Oh, before I forget, let’s take note of the moment in the last episode where Aunt Lydia was writing stuff! :eek: They haven’t addressed where Aunts are in the hierarchy yet, either, but that was a very interesting little tidbit.
Good points, Cat Whisperer.. The Eyes are definitely feared by everyone; even those that otherwise hold their own power in society. I think, once again, it’s the actor who simply does not portray strength. Of course, he can only speak and act as directed by the show’s creators but I think if he wasn’t such a schlub, his character would not be mistaken for a “pathetic sad-sack”. For some reason I can scarcely remember much about his character in the book but I don’t think he was a loser (?)
The bit with Aunt Lydia and the pencil was good but a bit odd. Surely she’s been seen often with a pencil, what with her keeping track of everyones’ bowel movements and all. Yet another small but great example of June’s utter lack of autonomy (though not quite as invasive as being ordered to bathe twice a day due to her muskyness :eek: )
If he’s supposed to be a spy, his characterization makes more sense.
Well this week’s episode was fantastic. Everything from Serena Joy trying to be one of the girls at the Handmaids’ lunch, to June’s response to Nick being unhappy at having to have sex with someone against his will, all the way to the up to the Handmaid suicide bomber that the Red Center dedication.
Oh at least not forget the delightful irony of the Waterfords whining about free speech and this being America. Although actual Nazi cunts were still allowed to read & write by the Fuhrer.
Nick isn’t higher up in the hierarchy than Cmdr. Waterford, but he reports to Cmdr. Pryce who is higher up than Waterford. As an undercover Eye he is higher up than actual Guardians (in the book most Guardians were men deemed unfit for military service). Aunt Lydia seems to be much higher up in the hierarchy than the other Aunts. Granted it’s hard to tell we hardly see any other Aunts let alone hear them speak, but I get the impression that she’s the chief Aunt for the Boston area’s Red Center. Maybe after this episode’s events we’ll finally get to see who she reports to.
Jacquerynagy after watching the Blaines consummate their marriage I think you may be right about even sex within marriage being forbidden (or at least discouraged). They clearly didn’t come up with the sheet thing themselves. I wonder how old Hannah is now. I think she may only be a few years away from being married off herself.
You guys are a week ahead of the broadcast I’m getting here - this all makes sense now! Yes, that was indeed a hell of an episode! Finally, a little information on what happened back then - a 61% reduction in live births in 12 months! The scene in the university hall was great, too - that’s the response we would expect from our modern society to their bullshit Gilead ideas.
Also, I fully expected to find out that Commander Waterford was shooting blanks and that Serena Joy was perfectly capable of getting pregnant if maybe she had a little sump’n sump’n on the side but that she was too committed to her shitty submissive ideas of a woman’s servitude to men that she could only dream of what it would be like to be pregnant. Then we find out she was actually shot in the abdomen likely ruining her chances of conceiving a child which makes me feel like this was too convenient. I think it would have been more interesting to see her have a chance to become a mother with a virile man following her husband’s redecorating of the Rachel and Leah Center auditorium walls (the ones that didn’t get blown away-- teehee!).
Yeah, I was thinking that too. In the book and movie Serena Joy wasn’t necessarily infertile; she was just past reproductive age. Making her the same age as Offred introduces the possibility that she’s actually fertile herself, but she doesn’t dare cuckold Fred because she’s afraid of getting caught (& we all know what Gilead does with fertile adulteresses). Presumably the penalty for arranging for one’s Handmaid to cuckold one’s husband is much less severe. I’m really hoping she ends up suffering something a lot worse than the Wall or the Colonies.
Of course realistically if she managed to make it out of Gilead herself she’d be more likely to write another book and go on the talk show circuit than be tried for crimes against humanity. :smack:
I can’t help but have sympathy for her as she learns that living her ideals is not as fulfilling as she thought it might be.
I had just the opposite response to the last episode - I’m pretty convinced now that both Serena Joy and Commander Waterford are both psychopaths.
:dubious: Seriously? Her ideals are monstrous and led her to help a violent evil cult replace the US as we know it with a totalitarian theocracy. She’s not sympathetic at all.
The Waterfords are very typical crackpot agitators with the facile misconception that “free speech” in America overrides the concept of private property, which it doesn’t. They’re welcome to stand on a soapbox on a corner or get a YouTube channel, but a university is under no obligation whatsoever to let them promote their views; they should have been grateful that the university gave them a platform at all. Like most professional martyrs they also don’t understand that other people have the right to heckle you just as much as you have the right to say whatever you want to say. That is democracy. That is America.
With that being said, it’s not cool to shoot people just because they have bad ideas. If their ideas are sufficiently bad that they could result in violence, well, wait for them to strike the first blow, then shoot their ass.
I was cogitating on this in the shower, and I was wondering if Serena Joy was coming from a place where she was saying women should be having all the babies they possibly could because the birthrate was so low, but her book was called, “A Woman’s Place;” I’m sure we’ve had other indicators in the past too that she was very much on board with, “A woman’s place is in the home, being ruled by her husband.” The low birthrate was probably their excuse to push hard on their fundamentalist, man as ruler and women as subservient agenda.
Watching Serena Joy attempt to emulate a real human being was cringeworthy. I think we see the real Serena Joy when she is doing things like threatening June’s daughter, Hannah, or backhanding Rita across the face.
I know the show is supposed to address it later this season, but is anyone else thinking the showrunners made a mistake than they omitted the racism in the book and amped up the misogyny instead? I think the show would seem less implausible if they kept white supremacy bit of the Sons of Jacob’s ideology and dialed the misogyny down a bit out of sheer pragmatism? I got the impression from the book that the no reading & writing was only strictly enforced for Handmaids; the Wives were trading paperback romance novels between them, & I assumed Marthas & Econowives were still allowed to do things like read cook books & labels or write grocery lists.
I think that, 1. The main point of the show is the oppression of women, and adding race into the mix would just water that down and the impact of the show wouldn’t be as hard-hitting, and 2. There still seems to be a subtle undercurrent of white supremacy; there don’t seem to be any black commanders or commanders of any other group other than “white” looking people, as far as I can see. Occasionally you will see black “Guardians” standing around. They seem to be restricted to subservient roles.
Holy Crap! :eek: Serena Joy is channeling Edith Wilson. That was an unexpected turn of events (though they foreshadowed it with the Counselor of Divine Law business). Moira being a surrogate mother was as shocking as it was ironic; no need to speculate where the fertility clinic’s records ended up. It’s a little odd her fiancée/girlfriend was never mentioned before. And as “empowering” as the bombing seemed at the time the collateral damage was worse than the actual damage. More Handmaids died than Commanders, entire households were summarily executed in their own yards, random bystanders shot, and Handmaids got recalled from the Colonies (where at least they weren’t being raped every month). The Handmaid funeral was incredibly disturbing & even in death the Handmaids aren’t allowed actual names, but it was well shot and bookended nicely with the press conference in the US Consulate at the end.
I wonder if Offred clicking down on the pen the way Ofglen clicked down on the detonator is supposed to indicate that the pen is mightier than the sword?
Serena is one of the most diverse characters I’ve ever seen in a show. I get sucked in every time, thinking “OK this time she’ll be decent and do the right thing” and then she’s so horrible. Yvonne Strahovski is just nailing this roll.
The only thing I didn’t like about this episode was Moira placing the photo of her and her girlfriend at the memorial because I know she didn’t have it while she was a Handmaid or a Jezebel or when she was escaping with nothing but the clothes on her back.
I can only speak for myself, and I’m a man, but I’d rather be raped every month than die of radiation poisoning.
By the way: prior to this season, I always wondered, “what are the colonies going to look like on the show? Are they going to be more bleak than the third act of Threads?” I figured they had to be at least AS bleak, if not more. In my mind’s eye, that’s how the Colonies looked. Well, I was let down. As usual, the BBC sets a very high bar.
Ooooh! Good catch. I hadn’t caught the similarity. That’s a good interpretation.
Assuming she’s got access to the internet now that she’s in Canada, she probably downloaded who photo from the cloud. I don’t think that Gilead could completely wipe out all Americans’ online footprint.
I don’t think the pen IS mightier than the sword. For one, it’s at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to both reach and penetration. On the upside, it’s more easily concealed.