The Handmaids Tale S4 at C4 pace (no spoilers) thread 3

[MotionActivatedDog]

New thread!

Why would Canada send Serena back to Gilead? They want to prosecute her for war crimes.

Yes the podcast should be good this week!

Good spot RE teal!

@snowballer

Does anyone know how many episodes there are, and where we've got up to? I don't want to Google in case I get an episode guide spoiler!

I think there are 10 and that was 7

tgat was ep7 of 10

I always thought Tuello was playing Serena as she is very susceptible to thinking she has won over a man.

June has gone to a very dark place now. I felt sorry for Luke. He doesn't know how to be with her.

If you have PTSD it's often much easier to disassociate and just have pure physical sex IYSWIM

Does anyone else need to watch something else after THT before going to sleep (to recover a bit emotionally) or is it just me?

Taking back power and control

I feel sorry for Luke too. He will want to be kind, sensitive, empathatic but what she wants from him probably changes constantly. Sometimes space, sometimes closeness etc

@Faircastle

Does anyone else need to watch something else after THT before going to sleep (to recover a bit emotionally) or is it just me?

Yes!! I’m looking for a comedy right now!

When June was asked what drives serena and she said hatred etc- did anyone else expect her to say “fear”? I’ve always got this strong sense of fear emanating from serena. Fear that the little power she has could be whipped away from her in a second. Fear that her husband will prefer the handmaid. Fear that no baby will be produced for her ever (I’m going back in time obviously). Fear that if she gives an inch she’ll overpowered by everyone around her.

I think the reason June is especially cross at Serena and not Fred is because Fred raping her was obviously wrong but it was state sanctioned, he had to...whereas Serena didn't have to be nasty and abusive, there were no state sanctioned regular tortures for wives to carry out, but Serena did anyway

This Way Up on Ch4 is great.

I missed the teal thing entirely!

I think that actually June and Serena have a lot of similarities so June warning Tuello was also her explaining herself. And warning him about herself also, maybe.

@MotionActivatedDog

When June was asked what drives serena and she said hatred etc- did anyone else expect her to say “fear”? I’ve always got this strong sense of fear emanating from serena. Fear that the little power she has could be whipped away from her in a second. Fear that her husband will prefer the handmaid. Fear that no baby will be produced for her ever (I’m going back in time obviously). Fear that if she gives an inch she’ll overpowered by everyone around her.

I agree. June terrified Serena, she was a threat she could do nothing about, because she directly had a hand in creating so little power for herself

My theory with serenas pregnancy is that it could be tuellos as wasn’t it him that said he could get her out of giliad and she could have her own baby?

I’m rubbish at remembering when she last saw him before her and Fred left to be arrested and if it wasn’t too long before could they have dtd and that is why she had sex with Fred when she did as she knew she could be pregnant so needed him to think he was the father if she was?? I could be totally wrong but love to think of theories. Also would tie in nicely with June enlightening tuello to how evil serena can be.

It’s interesting that despite being so dedicated to they ways of Gilead, serena chooses not to wear her teal uniform.

@MotionActivatedDog she never has in Canada even when she was still in Gilead and just visiting

I didn't believe Serena when she was begging for forgiveness. Such an act.

Also Gilead is extremely secretive, and she may not have wanted to share what the wive's uniform looked like? Moors, Emily and June escaping would have given Canada a huge amount of information

@MotionActivatedDog

Imagine reading signage and food labels after so many years!!

Bit like when I came back to UK after few months in the soviet Union as student in the 198os...culture shock .

Not saying that June shouldn't be angry with Fred, of course she should.

But I think Serena is the focus for a few reasons.

1. We all live in a world where we are used to men being evil, abusers, rapists, misogynistic twats who oppress and objectify women. As a fellow woman, June must find it that much harder to process how Serena can subject her to those same atrocities.

1. From Tuello's/ a legal perspective, we are seeing the interviews about Serena because that's where they need evidence. The case against Fred is probably pretty watertight as they have him for war crimes and a whole host of shit. Serena is probably dodgy territory because, strictly speaking, as a woman she had no power in Gilead and is claiming what she did was under duress. The only case they have is her forcing Nick to rape June and that was only from Fred's statement which he could withdraw anytime. June's testimony in that would be so much stronger.

Blimey. Got a bit misty with the June/Nicole reunion (even if realistically that baby would have pure stranger danger).

Agree with others that it didn't seem right she was at the hotel, then the house, a dinner party, then a shop. I would've expected she'd be pretty much 24/7 with a psychiatrist and a team of nurses or something.

I also forgot until the flashback tonight that Fred raped June as Serena held her down in order to induce labour. I remember being really upset watching that episode and how graphic it was.

Do we know for sure that a DNA test wasn't done on Nicole at any point ?

Surely, if they have Nicole and have the potential father/rapist of the mother at the right time frame, they would automatically do a paternity test to rule out the chance he was the father?

@MotionActivatedDog

Sound has always been bad on THMT however I totally missed the woman dr and health professional conversation this time round. All I could hear is the music

The speech was muffled, as of June wasn’t really listening.

Yeah but I could hear it on iPlayer but not tonight. I think the sound is worse on C4

I’ve not had 10 concussions like June has had in the last 3 episodes 😀