Beatriceblake

I just finished To Whom It May Concern and it bugs me that Lorelai isn't really able to call Christopher out about the hypocrisy of pressuring her to get married after about 10 mins in Paris but also being annoyed when he perceives himself to be a rebound choice. Also it's back to back crying along with the TV for me because the letter made me tear up and so does the hospital stuff with Richard in "I'd Rather Be In Philadelphia".

I love the books but this felt like a tricky ending to the TV series because half of the episode is Lyra and Will being sad about parting. I almost wish they had stuck to the book ending a little bit more and had Lyra talking to Dame Hannah and the Master of Jordan College about her experiences and plans. I was all "what is this, the finale episode of Bake Off?" ;-)

I finally finished the season. My overriding thought is that if they wanted the show to go on this long, they needed to leave the main female characters in Gilead for longer. The show just feels a bit convoluted at this point and I don't like the way it seems to be going. I've no interest in the Serena/June relationship. Serena still seems like the kind of person who will double down on her unpleasant beliefs as soon as she regains any sort of footing. I think the most compelling bit of the episode was Janine's story. She just seemed to completely snap. It also worked somewhat for me in that it was showing a best case scenario life for Handmaid is still pretty appalling. Lydia wanted to get her placed with Lawrence and Naomi so she could still see her daughter and possibly because Lydia has worked out Lawrence, up to now, has no interest in more children/handmaids. However besides the fact Janine would still be a slave, Lydia didn't seem to realise how hard it would be emotionally for Janine to be in the same home with Naomi and Angela. The last straw seemed to be Janine finding out June had been hurt, she seemed to feel like she had nothing left to lose. The Nick stuff though was puzzling to the point where you wonder if there is more to it than meets the eye (sorry). Nick's been a spy for years, yet punches out Lawrence in front of Mackenzie, who is already suspicious of him and when Lawrence seems to be the most powerful person in Gilead? I wasn't sure if we were meant to take Rose saying she was done with him as a sign he is in danger of being executed and she won't exert her own influence to try and save him.

They seem to be chucking extra scenes in between characters who didn't meet and characters who didn't meet until later a lot. I didn't like that they had Father Gomez show up the cave and confront Mrs Coulter. His deal in the book was to be alone and quietly tracking Lyra across worlds on his own while the Magisterium army would have gone to the cave. It also means I'm going to be really annoyed when neither Asriel or Coulter have actually killed him when they had the chance and he pops back up later.

I know Luke said he didn't trust Lawrence in the episode but I kept waiting for someone in the show to make this point. Even if you trust Lawrence (which June and Luke absolutely shouldn't, you can't be a little bit totalitarian) it seems like New Bethlehem is only going to be a thing while he's alive and in power. After that time ends it seems like all these enemies of Gilead would be sitting ducks conveniently gathered in one place to either enslave again or murder. I thought Lawrence's offer to Nick to live there and be near both his children was emotionally tone deaf as well, does he not realise how hard that would be on all parties concerned? I was also curious about Lawrence's statement that he saved the human race because it seems other countries besides the US would have completely collapsed if the fertility crisis was that bad. Even Canada seems relatively normal and the protests against US citizens being there doesn't suggest they are underpopulated.

I found this to be a pretty grim episode of television but I was amused Wheeler has apparently been watching the show since he mentioned not wanting to send June back to Gilead because they wouldn't "deal with her properly" (or words to that effect). Having read about the show multiple places, June's plot armour in previous seasons bothered lots of people as she got away with doing stuff that would have got an unnamed handmaid executed ten times over. Although Putnam was vile, it's hard to get too jazzed about his execution when his crime is described as "rape of unassigned property". The scene with Esther in the hospital creeped me out a bit, the show is starting to feel mainly like torture porn at this point.

I'm plodding on with this season. I found it hard to get past the fact June and Luke could apparently wander into No Man's Land in broad daylight but not leave again during daylight. It also seems like they should have had thoughts about why Jaden couldn't hand the flash drive over in the woods and send them on their way. Watching the episode it almost felt like he just wanted some company. One fun thing to note for people who complain about all the lost time on close ups in episodes - usually in the UK, the recordings for these episodes from Channel 4 are about 1hr 20 but this latest one was just slightly over an hour so I don't know if this episode was shorter or if Channel 4 have started chopping bits of the episode. I'm kind of grateful if they did cut out the bits of June staring away in silence, it saves me having to fast forward.

We got this in the UK this week. At the end of last season, I felt a bit like the show had run out of road. Didn't see anything to contradict that in this first episode. I think Moira is the most relatable character by far, I could totally understand why she was freaked out by June and didn't want to leave Nichole alone with her. I didn't really like the way they've written Emily out, I would have preferred it if she and her family had just left to make a fresh start elsewhere in Canada. I don't think Emily would go back to Gilead voluntarily even if she was having a breakdown or had snapped in some way, she consistently tried to get out and unlike June isn't driven by wanting to go back for a child. Something else that is also bugging me is the lack of any sort of reality with everyone's situations in Canada. Serena keeps being housed in a series of what looks like luxury apartments and I wish they had chosen to do more of a realistic representation of where June, Luke, Moira and Nichole would be likely to be living as refugees. It feels like they haven't even slightly attempted that, it's wild that they are living in this big detached house that looks like you would need 2 incomes and probably to come from money to own or rent.

I hated it. I think a lot of the characters are relatively flat in the novel but here they were completely one note. I could have overlooked the odd piece of anachronistic dialogue or on the nose piece of exposition (a problem in a lot of adaptations of books because the screenwriters think we are thick) but what sent me over the edge was the bits where Jane Austen had already solved that problem for them. Case in point: Wentworth finds out from Louisa that Charles asked Anne to marry him first. So in your film you can have Henrietta and Louisa being attentive to Anne and Charles and she seeming respectful but distant and then bam Wentworth finds out Anne turned Charles down (thus proving she wasn't just looking for a wealthy husband). Instead we get Anne drunkenly making it awkward at dinner by saying "Charles asked me to marry him first". Anne's whole deal is that she holds her feelings inside and works hard at fitting in as well as she can in all these various homes (none of which are ideal for her). She has to be this way so she has somewhere to live and some variation of company. Also someone in this position isn't likely to offend the people hosting her by stealing all their booze. I also hated that they messed with the wording of Wentworth's letter to Anne late in the film. High tariff manoeuvre that did not work. I didn't mind the casting, just felt like the screenwriting was way way off. Given that probably one of the strongest elements was the casting of William Elliot, I'm sad they got rid of the plotline with Mrs Smith. I quite liked how he was written as relatively intelligent and lively so it feels like they could have done something with Anne finding out he's also capable of hurting his friends (in the form of Mr and Mrs Smith) and it would have added some extra emotional punch to the film. Wentworth as written here, though, did nothing for me. I think flashbacks would have worked better than Anne's on the nose monologues about their past together. I also hated the lack of subtlety in their dialogue to one another like that bit where he all but says it's a shame they are in the 1800s and she cannot use her mind in some sort of important work.

Finally watched this. I really felt for Moira in this episode. What can you do when you have a traumatised friend you love, who is full of all this righteous anger and might be going down a bad road and taking other survivors with her? People have mentioned that Emily was quite vengeful in Gilead and took revenge where she could (Aunt Lydia, running over the eyes, the wife) but in Canada Emily has expressed concerns about whether Gilead has fundamentally and permanently changed her for the worse. Anyway I'm curious to see where the show goes with this ultimately. It seemed like a big theme of the episode was how people who have suffered can end up needing fairly unpleasant outlets for their complicated negative feelings. I am kind of hoping that they may be doing a thing where appearances are not what they seem and we get Aunt Lydia, who we know to be sadistic actually being improved by spending time with Janine and we get some sort of commentary on how people with a righteous cause and every reason to be angry can end up moving too close to becoming monsters. While I found the episode powerful in general, the worldbuilding continued to irk. The massive pro-Waterford protest came out of nowhere and on the Gilead side, it seems like Gilead would get to find out Lawrence doesn't follow their rules (although if they do the harsher Gilead/mid-Gilead purge thing mentioned in the book's epilogue, it's possible Lawrence would be killed at that point).

I'm surprised they are cancelling it after two seasons but it's probably expensive to make. I can also see it falling into a weird thing where maybe it was more appealing to adults who read the books as kids, than actual kids. Also when I was that age I distinctly remember watching less and less TV aimed at children or tweens and more stuff that seemed to be aimed at older teenagers and young adults like Buffy and Dawson's Creek. Wish they could have given them a S3 though (even if they made it a shorter season).

I'm catching up and boy was this episode grim. Moira tanking her relationship with Oona to save running on fumes, survivor's guilt ridden June. I do think the most important and effective part was seeing the people trapped behind the gates in Gilead. Anybody who lives, not in a war zone, blocks that reality out and goes about their life. It's a horrible irony that the people who do want to help others to the point of going into danger also have to learn to ignore the real and present cries for help from hundreds of people because they can't save all of them. I thought the episode could have used more restraint in the writing though. As other people have said, once June has snuck onto the boat, it's not realistic (just melodramatic) that they would consider giving her up. Also pragmatically if the authorities realise June is on the boat, there's no way she saves the rest of them by going "oh I snuck on without their knowledge". Best case scenario Gilead now has a fun NGO full of prisoners/bargaining tools and worst case scenario, they are all publicly executed in Gilead for crimes against the state and for being complicit in what Gilead sees as the kidnapping of the children of its most powerful citizens.

Damn that wish and not the winning large amount of money one?! ;-)

I loved Sweet Valley as a kid and I wish we could have a TV show of that but my God those books had so many troubling subtexts and also texts (the weight/looks shaming is intense). On Reddit I like to joke that Reddit takes place in the Sweet Valley universe (lots of twins, lots of drama, lots of internalised and straight up misogyny - including an obsession with "false accusations".........

I finally watched the end of the Baby Parade episode. I'm sorry that was the last one this season because I thought it was probably the weakest writing I had seen on the show. Watson criticising Kristy's dad was one thing but I don't buy for a second that was a conversation the two adults would have had in front of all those other children from the neighbourhood and I also don't think Dawn and Mary-Anne would have lined up to tell Kristy her Dad really sucked while Kristy was visibly fighting back tears. On the whole though, it was another good season of TV. I agree with the people who think Mallory got short-changed. Given that she had to play annoying in the episode with Claudia, I think they should have given her an episode of her own where she gets to be a bit more sympathetic.