Handmaid's Tale. EPISODE 12 (season 3). Channel 4, 25/08/19. UK pace. NO SPOILERS!

[OriginofSpecies]

This is the thread for Episode 12 (season 3) of The Handmaid's Tale.

We are watching on Channel 4, UK pace and have only seen episodes 1 - 11 so far.

Please, NO SPOILERS.

I can't believe there are only two more episodes - tonight's and the season finale next week. Very patchy series, which picked up last week.

I don't remember anything like that.

It would seem like sterilisation, in a world where babies arent being born, would be insanity. And it makes so sense anyway. The kids would just be taken away and given to someone. It's not as if it would cause many problems.

In the book when Moira first tries to escape she was offered the place in the colonies or at Jezebels after her recapture, part of the deal was that if she went to Jezebels, she had to be sterilised.

I thought the whole justification for Jezebels was that the fertile women who were unsuitable for being handmaids were still being used to increase the birth rate.

Ah, x-post. I've not read the book so I bow to your superior knowledge!

Do they really sterilise them?

That's so stupid! They're so dumb!

Oh wait, I guess in the show they don't mention that?

the-handmaids-tale.fandom.com/wiki/Jezebel%27s

I thought that Moira told June she'd been sterilised when Fred took June to Jezabels and they had that chat - but to be honest, I can't remember what I remember from the show or from the book, so could be talking rubbish!

'That's so stupid! They're so dumb!'

Almost as dumb as attempting to get handmaids pregnant by a once a month ceremonial shag rather than making them do it as often during the fertile period as the commander wanted.

Rationality in the face of the realities of reproduction is not the regime's strong point!

Re Hannah, if I was writing this show I would want to deal with the conflict between a brainwashed, pious, passionately pro Gilead teenage Hannah, and June who simply cannot relate to her, trying to get her deprogrammed. I am not sure how that scenario could be engineered other than by them both getting out.

Serena might be living in exiled splendour, like Diana Moseley in Paris, and befriend Hannah.

Hannah's missing for now but perhaps she could be assigned as a wife for a local commander in a few years. For June to still be around by the time Hannah is marriage-age she'd need to have been assigned to other commanders & had another baby or 2. Perhaps Hannah could be married off about the same time as June's reaching the end of a third unproductive placement & in danger of being sent to the colonies.

June would have one last chance to get her & Hannah out but Hannah may not go willingly. I wonder what Canada would do if June rocked up with her 15yo daughter who said "no" when asked if she wanted to seek asylum. At 15yo would she be sent back to her husband or would her parents wanting her to stay in Canada mean they'd keep her there?!

Serena might be living in exiled splendour, like Diana Moseley in Paris, and befriend Hannah.

Hannah is in Gilead though.

If the women in Jezebel’s have babies, how do they know who owns them? (Father wise) or are the fathers of those babies not interested in them because it would out them as sinners? How is the existence of those babies explained as Jezebel’s doesn’t exist as far as Gilead is concerned. Does a wife just get handed a newborn and no questions asked from her friends about her lack of handmaid or the birth rituals they perform. Does she have to pass it off as her own biological baby (a miracle?)

I’m guessing this hasn’t ever happened in Gilead (yet) as we haven’t heard any mention of other babies appearing which would definitely be newsworthy.

If there are any Jezebels babies (though I suspect the women are all on the pill) they'd be treated like any child confiscated from an econofamily. You get given a child and don't ask questions about where they came from.

From memory, in the book those women at Jezebels are sinners in the eyes of Gilead and have either already been proven infertile, or are sterilised and regularly drugged because they're known "trouble makers" and would not be trusted as handmaids.

After the finale it will actually be safe to Google all this...

I mentioned this upthread / on a different thread but in the book I remember Fred telling June that some of the women in Jezebel’s were ex CEOs, bankers, scientists etc, ‘women you could have an interesting conversation with’ but who presumably wouldn’t have been trusted as handmaids.

The sex through a hole in a sheet thing was ridiculous.

Empress yes I think in the book Jezebels was full of intelligent women who had protested against Gilead.

Joxer, yes, that was my point - in order to get that scenario to play with you would need June and Hannah to escape.

I'd just like to say that June's evil eyes at the end sent my dog berserk. She attacked the TV.

Captain

The sex through a hole in a sheet thing was ridiculous - I have been told (though I actually have no idea) that Orthodox Jews have sex behind a sheet-with-a-hole on their wedding night No idea if this is correct.

The potential Jezebel's babies would surely just be handed over to a Wife. in the same way that other sinner's babies are just taken and adopted into a Commander's family. No questions asked.

I think I remember the sheet thing in Yentl? So maybe it's an Orthodox Jewish thing. But I don't think it exists in Christianity and I thought it was so far fetched. It was basically a plot device to show Nicks discomfort but I thought that was pretty well shown anyway and it just wasn't needed. I guess it was to horrify him, and us? But he would have known about the sheet already, surely, if it was a cultural norm at that stage, and we were already grossed out by Edens age so it was just a bit of overkill. It looked a bit silly, tbh.

I’m Jewish. The “doing it through a hole in a sheet” is completely false.

@CaptainMyCaptain there was a shot of June's eyes - can't remember if it was right at the end - which was just like Alex's in the poster for A Clockwork Orange!

I thought it was the posh Victorians who had holes in the bedsheets and nightwear.

I had a brilliant history teacher who frequently went off piste from the curriculum and remember being told that the lady of the house would be aware of her husband's intentions when she was presented with the special nightgown and was permitted to go to his chamber.

Lanhydrock House was rebuilt in the 1880s following a devestating fire and included all modcons of the day including very seperate living conditions for males and females inspired by the colonial influences from India and the Mughal palaces.

Very "moral" and upstanding... rubbish for boosting Gilead's birthrates. I'd noticed Fred and Serena sleeping seperately a few times prior to the twin beds at the guest house. It seems to be perfectly accepted so morality of procreation is above practicalities. No wonder fornication down at Jezabels is so popular amongst the commanders.

I love the way that the demise of Winslow at Jezebels is inexplicable. He wasn't there . June wasn't there. The marthas promptly destroyed all evidence. Interestingly CL does know what June did, but it's a tough one to hold over her as blackmail potential as it's a massive can of worms and he has unwittingly benefited significantly which doesn't look incidental on his part. Mind you, there is enough that he could lump on to her if he so wished, but the worst crime is the hardest one!