Handmaid's Tale. EPISODE 4 (season 3). Channel 4, 30/6/19. UK pace. NO SPOILERS!

[AnotherEmma]

New thread for tonight's episode. 15 minutes to go!

Yes I worried about that.

And yes I wonder if lydia will kill herself too 🤷‍♀️

June won’t be arrested or punished. She is protected by plot armour!

I hope so tbh

Wrt Emily and her wife, I think they’re both a bit scared of doing anything to ruin the reunion. Her wife doesn’t want to push Emily too fast, and Emily probably can’t let herself believe she’s really got her family back. Although, as it’s been about 4 years I do wonder if the wife might reveal that she’s got a new partner now.

I don't get why June answered yes though?

They already knew the answer. It would look worse for her if she tried to lie.

I think the cigarettes are a symbol of independence and rebellion (like they are to some teenagers now).

I had the same thought about the others waiting on the bus for June.

I suspect they are going to pressure Canada into returning Nicole, now they know where she is. I cried when I saw the photos of Emily in her son’s room

What an incredible episode. So much better than last week. We can see what June is trying to achieve. She isn’t messing about is she? I loved the 3 different ‘christenings’. Especially the one at the end. I am also so pleased that Emily’s home coming is being done so slowly and carefully. It feels much more realistic than these things usually are.

Wrt Emily and her wife - I suspect they are both intelligent enough to realise that just because they were deeply in love X years ago they cannot guarantee that they will still have those feelings now. They have both been through very different experiences with different levels and types of trauma. They will both want to prioritise Oliver's wellbeing and will know that it is better to take things slowly rather than "hope for the best" and try to jump back into a happy-families set-up asap which could fall apart.

I liked the Emily storyline and agree that it’s well done.
June as marriage counsellor was less convincing

I didn't realise it had been 4 years so yes, it's not unlikely that Emily's wife (do we know her name?) might have a new partner. She also seemed a bit jealous when their son asked Emily to read the book for him instead of her. Emily is the boy's biological mother, isn't she?

I wasn't overawed by this episode, although the reunion between Emily and her son was poignant.

In such a punitive society, June does seem to be getting away with rather a lot.

If my spouse had been held in an extremist regime and raped / tortured I would also be holding back from fear that we had both changed too much, but also intense guilt that I had been living a normal life.

I don't know how Gilead can demand Canada hand over one baby when all those other Americans had escaped. Canada and Gilead don't have an agreement in the TV show version of Gilead (slightly different in the novel).

I was thinking about the Canada / gilead / baby situation and thinking about it; the story is the child was abducted. The father is assumed to be Fred - nobody in Canada has any genetic claim to Nicole. She just got handed over, unofficially by Emily I guess. I just can’t imagine them going to that effort with identifying Nicole and her whereabouts to go ‘oh well, glad she’s ok’.

Hmmm plot is getting a bit sloppy. CW goes to June for marriage advice? June can just wander around the house as she pleases? Luke happens to be filmed at a protest and June gets to see the footage?
I'm not buying it.

Still enjoying it though.

Wow, that was intense. Lots of plot inconsistencies and implausibilities, but still an excellent episode.

I love that everything tied together so beautifully with the 3 christenings.

I love that in the season there seems to be a growing solidarity between the women, even the wives and handmaids. The wife who had been a bitch to Janine was actually pretty gracious towards her in this episode. And I thought again about the scene between June and Hannah's new "mother".

Clearly June's new walking partner needs a huge slap, I'm looking forward to whatever form that takes, when it comes

The Janine / Aunt Lydia scene was classic HT, so tense and awful and heartbreaking. I think Aunt Lydia was crying because she realised what she's become - I think it took the horror in the others' eyes for her to look at herself. It was no accident that Janine treated her with kindness just before it happened - and she beat her anyway. I think we really need some of Aunt Lydia's backstory now. I wonder if she will be punished? Probably more likely she will commit suicide as PPs suggested.

Emily's scenes had me crying my eyes out. (Doesn't help that my son is 2!) It was all so well executed, the script and acting - felt very real. I wonder what on earth is going to happen between Emily and her wife now, whether they will be able to relate to each other again

The implausible bits:

• The babies hadn't aged at all despite lots of time passing 🙄
• June lording it over Fred and Serena as if she has all the power now, despite the huge power imbalance in the other direction and everything that's happened. It's as if she's been liberated since leaving their household - untouchable despite her "crimes", and the only thing holding them together, strangely. However, I'll forgive this implausibility as I love that it's allowing her to make the bold move of turning Serena into a hugely influential member of the resistance.
• Why the hell would they give June the gift of showing her a video of her husband and baby?! And how random that it happened at the end of the party? Why was she even hanging around anyway and not in the van with the rest of the handmaids?!

I am worried for Luke and Nicole now. But there is hope for Hannah!

I did but she just seems like she's overly restraining herself . She doesn't seem comfortable at all around Emily and she certainly isn't welcoming .

Will they send a group into Canada to pose as refugees to kidnap Nicole?

I've read a lot of comments about it being unrealistic etc, but if it was more real then everyone would have been on the wall by now and there would be nothing to show

Post-coital cigarette? Serena and Fred? I think it was just to set up the scene between Serena and June, with the passing of the cigarette case and lighter being symbolic of Serena agreeing to what June had suggested and knowing that June wasn't allowed to smoke.

Why wasn't Commander Lawrence (June's new Commander, is that his name?) at the service and reception at the Putnam's?

As a previous posters said, I am getting a bit bored with this series. Not a lot seems to be actually happening. The first couple of episodes seemed to be almost literally picking up the characters and dropping them into their new locations, rather than much plot, which was ok, but it really needs to pick up some pace now.

I liked the scenes with Emily though and thought it was done well, with both of them feeling a bit uncertain.

Was that the first flashback of the series to Hannah's christening? I'd missed them in previous episodes and it almost felt as if the writers had suddenly remembered to add the flashbacks.

"She also seemed a bit jealous when their son asked Emily to read the book for him instead of her."

Jealous? Seriously?! Now I know we all interpret things in our own way but that's just wrong, sadly. It's so clear in all the scenes with Emily and her family that her wife is being super sensitive, respectful and supportive. She cried when Emily read the story, she was sharing the joy of the hesitant reunion and the grief for all the bedtimes they had missed out on. How the hell could she be jealous when she just spent the last ~4 years with their son while Emily was a prisoner?!

To be honest I think it should have been one series, and ended with an epilogue just as the book ended. We have no clear idea what the next book is going to be like, except I read somewhere that there will be 3 narrators. I have a horrible feeling that if they are not careful it’s is going to “jump the shark” and that would be a real disservice to the original novel.

Meant to type sorry not sadly

I'm loving Emily's return to real life. It would have been so easy to make it a happy gushing welcome home. She's always been a worrier, an analyst, and she's staying totally true to character.
I can't imagine where you would even start with a "so, what happened", when she's been through such horror, and you can almost feel the effort they're both going through to not ask the question.

Gilead however is becoming a bit, I don't know, tedious? Not the right word but I can't think of another. The structure of the society is the whole point of the programme but it's not happening as it should. The writers are picking and choosing when Gilead rules apply.