Page 21 | The Handmaids Tale S4 at C4 pace (no spoilers) thread 3

MotionActivatedDog · 2021-07-27T08:45:58+00:00

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

CloseYourEyesAndSee · 04/08/2021 13:23

@Tightwad2020

Can someone help me out with Nick? He was a driver/part of the security detail for a Commander's household, so quite lowly - and then he became a commander himself. Why the elevation? If the reward came because he was also an Eye (I assume these are a sort of KGB/Stasi/Taliban enforcers of orthodoxy), that can only be because he was trusted to be an ultra in ideological terms, and spy on the high-ranking families with whom he is posted, to ensure purity in all the key parts of the hierarchy.

So if he was an Eye, and his humble status as a driver was really just a pretext for spying upon the Commander and keeping his household in line, how could Serena have had any power over him? Wouldn't she have been terrified of ending up on the wall?

Has it ever been made clear what Nick has done that makes defection from Gilead impossible?

Surely June's love for Nick is just the consequence of them both being in a horrible prison? Even if he's helped build the walls? (which is why I would hope she'd choose Luke over Nick if it came to such a choice).

Oh, and speaking of Luke - I think he consented to the angry sex with June, understanding that this was something she needed to try take control back, and feel something rather than trauma over sex. Shit sex, yes, sex where one person is just trying to absorb the other's pain and relieve them of it, but still consensual.

Nick became a commander as a double edged sword from Fred Waterford. He framed it as a reward for good service but actually it was to get him out of his household and to the front where he expected him to get killed. I really didn't think that sex was consensual at all. She didn't give him a chance to consent. The lack of stopping her doesn't mean he consented.

Tightwad2020 · 04/08/2021 13:35

Ah, OK, re. the promotion. But if he was also an Eye - Serena must have been taking an enormous risk to involve Nick. I can't remember now when Waterford was told about Nicole's paternity.

I think we have to agree to disagree on the consensual sex - I see it as Luke making a decision to go along with June in the hope of helping her start to come to terms with repeated rape, possibly by showing her he was willing to at least try and understand she might have felt. Which obviously, given that he could choose to do this means his experience is nothing like hers. See how fucked up it all is?

Maybe this is not therapeutically sound, but it strikes me as an emotionally quite realistic decision. At this stage, we don't know what the ramifications for their relationship will be - maybe he will turn around and say, non-consenting sex, not on. To which she could say, 'No shit, Sherlock!' She's angry, she's not a nice person right now! As she keeps telling everyone.

TheSpottedZebra · 04/08/2021 13:49

The person that recruited Nick was instrumental in the foundation of Gilead and super-powerful. So we know that Nick probaby always had a protector. But he died (in the bombing?) and for a while Nick seemed not as well connected and more worried. Also, surely he was a shit Eye as all the stuff went on in the household he was spying on - at least one handmaid killed herself, ALL the June shenanigans, and then his wife had an affair and ran away. And thus was executed. But suddenly he's powerful again.

And didn't someone allude to Bad Things he'd done 'on the front or 'in the war' -that must have been before he joined the Waterford's House but after he was a driver for the top chap.

Tightwad2020 · 04/08/2021 14:15

OK, thank you for that. A super-powerful protector.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 04/08/2021 14:54

@Soubriquet

^^

Anyone else sing janine to Jolene?

No? Just me?

I do now!

WorldsBestBoss · 04/08/2021 14:57

I can't remember now when Waterford was told about Nicole's paternity.

I'm not sure if he already suspected, but when Fred and Serena went to the commanders house where June was hiding before she gave birth, Serena said to Fred "You let her come here with the father of her baby!"

Original poster

MotionActivatedDog · 04/08/2021 15:38

Can someone help me out with Nick?
He was a driver/part of the security detail for a Commander's household, so quite lowly - and then he became a commander himself. Why the elevation?

Loads of commanders were killed in the bomb. Nick was always an eye for commander pryce. Spying on the Waterfords. He was never just a driver. He always had a direct line to the top dog.

OP posts:

dapsnotplimsolls · 04/08/2021 17:17

@TheSpottedZebra

The person that recruited Nick was instrumental in the foundation of Gilead and super-powerful. So we know that Nick probaby always had a protector. But he died (in the bombing?) and for a while Nick seemed not as well connected and more worried. Also, surely he was a shit Eye as all the stuff went on in the household he was spying on - at least one handmaid killed herself, ALL the June shenanigans, and then his wife had an affair and ran away. And thus was executed. But suddenly he's powerful again.

And didn't someone allude to Bad Things he'd done 'on the front or 'in the war' -that must have been before he joined the Waterford's House but after he was a driver for the top chap.

In S3, Serena said something like 'We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him'. This hasn't been clarified, though.

dapsnotplimsolls · 04/08/2021 17:20

Pryce agreed to take him out of the Waterford household just as they were walking into the building that got bombed. I can't remember if he was promised something specific.

WorldsBestBoss · 04/08/2021 18:32

@dapsnotplimsolls

Pryce agreed to take him out of the Waterford household just as they were walking into the building that got bombed. I can't remember if he was promised something specific.

Yes, I remember this - Nick asked if he could be moved. Then after Commander Pryce died, Waterford etc promoted him and forced him to marry Eden.

JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn · 04/08/2021 18:42

I always thought Nick was just posing as a driver while all the time spying on the Waterford's. I still stand by that he's a double agent. He wasn't happy about having to bomb the civilians before the ceasefire and has always done what he could to minimise cruelty.

WorldsBestBoss · 04/08/2021 19:22

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn

I always thought Nick was just posing as a driver while all the time spying on the Waterford's. I still stand by that he's a double agent. He wasn't happy about having to bomb the civilians before the ceasefire and has always done what he could to minimise cruelty.

I agree completely - even if he is not "officially" a double agent, he certainly is one! He's also heavily involved in Mayday - as far as I can tell, he's the one who has tried to get June out all 532 times

NigellaSeed · 04/08/2021 20:27

Agree I don't think June and nick could ever have a relationship, imagine them just living in a house and making lunch and renewing their car insurance 😆 and it would be cruel to take Nicole from Luke

Crinkle77 · 04/08/2021 22:55

I agree completely - even if he is not "officially" a double agent, he certainly is one! He's also heavily involved in Mayday - as far as I can tell, he's the one who has tried to get June out all 532 times wink

Do you remember in series 1 when they first went to Jezebel's and he was in the kitchen with the Martha Beth. He was involved in procuring black market goods. He gave Beth pregnancy tests in exchange for alcohol so he's deffo dodgy.

bonbonours · 05/08/2021 00:29

Nick is very much a mystery. He was in the book too, in fact in the book you never found out if he was trying to rescue June or get her arrested. In the book it ends on a cliffhanger and you have to decide for yourself. It's quite clever that they have strung out the character this far outside of the original book material and yet we still don't really know if he's a god guy or a bad guy.

WorldsBestBoss · 05/08/2021 08:24

In the show I think it's obvious Nick is a good guy.

He is stuck in this world that he essentially got dragged into and now can't get out.

BIWI · 05/08/2021 09:24

Gilead rescued Nick, as he was going from job to job, and had been in trouble - so I can see he would always have some kind of loyalty to it/the system. But then June came along and he did fall in love with her, so he's conflicted, I think.

Tightwad2020 · 05/08/2021 09:50

Gilead rescued Nick, as he was going from job to job, and had been in trouble

Oh, that's interesting - terrorist/totalitarian regimes often absorb those of lower status/delinquents and give them a role and purpose. So Nick is experiencing his own internal revolution against the state that has co-opted his alienation for its own ends.

EmpressWitchDoesntBurn · 05/08/2021 11:56

@BIWI

Gilead rescued Nick, as he was going from job to job, and had been in trouble - so I can see he would always have some kind of loyalty to it/the system. But then June came along and he did fall in love with her, so he's conflicted, I think.

Was he having to support his brother for some reason?

dapsnotplimsolls · 05/08/2021 12:35

Yes, I think he had to keep giving up jobs to look after his brother. Can't remember exactly why, addiction maybe?

SoupDragon · 05/08/2021 13:25

I've googled very carefully ...

Nick, his Dad, and his older brother lost their jobs at a steel mill, resulting in Nick becoming the primary caretaker of the family.
Nick is sitting in a career center. He is talking to a counselor, Andrew Pryce, when he gets in a fight with another customer. Nick is thrown out, Pryce follows him and invites him out for coffee. Nick tells him about his brother, who is an alcoholic and often disappears for extended periods of time. Pryce expresses sympathy for Nick, and tells him about a religious group he is part of called the Sons of Jacob that wants to "clean up" the country. He offers Nick an invitation to a meeting and even alludes there may be a job in it for him. While Nick does not respond verbally one way or the other, future events demonstrate the choice he made.

vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 05/08/2021 13:57

Ooooh, thanks for that, Soup

TheSpottedZebra · 05/08/2021 15:10

I think concepts of good people and bad people in Gilead are almost irrelevant. People are just doing what they can to survive. So our 'hero', June is broadly good and has done some great things, but she she's a MASSIVE disregard for others' lives in her bid to bet to Hannah.

Likewise Nick, probably neither good nor bad but overall not the worst and not the best.

Embracelife · 05/08/2021 15:40

@SoupDragon

I've googled very carefully ...

Nick, his Dad, and his older brother lost their jobs at a steel mill, resulting in Nick becoming the primary caretaker of the family.
Nick is sitting in a career center. He is talking to a counselor, Andrew Pryce, when he gets in a fight with another customer. Nick is thrown out, Pryce follows him and invites him out for coffee. Nick tells him about his brother, who is an alcoholic and often disappears for extended periods of time. Pryce expresses sympathy for Nick, and tells him about a religious group he is part of called the Sons of Jacob that wants to "clean up" the country. He offers Nick an invitation to a meeting and even alludes there may be a job in it for him. While Nick does not respond verbally one way or the other, future events demonstrate the choice he made.

Sounds like alpha course ..... www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/oct/21/weekend7.weekend

WorldsBestBoss · 05/08/2021 15:50

@TheSpottedZebra

I think concepts of good people and bad people in Gilead are almost irrelevant. People are just doing what they can to survive. So our 'hero', June is broadly good and has done some great things, but she she's a MASSIVE disregard for others' lives in her bid to bet to Hannah.

Likewise Nick, probably neither good nor bad but overall not the worst and not the best.

This is spot on.