Handmaid's Tale. EPISODE 8 (season 3). Channel 4, 28/07/19. UK pace. NO SPOILERS!

[OriginofSpecies]

This is the thread for Episode 8 (season 3) of The Handmaid's Tale.

We are watching on Channel 4, UK pace and have only seen episodes 1 - 7 so far.

Please, NO SPOILERS.

Last week's thread took a rather strange turn, so please, play nicely people.

And I shouldn't have to spell it out, but when it says "Please, NO SPOILERS", that means we don't want people who have watched ahead to come on here and deliberately or inadvertently reveal what is actually going to happen in future episodes.

Anything else is speculation, whether that is based on what has already taken place in the TV series or is based on events in the novel (including the Historical Notes epilogue).

Just because something happened in the book doesn't mean it's also guaranteed to take place in the TV series.

Blessed day.

All the Handmaids have been brutalised and they are surviving in different ways. I’d say they all have PTSD along with a range of other MH conditions by this point and they are all at the point of snapping if the right trigger presents itself.

Hadn’t Natalie’s previous 3 babies been boys and she’s worried about this one as she thinks it’s going to be a girl? I don’t think she knows, but she senses it’s a girl. Life in Gilead is shit but it’s shitter for females than males. That worry, combined with the bullying from other handmaids is what makes her snap.

I enjoyed last night's episode. It had lots of flaws but it had the things I'd been craving: more action and some of Aunt Lydia's back story.

It was about women being/turning bad, wasn't it? In a previous thread, I said that June had become unlikeable and unrelatable. Well, in this episode she was absolutely evil - nasty, spiteful, smug and enjoying the suffering of others. It was pretty powerful in that it showed what Gilead has done to her. She probably always had it in her though. Aunt Lydia's back story showed that she was already capable of shocking cruelty and betrayal. Of course, we didn't get the whole back story - there must be much more to explain her extreme reaction.

I liked the scene with Aunt Lydia and her colleagues allocating the handmaids, it was interesting. And I like that they're moving June, she has it too easy atm.

It looked as if Natalie was dead, but they would not shoot to kill. Given the scarcity of healthy babies, a pregnant woman is probably the most precious resource and therefore fairly immune.

I think there is more to come of ALs back story. What was the significance of teaching being her second career (after family law I think). It wasn't explained why she changed as far as I can remember or did I miss a bit?

Sorry to jump in, have just been lurking. Struggling a lot with this series.

Anyway, my question is, if Aunt Lydia was married, how did she get to become an Aunt and not a Martha or sent to the colonies? Surely as she said he was a mistake, it implies divorce. At least that's what I thought had happened.

I wonder that too Venus

Perhaps some reasons for divorce are permissable to Gilead - maybe her ex-husband was in prison for doing something to her nephew, or had been given a death sentence. I can imagine how someone who worked in family law might get messed up by their DH harming a member of their family, especially a child.

It's not divorce that's the problem as such among the hyper-religious. It's engaging in a new relationship (any relationship, not only marriage) which the spouse is still living. If the ex husband is still alive then AL kissing that bloke was fornication so I think we can assume he must be dead. Hopefully we will see more of the story later on.

Unless the writers are ignorant and don't think the plotting through of course. Then we might see some kind of inconsistency of morality.

I have an acquaintance who is very religious and is divorced. He believes he has no option but to live celibate until either he dies or his ex wife dies because of the sacred bond of matrimony. (She is married again and doing fine. He is so repressed he should be a character in a Woody Allen film)

I think ALydia really wanted to take Ryan home when his mum was late (again) and maybe put forward a case to keep him. She certainly seemed to me to want to make 'friends' with the family for her own ends.

Anyone else think she looked like Snape when she was made up and went into the Nightclub? I really thought it was him.

And she really backlashed against them all with SS! I remember the bit about her past before and thought she'd been responsible for the death of a child?

And poor Janine. Hope she's ok. And really wish ALydia had been shot, evil woman.

I'm wondering if Natalie might still be alive.

If she was, though, wouldn't they have carried her out instead of dragging her? Not for her welfare, obviously, but in case there was some tiny chance of saving the baby?

I think she forced herself to believe everything was fine in order to survive losing her three boys. But once she knew she was having a girl she couldn't fool herself any more.

I don't think the guards are interested in fertility and babies. Anyway, it's all God's will, so Natalie is to blame for her sinful ways, not the bullet from a guard.

Have we seen any live babies born?

I wonder if the birth rate is continuing to drop. Haven't seen any pregnant handmaids for ages.

Janine's baby was, and still is alive, and so was June's baby.

I don't think the guards would know that Natalie/ Ofmatthew was pregnant. She was fairly early on and not obviously showing. The whole handmaids setup is that they are annonymised behind their wings, caps and near identical clothing, so their agenda wouldn't include knowing who is who.

It occurred to me that a handmaid's position is a bit like that of a governess in that awkward inbetween space of being above the staff like the Marthas who make the household work behind the scenes, but below the actual family with no direct peers.

Margaret Attwood uses the idea of falling women a lot in her writing and it was interesting seeing Aunt Lydia being tempted and pulling back from a fall into temptation from which she punishes her temptress which seems disproportionate to us. In a flashback in a previous series, June gets a grilling for work getting in the way for attending to Hannah. I think she was ill and the school sent her to the hospital? So there is precedent for a zealous child welfare reaction in the pre-Gilead society.

Good points. It reminded me of June not being able to collect Hannah, too.

This episode came just at the right time. It’s sparked a bit of of interest again for me after a disappointing season so far although I do agree with the PP who mentioned that three stories seemed a bit disjointed. I think OfMatthew must be dead...it looked like she killed one of the guards and was waving that gun around threatening to kill potentially fertile handmaids so I expect their response was shoot to kill. I hope Janine is ok...she took quite a battering.
I loved that there were no Waterfords in this episode!

I was glad they weren't in it either. I'm getting fed up of them.

Of course, we don't need to assume the guard's action in shooting her was what Gilead would have wanted, but it was completely believable under the circumstances.
You can imagine being that guard, making a snap decision, and then having to justify why you had killed a pregnant handmaid.

When June was pregnant, didn't their Martha take over shopping duties? I wonder why Natalie was still being sent shopping

I wonder was ALydia's marriage annulled, therefore making her still eligible to become an Aunt. That's a possibility if her husband had done something awful to a nephew?

Inter June still did the shopping when pg, we also saw Janine out shopping and proudly showing her bump, I think in Season 1. Maybe the Martha does the shopping if they are feeling unwell.

I think this has been the best episode so far this season and something is finally happening. It'll be interesting to see how a move away from the Lawrence's plays out. But maybe June is pg and will have to stay! (Not a spoiler btw, I haven't read anything and am just musing!)

I wondered if June might be upduffed - there was that alone time with Nick before he went off to the front line.

Wondering when and how he'll reappear.

Some faith groups have "shunning" if you don't stick with their ways - perhaps AL's husband did not agree with the rules and was shunned. So he'd be a mistake, and vanish and she'd be eligible for Aunt status as someone who chose Gilead over her sinner husband?

If June was pregnant, would the baby be viewed as belonging to the Lawrences?

That part where they were talking about Natalie not wanting 'her' baby. Nobody mentioned the part about where if she had her, she'd lose her as soon as she'd finished breastfeeding.

Aunts are part of the machinery of Gilead, they would have been recruited, like Eyes, from among the true believers. So it's not just a case of Aunt Lydia's marital status that means she's not a Martha, it's also that she's been chosen for the role. Clearly her background marks her out as someone with strong authoritarian beliefs so she was probably recruited in a similar way to Nick.

Maybe AL’s husband died?

I liked the Aunt Lydia episode very much. It seemed to me that it didn't show her suddenly becoming bad as a result of one bad experience, rather that all the negative sides of her personality were already there but were in conflict with her softer side. This was the moment at which she made the choice about which side she was going to go with.
After that I am sure she would have eagerly supported the new regime from the start.
Fabulous acting from Ann Dowd.