What part of Handmaid's Tale traumatised you the most?

[user892734543544]

I love a well made TV show. I wasn't finding anything and, despite my natural aversion to the concept of HMT, I watched it to satisfy the need to see a good show.

Here are the moments I wish I had never seen. Interested to know what you found the most upsetting part.

1. Emily being taken with that other lady to be punished for being gay. Other lady was just unceremoniously strung up and hanged in seconds.
2. What happened to poor, poor Janine. When that bloke got ahold of her and just beat her and kept her prisoner.
3. When June's daughter said to her 'will I ever see you again?'
4. When Janine's child was given back at the end.

All the ceremony scenes.

Any scene where someone was having part of their body amputated for their "sins".

The gallows. Opening scene to season 2. Almost couldn’t go on.

When aunt Lydia held one of the women’s hand on the hot hob.
all of the hanging scenes. I found every episode pretty disturbing.

where the chained the handmaids to the stove top on series 2

Ditto the gallows opening scene and the hot hob.

Heaven is a place on earth - when the hand maid was kept alive as a human incubator.

First episode of season 2 with Aunt Lydia burning the handmaids on the hob.

I also had to close my eyes for the scene where the commander was having his hand amputated towards the end of season 1.

I never watched beyond the first episode of season 2 because I found that one so disturbing I realised I didn't want to watch the series anymore. With season 1 I knew they had added things to the story in the book to pad it out a bit but I felt like I always knew roughly where it was going. With season 2 I felt like I didn't know how bad it was going to get and I was too disturbed to keep watching.

The DC handmaid.

When Serena took June to Hannah’s school but locked June in the car- just to make it obvious that Hannah could be moved/hurt/whatever if June “misbehaved”

Yep - the dc ones with stapled closed mouth. Nightmares.
The young wife and lover drowned - her father turned her in!
The incubator handmaid.
The hob.
The clitorectomy.
The stoning.
I don't know why I kept watching to be honest. The story was interesting I guess. The cast was good.

I've only seen a couple of episodes but the gallows scene was horrific. Way before that, near the start - the protest scene (with the Heart of Glass" soundtrack) I found shocking. Because before that, society is still reacting in a normal way to injustice. The soldiers start to turn- OK things getting a bit rough but still....then one of them opens up on the crowd with live ammo. And as they're running away and hiding in the shop, tracer fire is flying past the window cutting down fleeing protesters, and they realise it's not just one rogue soldier reacting under pressure, but retreating civilians being actively hunted down by the instruments of the State. Civilised society is gone, the social contract has been smashed to bits, democracy is fucked, nobody is safe.

I felt exactly the same. I stopped watching at that point as it felt a bit too ‘torture porn’.

The bit that impacted me the most was when the women all lost their jobs, their bank accounts were frozen and the police open fire on them when they protest. It felt like something that could actually happen, rather than something implausible or futuristic

That’s the scene I was trying to describe! It left me very emotional

The episode when they shows how it all happened. One minute June was at work in a corporate office - the next all the women were told to go home and found their bank accounts had been frozen etc. scares me how easily this first stage could happen now

all of the above but particularly the scene when the young girl and her lover were drowned

Its notable how these awful
scenes, or at least their frequency, were toned down after the first few seasons
the audience couldn’t cope, literally

Yes this one and how she has Hannah taken away because she sent her in feeling a bit rough with some Calpol, which is something I do all the time! But seeing the rise in trad wives I can see it actually happening like that.

When Luke didn't see the big deal in the beginning. The bank account frozen and he said he'd just pay for things.

That was so symbolic of the whole problem. And indicative of how easy it is for men in power to do shocking things without consequences.

I realise that the show went beyond the books but, the fact Atwood always made it clear that everything she included in HMT and The Testaments had happened at some point in time to women, around the world, throughout history, is just so stark.

And it will almost certainly happen again unless we’re really fucking careful.

When June went out to the woods and killed commander Waterford with the other women and they liked it. It did make me wonder how far you’d have to push any of us before the civilised veneer would wear off and you’d kick, claw, bite someone to death.

I second all the ones mentioned by @ChubbyPuffling plus the episode where the escaping handmaids were hit by the train - I actually gasped really loudly to that one. Also in the final season when the source of the 'entertainment' at Jezebel's is revealed and then later on when they're all murdered in the showers which left me quite tearful.

When Emily was forced to have her clitoris removed. It was all unnecessary evil but that is torture on another level.

I am really not being judgemental and this is Just an observation but programmes like this, game of thrones etc can just seem gratuitous for the sake of it. I don’t need to see things to know they have happened.

I like my Tv and films fluffy because life can be so bloody horrible anyway. Watching stuff like this is not a teaching exercise and a bit like the constant shit on social media just sits in your head rent free.

I clicked in this before anyone asked because I have never seen it and I thought ‘how bad can it be‘?

The two captured handmaids being questioned on the roof and then pushed off. Horrifying, and on par with Eden and her boyfriend being executed in the swimming pool. Huge shock to watch.