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Beatriceblake

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Everything posted by Beatriceblake

  1. 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".
  2. 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?" ;-)
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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).
  11. 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).
  12. 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.
  13. Damn that wish and not the winning large amount of money one?! ;-)
  14. 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".........
  15. 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.
  16. I don't know if anyone else listens to any or all of the podcasts Teen Creeps, Double Love and The Worst Bestsellers but one thing all three sets of hosts complained about is that when people of colour got represented in 80s/90s fiction the stories were always part of a Very Special Book about racism. So I do think it is a double edged sword for producers. On one hand, if you don't do that story are you ignoring the realities of life growing up as a POC in the US even now but if you do, then it's this same thing where the focus is again on the character's race in a way that it isn't when we get an episode about Kristy. Anyway I was coming on here to post about just getting up to Jessie's episode because I really liked the theme in it about being a smaller fish in a bigger pond as you grow up practicing an art/sport or musical instrument. I can't think of many books about that kind of thing but I definitely remember having friends who had serious hobbies like a form of dance or a musical instrument and had points where they wanted to quit for various reasons. I love that Jessie's mum correctly calls her out on wanting to quit ballet for bad reasons. I think we still (or at least in my country the UK) tell kids too much about talent and not enough about the value of working hard, persistence and having a growth mindset when it comes to skills that are not easily acquired. I also liked that they went a different direction with the boy she was babysitting and he wasn't a brat at all, just possessed of a subtly concerning stage parent. I also love the running joke (not sure if it is intentional or not) where adults confuse these teenagers with their therapists ;-) Loved the interaction between Kristy and the kid's dad. Edited to add: are any other grown women on here finding they cry a concerning amount at this show? And I mean every episode.
  17. I liked this episode for the glimpses into how the aunts live (their common room had a very collegiate feel) and also because we got to watch Lawrence scheming and making his speeches to the other commanders. I feel like at this point Lawrence is keen to get something of his old status back to save his own life but it will be curious to see what he does with it if and when he gets it. I also thought it was cool and important to show members of Mayday being angry with June. Her "kill Commanders/enemies and let the chips fall where they may" strategy for rebelling mainly seems to cost other people rather than her so it is totally believable that would piss at least some of her fellow rebels off. I wish Janine could have taken a third way or something. Steven was skeezy but given his "survival first" strategy Janine might have been better staying with those rebels rather than following June again.
  18. I thought this episode was a massive improvement on last week's "Torture Porn Hour". There were so many good tense scenes in the episode. I found the whole scene with Serena and Rita incredibly tense. I kept expecting Rita to go off or to at least mention she was a slave and Serena committed a crime against her but the conversation just kept going. Also if Rita is still partly thinking like a Gileadean so was Serena. She was superficially pleasant to her but then didn't even do her the courtesy of asking if she would testify on Serena's behalf, she just sent over the homework from the lawyer. In other stellar scenes, I loved Janine calling out June for her choices. I thought it was telling that June wasn't able to either bring herself to defend herself more fully (by explaining that she did withstand several rounds of torture) or to be kinder to Janine. It was like she wasn't fully able to go there and reckon with the fact that her taking the opportunity to kill the Commanders cost the lives of most of their friends. (I enjoyed Janine's speech about how Alma loved June and how kind she was and how she refused to let them leave June behind). The show seems to consistently make this point, when the handmaid from a previous season triggered the suicide bomb, that also ending up costing more women's lives than they took. Lastly I like seeing Janine in her old life so you get a sense that Gilead and the whole experience has infantilised her. She might have been manipulated into keeping Caleb and she clearly wasn't rich but she was able to support her son and herself and be planning how to try and improve her circumstances by going back to school. I was really glad that the show had her have the second experience of trying to have an abortion and we got a counteraction to the previous brainwashing masquerading as medical treatment. I didn't love the whole thing with the rebel leader in Chicago but it at least felt narratively justified as a way to make the point that not every group who fights Gilead is necessarily going to be comprised of upstanding people who care about women's rights or human rights. The whole "I won't force you" thing was pretty vomit inducing given that they are fugitives in a war zone with no weapons and nowhere else obvious to go.
  19. I found this episode of the show cheap, annoying and exploitative. These "Gilead recaptures June" stories don't work for me at this point because Gilead just come off as being incompetent and inconsistent. I can just about buy they would torture June to get the location of the other handmaids (although in real life, I think they would have just killed her straightaway) but there's no way it makes sense to keep her alive beyond that for the chance of a baby. Also I found it to be a cheap and exploitative choice to have June give up the location of the handmaids to save Hannah and then said handmaids and June immediately get an opportunity to escape. I didn't want to see some creepy breeding/torture colony but it just seemed like a way to let June off the hook as far as the others were concerned when she got them into that situation by going off to poison commanders and then getting caught because she had become separated from the group. It could have been an interesting mini arc to see Gilead attempting to get them to turn on one another. One of the few bits of the episode I did think was interesting was Moira's need to see June as being a force for good (albeit chaotic good) and Luke struggling to deal with the choices she has made in turning down repeated opportunities to escape.
  20. So the theme of this episode seemed to be about June not thinking through all the consequences of her actions. There were two concerning strands to her plan to poison the Commanders at Jezebels: 1) Putting the poison in the bottles made me wonder if any of the women ended up dying from drinking the booze or if they managed to warn the others. Also as other people have noted it seems like all the lives of the Marthas and women who work in the brothel would have been in danger, if the plan works and the three Commanders die. There was also something chilling in the way June was again manipulating another woman to commit murder rather than just putting poison in the drinks herself and taking it to the Commanders while pretending to be a Martha. 2) I don't really understand why the Guardians came by to investigate what was happening at the farm and then went away again. You would think their suspicions would have been aroused by the incoherent Commander. However leaving this aside, since the Guardians did go away, if I'm the Handmaids and Mrs Keyes, I would be running pretty much straight after that in case they go away and do the maths that there are not that many places where seemingly 20 Handmaids can hide out for any length of time. I'm also still irritated by any time we have to spend with Fred and Serena. I wish they had used their likely fate from the book and just had them executed by Gilead for their numerous breaches of Gilead law. Also it's pretty clear that Serena was a damaged and abusive person before Fred ever did anything to her. She was happy to help construct a society where other women would be enslaved and raped. So I will be unimpressed if the show tries to do some half-arsed "cycle of abuse" story with her. I liked that the show took the time to acknowledge that although the Angel's Flight children were rescued from growing up under an abusive repressive regime, lots of them have been taken from their families for a second time and are likely to struggle to adjust.
  21. We got this one in the UK tonight. I can never work out why I still watch the show until it comes back on and you remember that if nothing else, it is beautifully shot and acted. I was really impressed by the actress who played Mrs Keyes, she was great at portraying the flashes of rage and the volatility you would expect from an angry traumatised teenager. I found June's method of bonding with her and keeping her on her side utterly chilling.
  22. Especially since his first appearance is sitting in a chair in the dark, waiting for Mary Anne to come in. It was a very Sean like moment 🙂
  23. I found this episode really tedious, the various shocking visuals aside (headless Lincoln, whatever they had done to the Handmaid's mouth that didn't really make sense). I don't think the show is going to have Nichole sent back to Gilead so this plot just feels like time wasting and an excuse for June and the viewer to spend more time with the Waterfords. I could just about stand seeing more of the Waterfords if their plotline was now totally separate from June's but at the minute, it feels like every episode features June being sent to spend time with the Waterfords for some contrived reason. They don't need June to ask for the baby back. It's also annoying to see June again taking the mad risk of screaming at Serena and burning her bridges with her. Even if June senses there is no chance Serena will stop trying to bring Nichole back, Serena is volatile and capable of being really cruel and vindictive. It doesn't make any sense for June to speak to her that way, given she is focused on trying to survive long enough to get Hanna out. It's also frustrating because pretty much all the characters in the Lawrence household are more interesting than the Waterfords at this point.
  24. I would love it if S5 was just 5 episodes of normal cases and Jane getting the tattoos removed.
  25. In the book Offred mentions that if a handmaid successfully delivers a healthy child, their reward is that they won't be sent to the Colonies but it is by no means clear if this is actually true or not given that resources are scarce and it's not obvious what would happen to them in terms of Gilead's society (would they be sent to work as Marthas or allowed to become Econowives). With the book, Atwood's thing was that none of those things that happen to women in the novel was made up (the Argentinian military dictatorship stole children from dissidents and then executed the dissidents.) June's status in the show is interesting because although she has delivered a healthy baby, Gilead didn't end up hanging onto the child and also June has been near to or actively caught doing several things the regime dislikes.
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