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This episode hammered home the point for me that this show is primarily interested in examining the mix of personalities and parenting, and how these things resonate down through generations. If I were to give this particular episode a thesis statement, it’s that Jack’s drive to be “Superman,” which he acquired through a combination of his innate personality and the family that he was raised in, was his deepest flaw, and one that is being carried down through his children. From that first meeting moment seeing Nicky, where his father made it Jack’s job to protect him, Jack and Nicky were placed on a path. It wasn’t completely set of course – perhaps if their father had not become an abusive alcoholic, for example, things would have gone differently, but that moment set the stage - Jack would take the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Nicky would never be allowed to come into his own, thanks to Jack stepping in. Nicky made the choice to go to Vietnam to finally get out from behind Jack’s shadow, which (presumably) ultimately got him killed. Jack made the choice to follow him – the cost/benefit of which was terrible – even without his heart condition, it was much more likely that the outcome of Jack enlisting would be the ruin of both of them, as opposed to Jack somehow being able to save Nicky. It will be interesting to see the nature Nicky’s death and of Jack’s guilt over it – I’m guessing his guilt will take the form of, I should have been able to save him once I got to Vietnam, when in reality, whatever minuscule responsibility Jack has came way before that, in his inability to let Nicky stand up and be his own chooser/protector. Ultimately, after lucking out and surviving the foolish “Superman” choice to go to Vietnam despite his heart condition, a version of this same scenario does kill him – needing to be the hero for his daughter and save the dog. St. Jack isn’t supposed to be seen as admirable trait, but detrimental, and ultimately fatal. We’ve seen throughout the couple of seasons now how this St. Jack persona has resonated, to damaging effects, through his family: With Rebecca, he simultaneously places her on a pedestal, and diminishes/infantilizes her (all the major decisions he makes with no input from her; the horrid reaction he has when she tries to have something of her own with the band) because he needs to be her superhero and the center of her world in order to feel like he’s “doing his job” and worthy of her love. Little Randall’s personality is to be a perfectionist and a pleaser, and he has taken on the Super-Jack persona most literally – trying to be all things to all people, all the time. Interestingly, in his desperation to live up to what he believes were his father’s heroics, he is directing his hero-complex outward (rather than towards his family as Jack did), and Randall’s family is therefore being severely neglected while drug around on the roller-coaster ride of his causes. Randall’s Jack issues are still in an uphill climb. Hopefully they peak this season and he can start moving forward. Little Kevin’s personality is one that seems to require a lot of external validation to feel worthy and loved. He maybe didn’t get as much individual attention from his parents as was ideal for his personality type when he was a small child, so by the time he’s a teenager, he’s shutting down emotionally, looking to get his external validation as adoration (via sports) rather than genuine love and affection, and lashing out towards his family - particularly the person he has wrongly pinned his resentment on – Randall. With Kevin, Jack passed down addiction to avoid dealing with unpleasant emotions, keep up the strong façade, don’t let anyone see you crack – no one can be Superman all the time, so rather than admit that it’s unsustainable to go it alone like that and instead work on forming genuine partnerships, or try to find relatively healthy outlets (say by going out and playing a round of golf where you might vent a bit about your family, rather than acting self-righteous in public and drinking in private in Jack’s case, or opening up to your family and letting them know you’re in trouble, even if they have heavy things going on too in Kevin’s case), they turned to alcohol/pills. This is of course fear at it’s heart – fear of falling apart, being unworthy and unlovable. I think Kevin hit his peak Jack-based issues last season with the addiction storyline, and started to make some progress during therapy that may be continued this season with a romantic relationship in which he is required to do a lot of the emotional heavy-lifting, and his exploration of Jack’s history. Little Kate is tougher for me to decipher – I think the writers have put so much emphasis on her weight, through all eras of her life, that they have left her a bit blank. She’s certainly the neutral ground between her two brothers, and with the dog that she rescued, they seemed to be trying to cast her as a rescuer of the vulnerable, and of course there's the singing, but somehow it seems like her entire young character is cast in relation to others - not as conventionally attractive/good at singing as Rebecca, peacemaker to her brothers, rescuer of the dog, daddy's girl to Jack. But maybe that's the point? With Kate, Jack recreated his relationship with Nicky in a way – he saw her vulnerability and her self-doubt, and he constantly stepped in to cast his “protective” shadow over her to try to remove all of her pain and struggles. Understandable of course. No one wants to see their child in pain, and once again, it’s Jack’s sole identity to be the protector of those he loves – who is he if not that? But now we have an adult Kate who never developed her own persona or the emotional resilience to deal with life’s inevitable ups and downs, and has a tendency to cast herself as permanent victim. I’m not sure if she’s at peak Jack-related issues now, or if there’s more to come – the depression/IVF storylines have to potential to go either way at this point. After that loooonnng side-trip, back to “Vietnam”: together with what we’ve been watching for 2+ seasons on this show, this episode said to me that Jack was a tragically flawed person who passed that baggage on through his children, but who did the best he could, and frankly remarkably well given the circumstances. Further, I think that the strides that Jack made in improving from the baggage received from his parents are meant to provide hope/set up the character development that Randall, Kevin and Kate will have going forward. My hope is that we will see Randall smacked in the face with how his hero-complex is detrimental to his family (especially his marriage), we’ll see Kevin continue to take down the walls around to feelings and make himself vulnerable to appropriate people so he can form genuine connections, and that we’ll see Kate develop some inner resources to both love herself and hold herself accountable for her own emotions, and from that place be able to be the support that Toby needs in a healthy way (rather than what was suggested to be the co-dependence she had with Kevin initially). I am really hoping that Kate becomes a parent (however that happens), and that we can see her work through her touchy relationship with Rebecca by experiencing the other side of the parent-child relationship, especially given that I think Toby is likely to over-indulge their child, as Jack did with Kate. This storyline could also finally open up some insight/growth for post-Jack Rebecca, which I think is way overdue. With all the talk up-thread about why people did or didn’t like this episode, I think it would be interesting to run a poll concerning how one feels about spoilers – if someone tells you the ending, does it ruin your enjoyment of watching the story unfold? If so, I think it’s much more likely that you would not have enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, I think it’s also likely that in the long run, this show will continue to frustrate you because I believe it will continue to focus on how the details of the past resonate with who the characters are in the present (and to a lesser extent the future). Personally, I am all in for all the spoilers, all the time. I want to know endings so I don’t have to be stressed about the outcome, and can instead enjoy experiencing and analyzing the journey to get there. Perhaps it’s the scientist in me, but generally I find the “why” and the “how” infinitely more fascinating than the “what,” so I’m totally on board with the episode, and with what I think this show is trying to do. This doesn’t, of course, make me more right or wrong than people who are more interested in outcomes, and/or who aren’t interested in episodes like this – it’s just one of the many wonderful ways in which our personalities and backgrounds make us uniquely interesting people. I will say that the glimpses of future they’re now apparently going to be throwing in feel like a bit of a cheat to me to keep the spoiler-phobic invested in this show. I think that’s a mistake because they’re unlikely to be satisfying to the spoiler-haters, and and because they’re purposefully vague, they’re just annoying to a spoiler-lover like me.

Dialogue from season 1 finale Serena: [Referring to Scrabble] I forget, how many tiles do you pick to start? Fred: Seven Serena: Do you want to play? Fred: Love to, but I have work to do. And in any case, you know the law. Serena: Yes, I do. I helped write it. Fred: I remember. I can believe that Serena didn't want this for herself, but I think it's pretty clear she was fine with it for other women.

Re: Eden. My sister had a childhood friend whose dream from a very young age was to get married and have lots of babies. Many years later, we had occasion to stay a few nights at her home, which was indeed filled with children – she had married her first love and they were living the “God won’t give us more than we can handle” philosophy of family planning. Before I go further let me qualify this – I am a 38 year-old single, childless-by-choice, woman, and a scientist on top of that – basically anathema, as far as Gilead-types would be concerned – conversely, the life this woman had chosen for herself makes me feel completely claustrophobic when I try to put myself in her shoes. This woman, however, is genuinely happy with her life, and the household was full of warmth and kindness. The kids (all 8 of them) were intelligent, well-spoken, thoughtful and sweet. The parents clearly loved each other, displayed (G-rated) physical affection towards each other, and were firm believers that disagreements between themselves and discipline of the children should never involve raised voices or violence, but should be handled calmly, with kindness and respect. But make no mistake, the marriage and family was very firmly based in traditional conservative Christian values and gender roles – wives submit yourselves to your husbands; husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her; children obey your parents in the Lord...When Eden talked about her parents to Nick and Rita, my mind immediately went to this family. The thing is, this set up only worked for them because of a combination of their naturally even-keeled personalities, fortunate financial circumstances, and the fact that these people got to choose each other and this life of their own free will. My thought for both the character of Eden, and the kids in this real-life family is what a rude awakening the harsh reality of the outside world will be. Eden expected that as long as she faithfully fulfilled her God-given role as a dutiful and submissive wife, she would be protected and adored by her husband in return. Instead she was met with coldness and indifference from Nick; the gender traitor comment she made to June, which could be interpreted as menacing, was simply Eden trying to make sense of her new life based on what she had been led to believe about the world – she was following the wife rules, so why wasn’t Nick responding in kind? That was the promised reward for her devotion. Beyond that, in joining the household of a powerful commander in this new Godly society, she would have expected the Christian ideal of a devout and happy home – instead she was met with misery and corruption. It makes all the sense in the world to me that faced with the true nature of Gilead, which challenged everything she believed so deeply to be true about the world, that as soon as anyone offered her some small shred of genuine affection, she would latch onto it with everything she had to try to realign her reality with the fantasy on which her whole identity was built. It’s both entirely expected, and the height of tragic irony that the truly devout believers would be romanced by the idea of this society, and then sacrificed at the altar of the power-hungry sleezeballs running it. RIP Eden and Isaac – “innocent” or “guilty,” devout or heretic, oppressive regimes will find a reason to make you suffer so they can live out their sick fantasies without consequence.

With regard to the plausibility of of Emily and Janine being able to conceive and bear healthy children again - the effects of radiation on human health are complex – type, dosage and duration/location of exposure all figure into outcomes, as well as demographics, initial health status, and (probably) genetic predispositions of the exposed. Certainly radiation sickness that happens in response to high dose exposure is horrific and can ultimately be fatal. That being said, female survivors of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima atomic bombings were not found to have a significant reduction in fertility, nor have there been any health or genetic effects found in children of survivors conceived post-exposure. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1762286/pdf/ajhg00457-0003.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4981260/ So, ignoring any issues of whether it's a wise strategy for Gilead to bring such "troublemakers" back into the handmaid fold, it's not unreasonable to think that Emily and Janine could still have healthy children.

Judy - I apologize for the wording in my post that implied disparagement towards those who are critiquing character behavior in this episode. It wasn’t my intention to suggest that those commenters were awful people, but I can see how it could be interpreted that way. In hindsight, I probably should have avoided the “judgment,” since that can be a very loaded word. To try to state my original thoughts in a more neutral manner, let me say this – from my real-life experiences, I found the way that the characters were written in this episode to be well within the bell curve of believable human reactions. When I am able to align fictional character behavior with ways that I can conceive real-life people acting, I tend to engage with their stories in the way I would if the story were true. This is not the way everyone engages with fiction. For others that do engage this way, they might not have felt the writing aligned with their experiences of real life grief, preventing them from jumping in with these characters. In regard to the latter – I tend to feel this way about Jack – the big speeches, the way other characters (not just his family) seem to buy into his saintly glow, the world’s fastest alcoholism recovery, etc. It all keeps me from becoming emotionally attached to Jack as a character. Of course, there is no objective truth in any of this – we are all different people reacting to fictional characters in our own ways due to some mysterious combination of nature and nurture, and that’s pretty cool – no judgment from me ;-) If I were to critique an aspect of how the characters were written in this episode, it would be that they all seemed to have essentially the same core reaction to their grief – mostly holding it together, but leaning into their, shall we say “least heroic” impulses. For Rebecca, her Perfect Pedestal Jack and outward favoritism of Randall became a complete sense of helplessness without her husband, and her giving the watch to Randall without a thought for how that would make her other children feel. For Kevin, his habit of lashing out at Randall for negative emotions toward his parents’ perceived disinterest turned into an extremely cruel accusation toward Randall. For Randall, his perfectionism and his protectiveness toward his mother turned into him stepping up as Jack’s surrogate. For Kate, her sullen self-loathing turned into the self-punishment of pushing away poor innocent Louis. While I do find all these reactions believable and perfectly in line with what we’ve been shown of the characters so far, it would have at least been narratively more interesting to me if one of them had gone in a less predictable direction. I suppose the writers sort of locked themselves into these reactions though, since the present day characters are still drinking at those wells.

This is of course an entirely YMMV situation, but I absolutely can fathom that reaction – a teenager full of sadness and anger misdirecting those emotions onto something that can’t hurt her back doesn’t seem at all improbable to me. Beyond that, guilt leading to self-destructive behavior also strikes me as a pretty predictable reaction, especially for someone with existing self-image issues – Kate loved Louis, and pushing away another thing that she loved is a way to punish herself. And after all, wouldn’t Louis be better off with someone else, since she’s such a worthless person (in her own head). In the scenario I mentioned above where the father lost his daughter, his eldest daughter gave birth to his first grandchild a few months later, and that little girl was named after her deceased aunt. Though he was by nature a warm and loving man, he could hardly stand to be near that child for the first several months of her life. He hated himself for it and started drinking heavily to cope. Obviously that baby had nothing to do with his daughter’s death, but the grief and the rage that he had tried so hard to bottle up had to land somewhere sooner or later, and that’s where it ended up for a time – blocking out a relationship that had the potential to provide him with the first glimmer of happiness he might have had after losing his child. Before I saw it happen, I never would have thought any decent, rational human being would react that way to an innocent newborn. This all happened almost 25 years ago, and thankfully now he has a good relationship with that granddaughter. However, the outgoing, cheerful man that he was before his loss is gone – I actually see in him what I believe they might be trying to depict with Rebecca in this story – a permanently flat, muted affect.

My dad is a pastor, so I went to a lot of funerals growing up, and witnessed a lot of people deal with the profound grief of losing someone they deeply love. I saw one of the most gregarious, fun loving men I’ve ever known launch himself onto his daughter’s casket at the interment, refusing to leave the cemetery because he couldn’t bear the thought of his child being put into the ground. I saw a prim, seemingly stoic retired English teacher sent to a locked psychiatric ward because she had a complete mental break when she lost her husband of 50 years. I’ve seen a husband giddy with joy and relief when his beloved wife passed because she was finally free after 20 years of relentless chronic pain. All this to say, people have an incredible range of experiencing and expressing their grief – often completely unpredictable to both themselves and others before they were thrust into it, and I find it very difficult to work up judgement for any of it. So in the context of the characters on this show, Rebecca honking her horn, Kevin lashing out unfairly at Randall, Kate’s resentment of her dog (not something that she made a choice to feel, nor should she be expected to work through rationally at this stage of her grieving), all within days of the sudden, horrific loss of one of the most important people in their lives? Not only do I have zero judgement for any of it, but I find them all remarkably put together, given the circumstances. Perhaps if they had been able to fall completely apart at the time, they would have been better able to work through their devastation and not still be stuck in it 20 years later, but who can say?