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.

@Iggi999

Maybe June knew Emily better than Moira did - what she was capable of in Gilead.

I'm sure Emily and Moira only met after they had both escaped to Canada so this would ring true.

I suppose Moira doesn't have a small number of people to focus her revenge on because she was at Jezebel's and was presumably raped by many Commanders. June and Emily have a smaller group to focus on - the Waterfords, Lydia, Irene, whoever Glen is. I wonder if June knows about Emily murdering the former Wife in the Colonies.

I think June's anger is different, she is the only one out of the three who had a child left behind in gilead.
She also is the only one of the three who had a baby in gilead.
As the underlying theme, alongside the oppression of women is the strength of mother love, it follows she is different.
Moira wants to move on, to have the old June back and life to be like before, because she cannot fathom what June is feeling

Glen was Emily's commander. I don't think we ever saw him
Anyone wondering were the new handmaids come from?
They say about them only knowing gilead.. I wish they'd be some explanation.

I don’t understand the statement that they only know Gilead. It hasn’t been around for THAT long.

I know Glen was Emily's Commander, I just didn't know anything else about him, I'm not sure we know his surname. I wondered about new Handmaids and others have suggested that they're captured from fighting zones or they're Econowives or daughters who've broken the rules.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

I don’t understand the statement that they only know Gilead. It hasn’t been around for THAT long.

Don't get me started 😁

Oh yes I forgot about the wife in the colonies! Who was that played by again? Someone famous I remember..

My jaw dropped when June said the Waterford's was her second posting. What was her first? Did we see anything about this or is my memory playing tricks on me?

@NigellaSeed

Oh yes I forgot about the wife in the colonies! Who was that played by again? Someone famous I remember..

Marisa Tomei I think?

We never saw anything about the first (nor in the book) - we only know it was unsuccessful- no baby.

@WorldsBestBoss

My jaw dropped when June said the Waterford's was her second posting. What was her first? Did we see anything about this or is my memory playing tricks on me?

I do remember something about that being mentioned actually. Whether book or series I'm not sure. It's one of the reasons she went along so easily with Serena with the plan to get pregnant with Nick. Isn't it 3 postings and no baby meant you were sent to the colonies?

I expect they meant that their entire "adult" life has been under Gilead. We reckon it's been less than/about 5 years? These girls looked young so would maybe be 9/10 ish when it started?

Each posting is three yrs, three postings no baby and off to colonies.
I think gilead has been in existence for some time, as Eden, nicks wife was about 13/14 and there was reference to her having grown up with gilead most of her life.
There has been some yrs go by since Eden storyline but hannah does not seem to have aged at same rate

In the book there’s a theme of it being impossible to reconstruct with certainty the life stories of women who weren’t even allowed their own name when all we have is fragments so the existence of a first posting we don’t know anything about made sense.
It sits rather oddly in the tv version now given we have had flashbacks to so many other parts of June’s past but nothing about that. Surely it would have been traumatic enough to have left some powerful memories.

I'd say the story arc is more 10 yrs at least, if you look at the flashback to nick talking to commander putnam at the unemployment centre.. When they talk about the son's of Jacob.
June had a three Yr posting prior to the Waterford, plus time in the red centre before that.
She said in court she came to Waterford in 2017, so if following real life time that's four yrs ago, then three yrs elsewhere, plus time in red centre, plus time before that when the sons of Jacob were coming to rule.

With Eden I assumed she grew up in a devout family who lived by Gilead values even before it became a nation state.

I'm sure in the series when June first meets Serena, Serena says something like 'it didn't work out with old what's his name then?'

It would be interesting to explore that posting though. That fact June neither names the commander nor accuses him of rape is interesting. She specifically mentions commander Lawrence and that he did not rape her until compelled to by Waterford.

Of course it's Waterford's trial, but she knows Lawrence would be on trial if any caught so perhaps laying something for the defence

Yes, but Hannah looked like a pre teen still and was about 5 ish when June etc were captured and that was right at the beginning? Nothing in the timelines makes sense really.

The timelines are confusing, from Luke escaping to him getting the note from June is 3 years - it literally says it on the screen so maybe a year training for June then a year in her first posting then time with the Waterfords. We don't know how much time there was between the terrorist attacks and June and Luke trying to escape though.

Plus, covid disrupted filming so the babies grew and were, I assume, replaced, and Hannah has grown to be older physically than the narrative of the story.

The time line from June's capture to now is 7 years, they've said so a couple of times this series. And postings are 2 years with each Commander. In my mind though we'd be slightly less than that, 2 years at June's first posting, 2 years with the Waterfords ( plus maybe a bit longer if her pregnancy came late in the posting and the bfing) must've been less than a year with Joseph as Nicole is only just 1 and then I imagine a few months max at the red centre. So 6 years max really.

In the book the Waterfords were June's third posting but they cut it to 2 in the TV series to portray Hannah and her age better.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

I don’t understand the statement that they only know Gilead. It hasn’t been around for THAT long.

7 years? I think. So given that new handmaids could be 14/15 it's possible they have been indoctrinated thoroughly but they wouldn't have been born in gilead.

@ElephantOfRisk

Yes, but Hannah looked like a pre teen still and was about 5 ish when June etc were captured and that was right at the beginning? Nothing in the timelines makes sense really.

5 to 12 is 7 years...she could have been 12 in the box

Can someone help me with confusion over janines child/children. In the flashback a few episodes ago she was living as a single mum with one child and appeared to be pregnant again. It wasn't clear if she terminated that pregnancy? We know her son was called caleb and was given to a family in southern california but was there a second child?