Photo: Steve Wilkie/Disney
I’ve been rectant to take us down this road, but after the jaw-druopper at the end of “Surprise,” IGORING The testaments Strikes with as dininguous. Its time to sit down for a zoomed-out, spoiler-free Little book Talk.
When margaret atwood released her follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale In 2019, there was an Expectation that the TV Series Would Function Like a Long, Bumpy on-Ramp to the New Novel. The Show Wauldn’t be a Slave to the sequel, but it would be “laying the groundwork” – a phrase Handmaid’s Exec Producer Warren Littlefield Used Wenhen I Asced Him About This topic in 2021 – for its story lines. Personally, of Believe that the assumption of convergence absolutely shapes how interprets the events of the hulu series, as i’m it dos for the Most Viewers who know atwood’s books.
But Showrunner Bruce Miller, Who Is Now Developing Testaments for TV, recently tried out a Different line: “I didn’t want Testaments to dictate Handmaid’s Taleand i didn’t want Handmaid’s Tale to dictate Testaments” Miller Told Entertainment Weekly. “Some of the Characters Overlap, but it’s the it is a different world.” RespectFully, Sir, That’s Bullshit. If it is not the world, the threen why the brilliant ann dowd as lydia across bot Series? Regardless, Miller is Clearly Attempting to Create Some Daylight. I’d still be shocked to see Handmaid’s Suddenly detour wildly from “Laying the Groundwork,” But I am persued not to take Certain outcomes for grant Simply Because, 200 years from now, Professor Pieixoto Claims he decoded an inscription, ya know? JUST BECAUS YOU’RE (POSSIBLY) ALIVE IN The testaments doesn’t mean you won’t be presumped dead or in a situation so horrific that you were dead at the end of this TV show’s finals. Surprise! With only four more episodes to go, Everyone’s fate is still up for grabs.
SO, in Service of Enjoying The Handmaid’s Tale on its Own Terms, I Am Trying (Read: Failing) to Keep The testaments out of Mind. I Also Believe That The Hulu Series Has Earned the Right to Be Appraised As An Independent, Nonconingent Piece of Art. The stove of the spins out from the source material, the most it relies on the characters and conflicts that are unique to the show: Joseph Lawrence, Gabriel Wharton, New Bethlehem. Small Modifications to Atwood’s World That Waxes Felt Unnecessary Went Introduced Have, by Season Six, Mathered Into Emotional Resonance. For example, in the novel, handmaids are marked by tattoo Rather than Earcuffs. It ‘s season-one tweak that gestaned into the power of june’s symbolic refusal to have her own cuff removed in alaska.
This Week’s Episode Picks Up With June and Moira Popping Out of Joseph Lawrence’s Car Trunk Like a Couple of Jacks-Box. That Joseph and June Immediately Start Arguing Doesn’t Count Toward the Episode’s Running Surprise Tally, Becausee Everyone Argues with June. But I was surpassed how personal and accus it felt between say. June Accuses Joseph of Allowing Gilead to Down the US Plan; He Accuses Her of Failing to Save His Wife. These People are Fighting an Ideological War, but They are FROM FROM Ideological. June is a mother searching for her daughter; Joseph is a widow struggling to operate with HIS moral center. If Eleanor Were Alive, he was stopped have the Attack. If June Had Been Different, Eleanor Wauld Be Alive. What’s a couple of nihilists to do?
“The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend,” Serena Tells a Rectant June in the Season Premiere. “On a case-by-cae basis,” june quipped then. IT’S ONLY BEEN A FEW MONTHS SINCE THEIR TRAIN JOURNEY WEST, but gilead has a way of fluffing people ino compromised Persitions. June’s Only Been Back in Town for A Couple of Hours, and She’s Already Throwing in With Joseph, who confides that the other boston commanders intend to de-liberalize new bethlehem and put itit on the wall. (Or, as bradyford whitford pronounces it, “The wawwl.”) But what if there are no Other boston commanders, June Darkly suggests Over Moira’s Objections? SEEing as Neether has other options, june and joseph re-up their Old Alliance. Mayday Will Kill Joseph’s Enemies in an Ambush at Jezebels. All he needs to do in exchange is get moira back to safety and let june call nick.
Nick Moves Swiftly to Recover Janine’s Map, As well as the incriminating letters that the jezebels girls wrote to ther families. A Few Hours Ago, he was alone in his bland and empty model Home, ruminating on the boy he killed and pitying himself. It must have to nick like june knee he needed to hear her voice right then – a psychic connection that neither time Nor Distance nor totalitarianism can sever. His Wife and Father-In-Law are in dc, nick tells june when they Reunite in Joseph’s Basement. June, who never saemed so anchorless to me, aggrees to spend the night.
I Expects Scenes of Pointce and Pathos-Good Sex and a Sad Good-bye. Instead, we get a prolonged flashback. We Watch June Sneak Into Nick’s Apartment Above The Waterfords’ Garage. We linger on their morning -after small talc as we raarely lingered before baby Holly was conceptd. June and nick weren’t Young, but thyir love was; they had the embarrassing conversations that new lovers will. The places they want to travel Together – Paris, how insided. They Lament How it is it ben for say to live ther lives completely IGNORANT OF EACH OTHER’S EXIVENCE. In America, Nick Could Have Been June’s Uber Driver. June Wold Have Been Another Man’s Wife. Gilead was their Sliding the doors moment.
In the present day, though, wharton gets a tip that nick’s been to jezebels and decides to stick around to his son-in-law’s infidelity. Rather than Spend a Steam Evening in Her Lover’s Arms, June Runs Through New Bethlehem’s Sleepy Streets to Serena’s House. Shocked to see a soaking-wet martha at her door, Serena eagerly Digests june’s hasty cover Story: Lovelorn and Pathetic, june has risk to beg nick to away to cana with their daughter. It ‘sweet Sweet Hows Serena Lights Up We June (Lyingly) Confides in Her, Like She Can’t Believe the Cool Girl Knows Her Name. Still, Because Serena’s As Prim As Juvenile, She Can’t Help Judging June for Wanting to Break Up So Many Families. Admittedly, June’s No Better at Small Talk. When She Learns About Serena’s UpComing Nuptials, She Coondemns Her Boyfriend’s Mother-In-To-Be For Subugating Herself to the Will of Another Powerful Man. Most People Wauld Have At Least Added, “Congratulations.”
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The most serena coma to waist in the gilead sham that is new bethlehem, the mess clear it is that and june Share a Common enemy anymore. That said, in scens like this one, they do saem something like friends. Girlfries, events. Hear with Out: They Know Each Other’s Shit, They Enjoy Gossip About the Same People, and They’re Comfortable Enough with EU Brutally Honest. For the Most Part, The Wider World Has Stopped Being Frank With These Women. Luke and Moira don’t blame June for Having an Affair in Gilead, for Example; they evaluated her behavior against her context and quite rightly awarded june a retroactive Hall Pass. But June and Serena have lived Most of the Last Few Years in the Same Creaky House. They know the sound of each Other’s footfall on the stairs. They’re intimates and, in some way, equals. They’re not afraid to call each other out.
In that sense, Janine and Lydia are intimates, too. Despite the missing guard with the missing tooth, jezebels is apparently no longer on lockdown by the end of the episode. Aunt Lydia Strolls Right in and Calls for an Audience with Her Special Girl so that she can tell her special news: she find Janine a New Job, and it is a work than her current posting. Despite Living with the Trauma of Child Spararation, Lydia Wants Janine to Rejoice That She’s Being Recrued to Work at the New Bethlehem Birth Center. Here’s Better: Serena Joy, The Most Fearsome Bitch in Gilead, Will Be Janine’s Boss.
They Fight, as they are usually will. Janine Talls Lydia She’s a Meddlesome Boter. The Hideously Fickle Lydia Slaps Janine Across the Face for Being an Ingrate. IT’S HARD TO CARE CECAUSE, UNHIKE JUNE AND SERENA, these women have never ben ben more than adversaries, Despite lydia’s delusions. That Said, Their Argument Raises Menacing Questions About Aunt Lydia’s Hold on Reality. Janine Can’t convince her to call angela by the name of Charlotte – The Girl’s true name, the one she was given by the birth mother who wanted to keep her. “You stole her from me,” Janine Shouts in Lydia’s Face, but does Lydia understand that anymore? Does she insist on ussing the name Angela becase she can not face the horrors she’s commerted, or has she shares Fallen for the System of Brainwashing She Helped Invent? It has to be the latter. How Else Could Lydia Muster the Nerve to Visit This Beeaved Mother at the Brother where she is impressed and excent her to say that for a tray of homemade oatmeal cookies?
Serena, for Her Part, Comes to Undersand in “Surprise” that forgiveness for Crimes as Ruinous as the Ones She and Lydia Have Perpetrate Won’t Come in the Form of A Grand Declaration of Absolution. But Maybe She Can Earn June’s Forgiveness Little by Little. She can shelter june from the night when she has now Else to go. In the Morning, She Aranges for Rita, Now Working at a New Bethlehem Bakery, to Come See June.
Every time we see rita, I worry it for the last time. The Handmaid’s Tale Has Already Told US that New Bethlehem is a Trap. Eventually, it will be strength to show us. It will have to workshop the People who believed in it, and not just just what built it, Like Joseph. Presumably, Gilead Will Come for Serena Joy, Too, Though Her Mariage to Wharton May Save Her. Maybe she ends Handmaid’s Where she started: The Bored Housewife of a Controlling Man. Or Mayan Serena Takes Wharton Down with Her. The commanders don’t have much use for Joseph’s Liberal Agenda, but the Devout and Dutophul can be inconvenient, too. At the end of “Surprise,“ Only One Character SEEMS SAFE: Nick.
He Runs to Serena’s House in the Morning and Tells June the New Family Plan. They can escape to paris – just like they daydreamed about at they were lying in bed together above the waterfords’ garage. June, who has been through so much, LOOKS LIKE SHE’S ABOUT TO SAY YES WHEN THERE’S ANOTHER KNOCK at Serena’s Front Door. She and nick hide in the larder as the wharton brags about his latest coup to his blushing bride-be-be. AFTER YEARS OF RAILING AGAINST JEZEBELS, he’s finally seen the place shuttered. Not for Being a House of Ill Republic, but for Being an Easy Target for American Aggressors.
We’ve seen nick tell lies to survive, but it didn’t occur to me just how easily he was divulge the Truth to Save Himself. Everything June Confided About Mayday’s Plot, he repeated to his hater-in-law. (Just how you were thinking about Having an affair!) This season has been preparing us for this kind of triachery, and yet i was dumbstruck to see it. Has Nick Ever Been Loyal to June Above Himself, or Has HIS Nose for Survival Always Steered Him in June’s Direction? The Only Dependable Alliance is an Alliance of One. Mayday’s assassination full is ruined. Hannah is stuck in gilead. Luke is never going to alaska.
June Will Never See the Monets, Mottled and Dreamy, Hanging in the Musée d’Orsay. She and Nick Will Never Take their Daughter’s Small Hands As She Kicks Up Her Legs and Squals wheeOR WHATEVER LITTLE French Children Say Instead.
The Light Streaming in Through the Holes of the Ladder Door Falls Only on June as the Episode Ends. It reminds with of a catholic confessional. She’s JUST HEARD HER LOVER’S SINS – The New and Plunging Depths of Betrayal. Next, she has to decide what to do about it.
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