evolve in unintended ways when put into practise by power crazy despots. And then you suddenly end up in the position of get on the train or get shot.

WiltedDaffs · 06/08/2018 08:40

Serena’s Bible verse near the end was another OT verse Isaiah 49:25

“Thus said the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away and the prey of the terrible be delivered. I will contend with he who contends with you and I will save your children.”

JuneOsbourne · 06/08/2018 08:40

That's a chilling thought. But I don't think Emily would comply with that. In her mind, she's got nothing left to lose.

JuneOsbourne · 06/08/2018 08:41

Just realised I said Waterford above. I meant Lawrence of course.

TangelasVine · 06/08/2018 08:44

Oh yes, I agree Emily wouldn't comply. He's researched her though and has agreed to have her for some reason. Just wondering as to why.

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