The handmaids tale-thread 6

[SisterNotCisTerf]

Let’s get June out of there!

This is Wikipedia's description of Martha's

Marthas
They are older infertile women who have domestic skills and are compliant, making them suitable as servants. They dress in green smocks. The title of "Martha" is based on a story in Luke 10:38–42, where Jesus visits Mary, sister of Lazarus and Martha; Mary listens to Jesus while Martha works at "all the preparations that had to be made".

Topsy, you had sex before marriage: you're a handmaid, you harlot.

That's interesting Topsyshair. I think if the children were adopted because the wife was infertile, they would be relocated to new families (depending on their ages) and the wives maybe made Marthas, if they were otherwise respectable? I think the same with "illegitimate" children conceived before marriage. Depending on their age, they'd be adopted into new families (like Hannah was), but the marriage wouldn't count in the eyes of Gilead (sex before marriage, not married in church, whatever reason) and the mother would be made a handmaid. With children from previous marriages, I suppose it would depend how the first one ended and either the couple was still fertile. If the woman was widowed and remarried correctly (in church etc) and the couple could go on to have more children, the family would probably become one of the 'econo' families. But if it was a result of divorce, I think the same would apply as earlier (and like June/Luke) - the children taken away and wives made handmaids. There were so few children I don't think they would have killed them or left them to be brought up by 'unsuitable' parents. When the baker is killed for hiding June, his wife is made a handmaid and the son is adopted into a new family. It's as though they'll use any excuse possible to made a fertile woman into a handmaid, but they couldn't just steal fertile wives away from their husbands without an excuse (the excuse being they weren't legitimately married for whatever reason). They had to comply with their new 'laws'.

With regards to Luke and his first wife, I suppose it would depend on whether she was fertile (probably not). I think if she was, she'd have been made a handmaid for one of the commanders rather than being given back to Luke, as the fertile women were in such short supply. I get the feeling she wasn't though, with the way she wistfully looked at June with Hannah in the coffee shop.

Anybody care to speculate about the plot line of the next series?

June finds the resistance- possibly engaging cl. She might serve as a link between may day and marthas- thus keeping Nick in (thank me later, ladies) and a link to the Waterfords.

Fred is screwed.

June MAY help Serena escape, but that would be pushing it. The lure of a baby for info might get her though.I don't think Serena would kill.herself.

June will hunt for Hannah, but will meet other people along the way and we'll learn.their stories. I think it's going to have to be quite a drastic departure from.the book's style and I'm worried it's going to be all action driven. I like the sparse dialogue and reading between.the lines.

I can't see how June will survive on the streets of Gilead. She didn't get over the border did she?

Surely she'll just be recaptured, even if she finds somewhere to hide she will have no food. She ran to where she met Emily so she can't be far from Fred and Serena's house.

The whole story is based around June Fred and Serena, the tension, the secrets it's hard to imagine how they'll carry it on and she can't just keep going back there.

I think June will go to CL and blackmail him into helping her rescue Hannah like he did with Emily. She can't return to the handmaid role, I think she'll be considered missing with the baby and Fred will face the consequences of yet another fck up in his house. Serena will realise that Rita and Nick helped June escape, but as she helped June herself they'll come to an arrangement to keep it between themselves and work against Fred. I don't think June will go running straight back to Nick either, as she won't want him or Serena to know she basically abandoned the baby to an unknown fate when they'd sacrificed so much to get out. Nick will be a tortured soul not knowing if they're safe. But then later on in S3, June will need to reach out to him for help rescuing Hannah and there'll be a big fight between them when he realises she never left and their baby is god knows where. He'll reveal he's been plotting with Serena who will also be furious that Nicole could basically be anywhere, having entrusted her to June's care and thinking she's been safe in Canada all this time. There'll be lots of shouting and snotty tears and Nick will do All The Brooding. June will tell them a mother never leaves her children and if they won't help she'll do it alone. Then Serena and June will rescue Hannah together and leave for Canada with Nick along for protection. But then Nick will die heroically in the finale (or at least we think has....but wait for S4)

I reckon the next episode will be about the destruction of the regime. Emily is now in Canada and will push for sanctions to be imposed/increased. Thus the regime will need external help to survive. Where will it get it - Saudi Arabia?!!!. This will cause a cleavage in the regime with those that wish to maintain religious purity placed against those that wish to ensure their power structures. - The wives will no longer collude with the regime, there will be scarcity and a civil war.

I think Gilead lasts a while, possibly 50 years or more? A 10 season series could cover this, if it switched the viewpoint to the children. In.that case, I'd like Hannah to.stay put. Not sure I want a big, sprawling saga, although could work.I suppose.

You can tel I'm not in.work (and avoiding the friend Dd has round to play!)

I'd love it if Serena blackmailed Nick into getting her pregnant, now she knows he's proven fertile and she has leverage on him (he won't know she caught June leaving and helped her). Fred would know it wasn't his baby as they haven't been near each other. But wouldn't be able to admit that to anyone for fear of looking even weaker than he is. Would Nick then feel protective towards Serena like he did with June?

Fred would know it wasn't his baby as they haven't been near each other. But wouldn't be able to admit that to anyone for fear of looking even weaker than he is.

Plus another baby would be his best chance of redemption in the eyes of the other Commanders.

Aunt Lydia won't die, one of the many ways THT tests my credulity is the main characters all have conveniently survived - variously - stabbings, shootings, giving birth alone in cold houses, bomb attacks, being picked up by guardians toting guns. A main character needs to be killed off soon.

or we go back to the book.

June finds a place in an underground resistance, Nick joins her and they find Hannah - They hardly get to see her BUT leave notes, pictures/tapes for her

Hannah grows up and manages to keep her stash of notes safe. She gives them to her daughter to look after - BUT her daughter hands her in. Middle aged Hannah is sent to the colonies - Notes are sent away to be burnt but are intercepted (together with others) and placed in a log cabin on an Island near Alaska

Many years pass and it emerges that the regime has crumbled. We then meet a PhD student who has just been told that her work is not good enough. We learn that this is because her advisor has stolen all her work and also that women still are not taken seriously in this new world. She escapes on holiday to Alaska and finds the tapes. She tries to piece together what has happened but she becomes aware that various people are blocking her from finding out the truth.

Was CL not driving himself? - he was in the right hand front seat, so not driving.. So he has a driver who he knows he can trust.

Is it wrong of me to think "nooooooooo" when Emily stabbed Aunt Lydia as she is a brilliant character and want to see more of her?

I did the same

If S3 is the final series I think it'll be set in the further future, possibly Holly/Nichole as a middle-aged woman reflecting on what she knows and doesn't know about her childhood, told in flashback. So we'll see more of the exiles in Canada and how they support the resistance (which means more Emily who has been fantastically acted). I think we'll see the downfall of Fred - too many things have gone wrong in his house for him to survive, and it's not as if he has many friends among the commanders. In fact, there might be a power grab by younger commanders which leads to things getting worse in the medium-term. I don't think there will be a focus on June escaping because we've done that to death. More likely it'll be June's role, with the Marthas, in undermining the regime from within and making contact with Canada. I think (hope!) June will get Hannah out, but if it's the last series I think June herself will get killed, leaving the adult Holly/Nichole to wonder about her, never quite knowing her motivation. I would love to see backstories for AL, and also Eden's family - it's possible that New Testament-type Christians would join up with the resistance and help bring Gilead down.

So people that we know are in Mayday

CL and his driver, Cora, Rita (perhaps all the marthas?), Nick

People that are silently subversive - most of the handmaids
People that may turn - the wives - parents of girls like eden

The regime can't last another series can it

I'd love it if Serena blackmailed Nick into getting her pregnant

The mention of a Commander getting his own wife pregnant wasn't followed up, it feels like that is an unfinished plot point. I'm not sure about Nick and Serena though. It seems like Nick would refuse if he had any say in it at all, and having helped a daughter escape Gilead would Serena want to be pregnant?? Thinking about it, if the Waterfords are at risk after June and the baby escape, would Fred want Serena to be pregnant to try and regain his status? Would this overcome his masculine pride at admitting he is infertile??

I'd love it if Serena blackmailed Nick into getting her pregnant

I don’t know if it would make much sense. She already kind of had a baby that she loved, she had the option to leave and possibly carry her own baby. One shag from nick is a risk and maybe not likely that she will fall pregnant and anymore than once is too much of a risk surely? Also not fair on nick and would be weird for serena to ask.

I don't think Serena would care about being fair to Nick or it being wierd, certainly no weirder than holding a handmaid down every month or standing and watching him and June 'mate' at her request. As far as she knows he's still her loyal man servant, one who is proven to be fertile. She doesn't know (although may suspect) about his feelings for June. Outward appearance is that he was more than willing to do the deed with June, got her pregnant first time (she doesn't know they did it several more time), then just resumed his loyal duties without so much as a sideways look at the baby he created. So I could totally see her propositioning or outright blackmailing him for a chance at her own child. I think there were too many pointed comments about Serena not being able to have her own baby for it not to happen somehow in S3, whoever the father would be. Like when her and Fred were arguing in the empty house and she said she gave everything up for him and all she ever wanted was her own baby. Knowing he was the infertile one and not her. And yet she had to endure being part of The Ceremony with the handmaids, knowing it was for nothing and all the while she could probably get pregnant herself if she had the right man. Being so jealous of June carrying 'her' baby. Trying to breastfeed her. So when June fell pregnant so quickly with Nick I wondered if the cogs started turning about whether she should have been the one to sleep with him rather than June. Losing baby Nicole will just start the yearning again and they certainly wouldn't be given another handmaid. Rationally speaking I do agree she'd be bonkers to bring a baby into Gilead after letting Nicole go. But if it wasn't for that I can totally see her going there and trying to get some Nick for herself.

It might make more sense if Fred forced Nick and Serena. Fred has most to gain from a baby in their household and Nick and Serena in their own ways have given up "their" baby to give her a better life. Fred already offered to bend the rules for June and suggested a boy/ brother while they were in the kitchen when he was struggling to make the tea after Serena's amputation.

Ah men. Running the country but still can't make a cuppa in their own home without the aid of a woman

I think Fred's more likely to demand Eden's sister as recompense for the humiliation caused by her running away.I though he was going to do that the other night, tbh.

But is Serena capable of having a baby? I thought the flashback showed her being shot in her pelvic region, so suggested that this meant she would be incapable of conceiving?

I thought that, how can he not know where the tea is kept in his own bloody house. Great leader. He's a weak man who has been forced to act more manly by the expectations of others (including by Serena who told him to man up after she was shot) so I get the impression he was a bit of a pussy before and has now gone too far the other way. Sometimes the mask slips like when he wanted June to kiss him like she meant it and talks wistfully about how she could stay and be with him and the kids. Almost begging her. Constantly wanting her approval. I think Serena is paying for wanting a stronger man, she's helped turn him into a monster.

The writers said they purposefully left Serena's fertility ambiguous, whereas it is (now) obvious that Fred is definitely infertile. So I do think it'll be explored next season. Interesting take that it could be Fred who forces it!

This is an interesting interview with Bruce Miller about Serena's character in the show versus the books, and he says the possibility of exploring her fertility was one of the reasons they cast her younger:

www.thisisinsider.com/handmaids-tale-why-serena-joy-is-young-2017-4

I can't find the other interview I read, but in that he said the audience was always supposed to be left wondering whether the gunshot wound caused infertility, rather than actually confirming that she was barren like it's claimed. If you watch it again, she's shot in her lower abdomen but off to the side. There was no suggestion of her having a hysterectomy. At worst she maybe lost an ovary. But she could have suffered no damage to her reproductive organs. They'd already been trying for a baby before she was shot and hadn't been successful. So Fred was probably always the problem.