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

[OriginofSpecies]

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.

@Nousernameforme
Completely agree.

I cringed when Serena asked Mrs DC Commander, 'are they all yours?' And she replied, 'who else's would they be?'

Of course in the book Gilead also has a "racial purity" element so all the handmaids and their children would have been white. Whereas in the TV series they include all races which means that when the commander and his wife are white and they have mixed race children, it's even more obvious that the wife is a handmaid and not the mother.

Sorry I meant to say the mother is a handmaid and not the wife!

Did anyone note Fred calling Nick "son" when he asked him to stand in for the camera shot?

I also noted the commanders "pat on the back" of Freg and felt it had undertones.

He flaunted his backside in Fred's face earlier. It was pretty obvious

I suppose the commander in DC must be bisexual, it's hard to imagine that he could have successfully fathered so many children without being at least a bit attracted to women.

It will be interesting if the tables are turned and Fred becomes the victim of sexual coercion instead of the perpetrator.

Fred’s reaction was funny he was like “uh, umm, ok, where do I put my hands? Where do I look?? Oh god. Ahhh. Oh it’s cool, he’s gone now”

anotheremma someone up thread reminded us that many of the Gilead children are ones that have been removed from women like June and handed to commanders and their wives. So some of them might not be biologically theirs. And we also know that some commanders wives are not above encouraging the Handmaids to find other sources of sperm if they suspect their husbands are firing blanks ( or indeed not firing at all). Since they had a very young baby I am assuming that at least one of their children was conceived in the approved Gilead way, but who knows about the others, I suppose it could mean that they had had a long line of racially diverse Handmaids !

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

Exactly. Why on earth would the world be fearful of Gilead? They talked about it being a thread militarily... how????

I do think the storyline for returning Nichole, TV ad, pressuring Canada etc... is very very weak.

Oh yes good point. The older ones probably are stolen children. I can't remember how old Hannah is but I guess any children around her age or older will have been kidnapped. Only the younger ones could have been conceived by handmaids.

Cross post

*threat. Not thread!

I don't get why Canada would negotiate. Everyone clapped when Emily arrived with Nichole.

Yes, as someone else also mentioned, I think that they’ll release the video of Nick & June standing side by side, hands touching.

Do you think they’ll offer to send Hannah to Canada in exchange for Nicole?

@Nousernameforme exactly. I already know that Gilead is evil and that handmaids are tortured, I don’t need to see any more of it. I want to know what happens to bring it down.

The more they string out the series with gaping plot holes, the more it loses credibility as a series that makes people think about how women are treated in real life. That makes me angry TBH.

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

Yes, that was the point I was making - in Gilead-logic they'd only have bothered asking the men. It was precisely because it wasn't Gilead's choice that June was questioned.

Ahh sorry AGnu! I’ve misinterpreted your post!

I think that they’ll release the video of Nick & June standing side by side, hands touching.

Under what guise?

I don't think that Gilead will release anything that shows it in what they consider to be a negative light. They're deluded extremists who think that showing the world that the handmaids are all praying for the baby to be returned will mean that the baby is returned.

Yes I don’t think so either.

I can hardly see Gilead agreeing to release footage of nick touching June’s hand because Fred wants to piss off her husband. What would they even say to the world stage to explain what they were releasing?

Well they could claim it was Nicole's parents asking for her back. But they have the tape of June wanting Luke to look after the baby.

(But they couldn't anyway as couldn't admit Fred wasn't the father)

I'm really disappointed in this series. Gaping plot holes and inconsistencies. Poor writing. Veeeeeeery slow storyline.

I got a sense from Nick that he'd got involved with Gilead in the past his his childhood was so awful and it was a way out (grooming?) but that comment to June made me wonder if was now out of his depth, doing stuff he'd rather not, but trapped. Who knows.

Goodness knows where this series will go!

I was thinking along the lines of Fred making sure the footage went directly to Luke. I know Luke heard the tape, but it would be another thing to see if with his own eyes.

It just seems so strange that he planted Nick there? Or is he going to use the footage to bring Nick down?