Handmaid's Tale. EPISODE 13 SEASON FINALE!!! (season 3). Channel 4, 01/09/19. UK pace. NO SPOILERS!

[OriginofSpecies]

This is the thread for the season finale Episode 13 (season 3) of The Handmaid's Tale.

We are watching on Channel 4, UK pace and have only seen episodes 1 - 12 so far.

Please, NO SPOILERS.

I hope it will end with the collapse of Gilead. But I guess where the writing goes will also depend on the real life political events..

Yeah and it's also occurred to me that there are such parallels between June and Luke and Joseph and Eleanor.

Both couples were really in love but Gilead turned one of each into a different, harder, meaner person.

I see this poster on my way to work and it makes me think of June every time!

It's going to make me think of her too now!

Don't think June is pregnant... pretty sure CL gave her a morning after pill and she took it.

No he gave her a pack of 12 regular contraceptives.

But apparently if you took the whole pack it could theoretically stop implantation but you'd be sick as a dog. But it could work.

But I personally think they were meant to be taken in advance of the next forced Ceremony. They both knew it would happen again.

June took one of the pills there and then, as soon as CL left the table though so they must have been MAPs. The normal pill wouldn’t prevent ovulation even if taken that close after the sex. Usually you have to use a condom for 7 days even after a missed pill, right? So it must have been MAP.

Conception taking place I meant. Not ovulation. Her ovulation had presumably already happened or was happening according to AL.

No, MAPs come in packs of two. He gave her a pack of pills that look like my monthly POP.

Screengrab.

No she just took a sip of water. But she just picked up the pills and looked at them and put them down again.

I rewatched the scene again at the time to make sure.

I agree they are normal contraceptives not map.

I think it's possible she's pregnant, but I think June will be hidden at the start of the next season not in the red house, which would feel too repetitive.

Although lots of questions - what would they do if she was pregnant? There's no wife to look after the baby. What lawrence be allowed to keep a baby as a single man or would he be forced to remarry or give up the baby?

What happens to econopeople if the wife dies in childbirth?

Ah I thought when she took a drink she as washing down a tablet.

I’m guessing if she’s has a baby they’ll just give it to another couple who haven’t got any.

With the number of "shredder" babies, there's probably an ample supply of handmaids and econowives able to take on a wet nurse role to babies that need redistributing due to lack of suitable family.

In fairness it was a poorly done scene from the viewers point of view. Ambiguous in its entirety. Was he intending her to take them as a sort of emergency MAP substitute? Or just in the future? Even though they would only last one more Ceremony and then what? Was she even intending to take them? What did she do with them? Does she have her sensible hat on and decide its safer to be pregnant in Gilead than not, as it confers protection?

It's like they were trolling us, lol.

If she is pregnant then theoretically she's taken away to the Red Centre for 8 months and Lawrence is presented with some 14 year old Commanders daughter to raise the baby with him.

I don't think that'll happen as its a) boring in terms of June's timeline for next year and b) a retread of the Nick/Eden storyline.

He could be given an older Wife but that'd just be a retread of the Serena storyline if the Wife was resentful and jealous, or the Eleanor storyline if the Wife was kind.

I don't see him getting a Wife, tbh. Unless he somehow finagles a way to marry June for both their convenience.

My main worry is that June will end up being allowed to remain in the Lawrence House swanning around in her Handmaid's dress like she owns the place with Aunt Lydia smiling benignly at her cos of Bullshit Reasons that Make No Sense.

Shaken, No, because it's not regarded as rape in Gilead I know, but it IS in Canada, and that's the point. Rape was one of the items on Fred's charge sheet.

I saw Alma at the end rescuing June. In an earlier episode June told Alma she should ask her Martha to pass a message to the Martha at her son's house and ask for him to be brought for the escape. I'm hoping in series 4 we find out what happened with that. I would like them to pick up where series 3 has left off.

At the end of Season 2 I wasn’t sure I’d watch Season 3. Now I’m getting excited about Season 4.

what's the difference, really, between what she did and the ceremony? Just some biblical window dressing.

Canada was prepared not to hold Serena accountable for the rape of June by Fred during the ceremony (because they believe Serena was being coerced and in fear of her own safety...being a woman in Gilliad forced to obey her husband)....because surely a woman couldn't actively encourage her husband to rape another women? Right?

But when Serena forced Serena & Nick to have sex (in my opinion they were both victims of rape at that point) she was acting independently and but under Fred's instruction or under the guise of a religious ceremony. She then became the rapist, under Canadian law.

What will happen to june now ?
How did the other handmaids get out/ away to collect her in the woods ?
What will happen to the Martha's who got the children out ? They didn't all get on the plane, will they be executed?

Just watched the finale - palpitations, sweat and tears, and that was just me 😁

Who cares about the gaping plot holes, it's fantastic telly regardless.
Yes it's been a bit of a plod this series but that episode more than made up for it.

Bring on S4!

Like others I found this episode full of hard to believe plot twists, but my main problem is how June is being portrayed.

It seems the writers can only think in terms of what would a male hero do. So here we have June being all macho when the real work is being done by the Marthas. Her grandiose plan only works because the Marthas have already establish the smuggling network and links to the plane.

Yet June is some how presented as being the originated and achiever. Not happy with this. All these really capable and very, very brave Marthas being shown as her fans / followers. If only the series had spent more time showing how they worked together.

All June did was exploit what they had done and although maybe made her feel great but so obviously is going to leave a lot of women still stuck in Gilead going to have to pay the price.

The film style is often powerful but is too clever and tricksy and sugnaling its homage to others.

Other random thoughts.

Dont think Fred used Luke's notes about Nick. June's cassette to Luke was (in my memory) a confession that June was now in love with someone else and she was sort of apologising. (If you remember Luke was not that interested in even touching Nicole.)

Think Fred was using the words that Serena had stung him with ie that she had recognise his failure / infertility and taken charge to get the outcome they wanted. Not sure that either Fred or Serena are aware of any emotional connection between June and Nick.

And there is still the puzzle of why Canada heard Nick's testimony in private which June had thought would lead to Serena and Nicole being held in Canada. (The first formal visit to Canada) But in fact June was told it was in everybody' interest that nobody knew about Nick's involvement. Is he a double double agent?

I thought the young girl who played the child who came too early was very very convincing.

But as to another series.

Yes - but only if it is the Martha's tale - the female solidarity underground.

Go Martha's.

June can go and join whatever that actor is called in Mission Impossible 992!

Isn't the point about June that - whilst the Marthas had established a route for getting adults out one at a time which helped those adults but did nothing much else - June had the guts / ambition / determination to execute a blow to Gilead itself whilst simultaneously liberating 50+ children from its clutches?

It is taking the fight to the leadership, which even though it will lead to deaths of some will hopefully eventually liberate all?

She also chose to stay to distract the guards, which could easily have led to her death (and may have done, for all we know!)

I think the whole point of how June behaves is that she is rising up against the way women are expected to behave and 'comport' themselves in Gilead!

It's also about desperation as well as resolve and determination. And she was brave. She was, essentially, aiming to sacrifice herself so that the children (and the Marthas) could escape - having also taken a huge risk to go to Jezebels to meet up with Billy and hatch the plan in the first place.

I don't really see how we can stretch all this to ten series, and I certainly can't see how it would work without June. It is, after all, the handmaid's tale - not the handmaids' tale.

It will be hard for Gilead to keep saying to Canada and other countries 'this is our culture, everyone is happy with it' when it is clear that from one area alone there were 50+ household with kids where people (women) weren't happy.