The Handmaid's Tale Series 4 - finale coming up, no spoilers please.

[Clawdy]

New thread, looking forward to finale, but wishing it really was the last episode, with all storylines and characters ending satisfactorily.

Actually Hannah will remember living with her mum and dad. She did remember.

Nicole is the risk. June has never been a mum to her. She is a stranger to her. Nicole won't understand Gilead and will be the moody teenager that doesn't understand why she couldn't be with her.

I've just watched our again as I was a bit drunk on Sunday and knew I'd missed lots!

The particicution death of Fred is absolutely the best way they could have seen him off. Very fitting and not a surprise that the women wanted to do it - they have spent years beholden to Commanders and were literally trained to kill in this manner - I think there was something mentioned a long time ago about using the anger of the Handmaids for the particicutions as another method of control by allowing them to lose their tempers in a controlled way, so reducing the likelihood of them becoming a problem in other areas?

I didn't think the kiss with Nick was indecent - she was thanking him for arranging the situation for her as opposed to them getting off on torture. This was clearly pure revenge, absolute revenge not gratuitous sexual behaviour triggered by excitement. Although, given the huge link between violence, rape and control it could be a point for argument.

I see Luke collapsing because he's never seen her as a killer and it's shocking to him. At no time has he actually understood what June has been through, but who could? He was never at risk of the things that happened to her in Gilead - when it all started he said he'd look after her and clearly didn't understand the implications of the new regime on his wife.

Love the symbolism as ever, can't get worked up about the torchlight in a circle - it's TV after all 😁

I watched last episode tonight.
I thought it was frankly a bit rubbish.
I don't mind the odd plot leap of faith.. But really this was silly.
Firstly after years of not being able to get information in and out (remember the huge response when the letters were smuggled out) they can now have telephone calls and meet ups via the embassy willy nilly.
Second how is nick going to explain returning to gilead without the prized prisoner? I can see it now "sorry everyone somehow we veered off course in no mansland and were over run by a bunch of women, we didn't fight back but let Fred be hauled off"
Thirdly if nick and laurence can pull of this they sure as hell could get hannah out.
Fourthly.. Nicole... June says she loves her, but she coukd have washed blood off, gone home and never said a word.. Cus it's not just her, Emily, Moira they were there too... Are they all going on the run? Who looks after Nicole then? June the mother would not do that. Not leave her baby without the women in her life she has been brought up by.
The push being Fred or a man is not more important than a woman (June or whoever), I think the writers misjudged the maternal pull.. No one is more important than your child.. Except suddenly vengeance of Fred was to June.
It didnt fit.
Fifthly... Fred would have had more terror being sent back to gilead were he would have suffered more.. And as for Moira saying they would never find out what happened to him... I refer back to point one. June coukd call Lawrence.
Plus I felt this series list all the atmospheric tension and fear.. I wasn't scared at all.
All a bit silly now
Oh and don't get me started on the ridiculous prison...

I don't think Moira was there in the woods. She'd have gotten actual screen time like Emily if she had, not just been in the background of a shot.

I think it's feasible that Gilead is slipping a little, after a few years. Leaders change, ideologies aren't always strictly adhered to.

I know I did a big post about blood on Sunday but the blood on June's face was like she'd been 'blooded' after her first kill....except, Fred wasn't her first kill.

Personally, I thought season's 1 and 2 kept closest to the spirit of the book: ordinary people surviving however they can in extreme situations. She's an 'every woman'.
June as avenger, with signature face and red clothes moves the series away from that. Any of us could be June in 1 and 2. It takes more of a leap of imagination to be later June.

And I really, really don't like the romantic aspect. I always felt the June/ nick relationshipin the book was one of circumstance. And even then, it was ambiguous. I don't like nick becoming a hero. I think book June wanted him to be- like in the books we read growing up- but again, he's just trying to survive. I'm also not convinced that, given the extreme duress they're in, your brain would allow you space to fall in love. When I'm extremely stressed, I go numb. I do my job, I function, but everything surplus to survival stops. I get lust as a distraction, but romantic love? Not convinced.

I don't think it is romantic love though. I think it's absolute passion, borne out of the situation they were both in.

But I think the series is trying to sell it as a love against the odds, which seems cheap. I don't a live story to keep me invested. Could do with a bit less June now, tbh. I feel like I know her face more than my own children's.

I agree BIWI, it was hysterical bonding rather than romance that bound June and Nick together. May be a bit kore complex now they share a daughter though...

Sorry, love story. My phone has a mind of its own.

I think it makes sense that she would fall ‘in love’ with nick. I bet it happened/happens quite a lot between handmaids and commanders too. The ‘ceremony’ is so horrific that I can totally see your brain trying to normalise it and make it ok, like janine believing that Putnam was going to leave his wife for her in the first(?) series.

For June and nick, yes it was rape to begin with, but for both of them as Serena made them. Nick was the only one not trying to hurt her, just a glimmer of niceness. I can absolutely see her latching on to that.

I thought it was brilliant. It was great to see June using her intelligence (which Fred would never have guessed she had because she's a woman) to outwit Fred.

The killing was exactly what had to happen. The Canadian courts had badly let June down and what the Gilead courts would have done was debatable.

During war-time there are all sorts of comings and going's across borders so I didn't find it far-fetched. There are also plenty of phone calls and meetings between all kinds of people on opposite sides. (There will be all kinds of negotiation going on in Afghanistan now - we aren't hearing about half of what is really going on.)

I had assumed everyone with Nick and Joseph was undercover so don't expect the Gilead leaders to even know Fred was being returned. I thought it was all staged and nothing for any of them to worry about. No explaining to do. No questions asked.

Nick explained to June that Hannah is deep in Gilead which makes it impossible for him to get her out but he's keeping his eye in her. The concern now would be how to get a young girl out without her screaming? She won't understand what's going on.

June probably wasn't even aware she had blood on her face. Her adrenaline will have been pumping. She knows what she had to do next... she has to leave Nicole to go and get Hannah. That's why she asked for 5 minutes with her. Her maternal pull is to Hannah who needs her help not to Nicole who is safe.

I'd like to know what June said on her testimony tape. Maybe her words were what convinced Tuello to get rid of Fred. I'd also like to know who Serena was talking to on the phone when Fred left. Loved that she didn't even say goodbye to him.

Fred may not have had more terror being sent back to Gilead - to die the way he did, being murdered by 'inferior' women was the worst and most shocking thing to have happened to him.

As a viewer, we should have been shocked by the murder. But we weren't. We enjoyed it. We weren't scared. We liked the power the women had. I thought that was very clever of the writers. We've become hardened to Gilead too.

I would have expected it to dissipate once she’d left though, because it’s situational as opposed to true love through choice and free will, like Luke was.

@Wheretoeattweenandteen

Why does June say, give me a five minute?

Is June going to be prison? What's going on

She said "Just give me 5 mins ok. Just give me 5 mins with her and then I'll go"

It's her goodbye to Luke and Nicole.

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn

I thought it was brilliant. It was great to see June using her intelligence (which Fred would never have guessed she had because she's a woman) to outwit Fred.

The killing was exactly what had to happen. The Canadian courts had badly let June down and what the Gilead courts would have done was debatable.

During war-time there are all sorts of comings and going's across borders so I didn't find it far-fetched. There are also plenty of phone calls and meetings between all kinds of people on opposite sides. (There will be all kinds of negotiation going on in Afghanistan now - we aren't hearing about half of what is really going on.)

I had assumed everyone with Nick and Joseph was undercover so don't expect the Gilead leaders to even know Fred was being returned. I thought it was all staged and nothing for any of them to worry about. No explaining to do. No questions asked.

Nick explained to June that Hannah is deep in Gilead which makes it impossible for him to get her out but he's keeping his eye in her. The concern now would be how to get a young girl out without her screaming? She won't understand what's going on.

June probably wasn't even aware she had blood on her face. Her adrenaline will have been pumping. She knows what she had to do next... she has to leave Nicole to go and get Hannah. That's why she asked for 5 minutes with her. Her maternal pull is to Hannah who needs her help not to Nicole who is safe.

I'd like to know what June said on her testimony tape. Maybe her words were what convinced Tuello to get rid of Fred. I'd also like to know who Serena was talking to on the phone when Fred left. Loved that she didn't even say goodbye to him.

Fred may not have had more terror being sent back to Gilead - to die the way he did, being murdered by 'inferior' women was the worst and most shocking thing to have happened to him.

As a viewer, we should have been shocked by the murder. But we weren't. We enjoyed it. We weren't scared. We liked the power the women had. I thought that was very clever of the writers. We've become hardened to Gilead too.

A few of us have said we didn’t enjoy the murder.

As a viewer, we should have been shocked by the murder. But we weren't. We enjoyed it. We weren't scared. We liked the power the women had. I thought that was very clever of the writers. We've become hardened to Gilead too.

Nope. I was shocked and definitely did not enjoy it.

I liked the fact that it happened in no-man's-land, where no man was involved with actually killing him!

I punched the air when she said ‘Run’.

@PitchImperfect

I liked the fact that it happened in no-man's-land, where no man was involved with actually killing him!

Other than Tuello, Nick and Lawrence who orchestrated it.

@JaninesEyePatch -"Nope I was shocked and definitely didn't enjoy it."

Me too.
I like Michelle Obama's mantra " When they go low we go high."

It can be very difficult to live by it, but something to aim for.

I was shocked by the murder! And I agree, I definitely don’t think Moira was there- she was in the kitchen window with Luke and Nicole when June left, which definitely set her apart from June. I think she would’ve been appalled and tried to stop it if she knew.

We should have been shocked! June has been in the safety of Canada for a while now so our memories of Gilead and its true cruelty and horror are starting to recede. Even Aunt Lydia has been portrayed as a gentler woman in recent episodes. Remember her hugging Janine, and kissing her and Esther on their foreheads? That would never have happened in the early days of the Red Centre!

But June can't let go of Gilead - or what happened to her and the other handmaids, especially as she knows her daughter is still there.

So the murder - which was apt, as it was a method of punishment devised by Fred Waterford himself - has to shock us, as we're beginning to forget things like that happened. It's another way of bringing us close to June (and the other handmaids) again.

We, like Luke, might want June to move on and be happy. But she can't.

Shocking us, as the viewer, was an important thing to do - whether we like it or not.

... she can't move on and be happy because Hannah is still in Gilead, I meant to say.

She's also bound to Nick because of that - although he's the father of Nichole, who is safe with Luke, he alone can do more to help her find the daughter that isn't his. So Nick, as the only person who showed her any kindness from the start (remember even Rita wasn't that friendly with her to start with!), is really the only person who truly understands June and what she wants. As well as, of course, possibly being the only person who has the means to help her actually get Hannah back.

I half wanted Fred to be sent back to Gilead to be treated in a lowly fashion / put on trial and end up on the Wall.

But what happened was more fitting.
He died in fear, in No Man's Land, by a method of his own devising.
Nick (whom he had tormented) quoting the Bible at him at the end.
Fred really did get what he deserved.

I recently bought 'The Testaments'.
Now I don't know whether I should read it before Series 5 or not.
I suspect I won't be able to hold out.

I thought they'd string out the fear longer and chase him to the point where he was recaptured by the eyes and never being sure where he was going and who was going to hurt him or kill him. Basically eke out the fear situations where others are in control of him and what happens to him. I'd imagine commander Putnam would like some revenge for his hand.

Apparently season 5 will still feature Fred in flashbacks.

@ohthatbloodycat

Oh for fuck's sake, wash your face June.

Couldn't agree more! Why didn't she just wipe or wash the blood off. Implausible that she didn't!