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

Here is a link to the book I mentioned up thread about the life of women in Saudi Arabia. It's quite a hard read but v enlightening. Well worth a read.

www.amazon.co.uk/Princess-Jean-Sasson/dp/0553816950/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=princess+by+jean+sasson&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1533594737&sr=8-1

'was just thinking, when June was getting in the plane to escape, didn't the driver, also trying to escape say he was commander Lawrence's driver?'

I think you're right.
Maybe 1. Lawrence is a psycho and people working for him end up even more desperate than your average Gileadean

Or 2. Lawrence helps them get out.

Now I am starting to wonder if the wife is (for some reason) only pretending to be mad.

I'm remaining optimistic about Serena and Commander Lawrence. I'm hoping to see Serena lead an uprising in Series 3, with the help of Emily and Mrs Lawrence.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel What’s your thinking on the wife not being mad?

The wife seemed perfectly sane to me . In fact about the only sane 'wife' in Gilead at all. She was just angry .

I agree, I'm not convinced that the wife is crazy. She seems to be locked in isolation most of the time.

We know she loves art, and I didn't notice many of the paintings upstairs. I think Lawrence keeps them downstairs where she can't go deliberately.

I think Lawrence is going to turn out evil and I hope Emily is able to kill him!

I did wonder if Lawrence asked Emily if she had healed out of concern because she was until recently being raped.

I thought he was creepy when he asked about her students fancying her.

He is difficult to read but his responses to Aunt Lydia were quite refreshing.

Agree with PP who said that this was the saddest episode. I had hated Isaac previously but that look he gave Eden...

The Martha's obviously not scared of Lawrence though.

Eden was an amazing actress.

I wanted him to be a good'un, but why would he have needed to ask if she's healed from having her clitoris surgically removed?

I think he needed her to know that he knows everything about her so there are no secrets and wanted to get a reaction. I'm still hoping he's a good'un.

Fundamentally, I keep coming down to - would he be a founding commander if he was a good person?

Extraordinarily unlikely.

I do hope Emily hasn't been put with Commander L just so we can watch her take him out. I mean, we already know what she's capable of so it seems a bit lazy to me just to stick her in another house and watch her do the same thing again. Is that just me?

Agree with PPs that the acting by Sydney Sweeney as Eden was fab. I'd thought of her as quite bland previously but, watching that episode, you really believed that she was a teenager absolutely in love.

He set up the Gilead economy. I don't think that means he was a driving force in creating Gilead what it is now. He may have simply been offered a job due to his experience with the promise of being high up in Gilead. That doesn't mean to say he was aware of how crazy ass Gilead is. He has obviously seen for himself what it has become since and so has his wife who I think is clearly affected by it.

I'm hopeful he's a good guy.

I agree you can have a solid economic model that then gets twisted with all the religious stuff.

I couldn't bear Josh being a baddie though.

And Eden was amazing. Representing what true love really is about. I wonder why the had the rest of the econo people watching?

I think Serena is a fantastic actress as well.

I think CLawrence is a good guy.... well, as good as someone can be in Gilead as it were.

I think he and Emily will play a big part in S3

Representing what true love really is about.

Oh now. She was a teenager who felt horribly rejected and jumped for the first bit of kindness she could grab. She's an indictment of Nick's blithering cruel idiocy (and of the whole Gilead project, of course) but it was hardly true love!

Ooh! Just caught up, and decided to de-lurk as I love this thread!!
My first thoughts about C Lawrence was that maybe he was gay himself and that's why he wanted Emily. He would fit the stereotype of old money, huge house (but not necessarily cash rich), eccentric, upper class, boarding school type and given his age would probably be used to hiding his homosexuality as sadly many people still do today.
Could it be possible that he helped set up Gilead's economy out of fear of being outed but now tries to do what he can to help people?

I couldn't bear Josh being a baddie though.

Don't ever watch Get Out then @WipsGlitter!

It's kind of amazing that a few weeks ago we were discussing the fact that Isaac is so awful she couldn't have ever had a happy ending with him, and now the narrative has upended so completely that they died as star crossed lovers.
Great storytelling imo.

Oh now. She was a teenager who felt horribly rejected and jumped for the first bit of kindness she could grab. She's an indictment of Nick's blithering cruel idiocy (and of the whole Gilead project, of course) but it was hardly true love!

It was very Romeo & Juliet though - desperate, infatuated teenagers who end up choosing to die because they can't be together.

I wonder why the had the rest of the econo people watching?

Maybe because they were meant to be their peers? An Awful Example that turned out to be more Awful than expected?

Just picking up on people saying about whether or not Fred knows Nick is the dad, did Serena not shout something at him in the house when they were looking for June about letting Nick drive off with her pregnant with Nick's child? Maybe I misheard.

Yes just googled it and Serena says, 'you sent her out here with the father of her baby to see her daughter.'

Just picking up on people saying about whether or not Fred knows Nick is the dad, did Serena not shout something at him in the house when they were looking for June about letting Nick drive off with her pregnant with Nick's child? Maybe I misheard.

Yes, that sounds right. I'm still surprised that when Nick & June were in the car it never occurred to them to just keep going. Nick's an Eye, if anyone could have talked their way through the border with a handmaid hidden in the car surely it would be him?

I'm not hopeful about Serena. She seems to have this pattern of realising how shit things are, feeling sympathy for June, then regretting it & being even nastier than she was before.

I agree about Eden and Isaac being infatuated teenagers but another thought came to me. Poor nick, his guilt over Eden must be huge but also he must be thinking that two kids were brave enough to do what he couldn't... Stand up for the person they love and their right to choose.
It wasn't as if Eden wanted to do anything out of gilead rules... She didn't want to read write or work... She wanted to be a good gilead wife and mother. But with a man/boy who loves her.

Poor nick, his guilt over Eden must be huge but also he must be thinking that two kids were brave enough to do what he couldn't... Stand up for the person they love and their right to choose.

That is an interesting thought.

Eden & Isaac were idealists - June & Nick are older & that much more cynical. Nick was trying to persuade Eden to lie her way out of it, June was rolling her eyes at their refusal to just say the right words whether they meant them or not. The message being that in Gilead, idealism & honesty get you killed.