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Handmaid's Tale. EPISODE 6 (season 3). Channel 4, 14/07/19. UK pace. NO SPOILERS!

375 replies

OriginofSpecies · 14/07/2019 20:27

Thread for Episode 6 (season 3) of The Handmaid's Tale.

We are watching on Channel 4, UK pace and have only seen episodes 1 - 5 so far.

Please, NO SPOILERS.

OP posts:
EmpressLesbianInChair · 15/07/2019 13:03

Found last night's episode very disturbing and couldn't sleep afterwards.

Me neither.

BeyondDangerousTshirts · 15/07/2019 13:03

Glad I watched it this morning tbh!

TeaStory · 15/07/2019 13:15

The clean-up operation of the toxic sites suggests Gilead has nuclear and/or chemical weapons they’re willing to use. The rest of the world, especially Canada, will not want to risk such an attack...

billydilly · 15/07/2019 13:25

Struggling a bit here. I'm no wimp but am finding the slow-pace, unrelenting horror hard to take. I'll continue to watch as it's clearly important telly and visually gorgeous but, for the first time with any series I'm tempted to look ahead for spoilers, just to incentivise myself to stick with it. Is it just me?

AnotherEmma · 15/07/2019 13:34

Well I thought last night's episode was shit and this whole season is shit. Last night was style over substance, lots of impressive shots but the plot and the script are terrible. None of it makes any bloody sense any more. Nothing has really HAPPENED this season. In last night's episode there was no real drama, no one did anything unexpected, there were no real concerns for June's safety as she is still merrily skipping out to kiss Nick and shouting at Serena in an echoey space near Fred and a whole freaking rally of handmaids and soldiers.

What about Hannah? Hannah is the only reason that June stayed behind, abandoning her second child and resigning herself to more abuse and risk. But June didn't even MENTION Hannah when she was talking to the Swiss - nothing about wanting to rescue or just protect her. No worries about repercussion for Hannah or for herself if the Canadians keep Nicole and also manage to get key information about Gilead.

What about Luke and all the other refugees in Gilead whose children have been taken hostage by the regime? Why aren't they doing big PR / political campaigns to get them back? Why isn't Canada considering some kind of exchange offer (not that it would work, but still!) Surely it would be much more interesting if June had to choose between her daughters?

And I think the handmaids' mouths being stapled together was just for the shock factor, doesn't make sense that there's one rule in DC and another in Chicago, or that the handmaids are actually supposed to produce children for which they need to fucking eat. (And might need to open their mouths to vomit and cope in childbirth.)

AnotherEmma · 15/07/2019 13:36

Plus the "revelation" about Nick wasn't new news. It was for June but not us - he has always been an ambiguous character in terms of his beginnings and allegiances.

It would be nice to see a bit more of life in Canada and/or some backstories (eg aunt Lydia or a recap of Nick's back story) to break up the relentlessness of June and her stupid faces.

MotherOfSoupDragons · 15/07/2019 14:00

I thought it was an excellent episode, apart from all the use of handmaids in the Gilead propaganda. Some "nice" misogynistic touches - separate escalators for men and women and Fred using "our culture" as a reason for misogyny.

EmpressLesbianInChair · 15/07/2019 14:06

Found the 'happy families' juxtaposed with the member of the household with her mouth stapled shut really jarring, which I guess was how it was supposed to be.

Yes. These lovely caring parents who carry out monthly rape on a woman whose mouth they've locked shut.

I wonder if there's any cognitive dissonance at all in there? Ever?

CitadelsofScience · 15/07/2019 14:10

AnotherEmma but it's a proper gramma about the treatment of women at the hands of men. The side story of Canada is just that, a side story.

Although I agree, I'd like to hear more about Aunt Lydia's story and how she came to be so cruel yet at times we see glimpses of compassion and sadness and dare I say it, possibly empathy and remorse?

CitadelsofScience · 15/07/2019 14:11

I have absolutely no idea how 'proper gramma' got in there Confused

EvilTwins · 15/07/2019 14:20

Just rewatching it because I watched it in bed last night and had to keep the volume down.

The handmaids can clearly take the muzzles (for want of a better word) off easily because Ofgeorge takes hers off in her room. It’s more chilling that they can, easily, remove them, but they don’t - for fear, I presume. I don’t think it’s weird that they have stricter rules in the Capital - it’s the place where the rules are made, and presumably it takes time and money to roll things out across the country.

I really don’t want Nick to be a bad guy!

Interesting that Fred and Serena were automatically given separate rooms at the house in D.C.

EvilTwins · 15/07/2019 14:34

Two things about Nick & the Swiss. He definitely looks like he was heading out of the door before being stopped by the Swiss man. Also, Nick says something like “you get into bed with the government, it’s difficult to get out” to June. Perhaps he’s in too deep.

RHTawneyonabus · 15/07/2019 14:46

I didn’t understand what possible excuse the Swiss would have for interviewing nick. It would look pretty suss surely

stumbledin · 15/07/2019 14:52

Okay will own up that I was so irritated to have recorded that stupid chateau show that by the time I found this episode on catch up I was not in a good frame of mind.

And hate to say it was bored. It is like those big film thrillers where they have inept dialogue just to fill in time until they can have a big set scene.

But just to add I wasn't up set by the sewn up mouths. I just though Hannibal Lector and how do they eat. ie more shock horror. Would have accepted a few fingerless hands and facila scarring.

They did say before going that Washington was more hardline.

Anyhow the Nick confusion. It was hinted in earlier episodes that he was more important than his driver role. And the possibility that he is an agent, and maybe this is what he told the delegation. ie more important to keep him in place than support the rights of one child.

And also if he is more important than it appears, this maybe who pulled the strings to stop June being more severely punished after Nicole got taken and the Watrford fire.

And yes, Waterford does now Nick is the father. Getting him to stand in during the rehearsal was a clear message.

I suppose in keeping with Margaret Atwood's statement that nothing in her books had not happened somewhere in the world, that the tv spectacle was a sort of combined North Korea / Iran show of universal support for the regime.

But given all of this, the way June floats around in and out of situations she clearly has no place in, is just not believeable.

I want the detail of how the resistance works and the support systems they have. Not June as some avenger.

I do hope in years to come Margaret Atwood will detail how the tv script writers just didn't quite get it.

PS If the role of the handmaids was to only have one child for each family, surely in now time at all Gilead would have a situation were half siblings were pairing up. Maybe they keep a stud book. Yuk!

Triskaidekaphilia · 15/07/2019 15:05

Interesting that Fred and Serena were automatically given separate rooms at the house in D.C.

I wondered about that. Obviously they wouldn't tell the dc commander the truth about their marriage but I wondered if that was the norm in DC being so conservative, or if the Waterfords claimed to be so pious they don't share a room. I can never remember what the Gilead rules are on commander and wife sex, at one point it's implied it's not allowed, on the other hand some wives are fertile and are praised for having children. Maybe they have the option of a handmaid or having sex themselves and it's one or the other?

EvilTwins · 15/07/2019 15:10

I can’t figure it out Tris The wife where they were staying breezed in, baby in arms and kissed her husband and June expressed surprise that they had a handmaid.

Also, someone upthread has pointed out that Commander George was a bit tactile with Fred, which he was, not also his wife (Olivia?) sat down and told Serena she loved her book. Are they testing them somehow? Doing slightly outlandish things to see if they report?

Margaret Atwood is still involved so presumably if she hated something she could say so.

Tortadellanonna · 15/07/2019 15:13

Would the rest of the world take these videos seriously at all? They would look like extremist hostage videos....

Ginger1982 · 15/07/2019 15:27

Back to hating Serena again!

Triskaidekaphilia · 15/07/2019 15:52

I can’t figure it out Tris The wife where they were staying breezed in, baby in arms and kissed her husband and June expressed surprise that they had a handmaid.
Maybe she was surprised they still had one after 6 children, although she could have been there for breastfeeding. The older children must have been taken from their families like Hannah was because Gilead hasn't been going on long enough for them all to be handmaid's babies.

Maybe the wife is allowed to admire Serena's book as it was pro-Gilead and released when women could still read. Or, given that her husband may be gay and the six children, they're just allowed to get away with shit because they're at the top!

TheSpottedZebra · 15/07/2019 15:55

Wasn't Serena''s book something like 'A Woman's Place' - ie it is in the home, not at work - instrumental in the founding of Gilead? And that would tie in with what Mrs DC Commander said about she was a busy lawyer, never seeing her gay husband. But now she is in the home, wit her 6 kids, and all is better. So shed openly say she liked Serena''s book in the past and not mind at all the fact that we're she to read it now she might lose a finger.

TheSpottedZebra · 15/07/2019 15:59

I still think Nick is (mostly) good now. No one, not even June, is 100% good all the time. She's basically torn between 2 men in 2 different world's.

Nick was an Eye before, wasn't he? We knew he was more powerful than just a driver. The speech with June saying that working with the Swiss was the only way in which he could be a father to Nicole, I think actually what he's about to do is him doing what's best for all -ie trying to take down Gilead from the inside at great personal danger.

AGnu · 15/07/2019 16:41

I didn’t understand what possible excuse the Swiss would have for interviewing nick. It would look pretty suss surely

Nick was a driver in their household at the time. He has first-hand experience of what they were like as a couple & as parents. He's now a commander so presumably in Gilead-logic his opinion should be more important than that of a lowly handmaid. In fact, I'm not sure why they bothered to consult the women at all... These worldly cultures & their weird ideas about women having anything useful to say, honestly!

Nousernameforme · 15/07/2019 16:51

@stumbledin the 2nd book testaments comes out in september so here's hoping we find out more of what MA wanted the story to be.

The more I think about last nights episode the more annoyed i get with it.
First off we are supposed to think that Gillead, a tiny nation formed from a very recent terrorist rebellion on land that is mostly nuclear wasteland, that was struggling to feed itself 2 years ago and that is fighting a resistance from within, is some sort of threat.

Then you've got all which has been mentioned about Junes titanium strength plot armor. Why doesn't she just march up grab Hannah and walk to Canada it's clear nothing is going to touch her. The mouth rings were nothing more than torture porn. They realised they hadn't done anything to awful to the handmaids this series so rectified that quickly.

This watches like some sort of mix and match drama. It feels like it follows an episode recipe. Take one June being reckless, a handful of artsy aerial shots, some close ups of june doing oscar winning angry face chuck in something shocking and just enough dialogue to make sense but not enough for plot. Same shit different week

JoxerGoesToStuttgart · 15/07/2019 16:54

He's now a commander so presumably in Gilead-logic his opinion should be more important than that of a lowly handmaid. In fact, I'm not sure why they bothered to consult the women at all... These worldly cultures & their weird ideas about women having anything useful to say, honestly!

It was the Swiss that wanted to interview everyone, including June. Gilead didn’t get to decide who would be interviewed.

JoxerGoesToStuttgart · 15/07/2019 16:55

I agree with all you say nousernameforme.

This season has been such a let down.