S05.E06: Together

[HMFan]

On 10/12/2022 at 8:17 PM, greekmom said:

The gyno lab/birthing room in the house was super creepy.

Poor Esther the girl has been abused and used by everyone. Girl cannot catch a break. Aunt Lydia is still her delusional self about the whole Handmaid thing and the moral fiber of these women. 

Lawrence continues to baffle me. Who he was prior to Gilead. Why he thought Gilead was such a great idea (he was the architect of the society as i remember). Where his loyalties lie and why he's so gung ho for Gilead when he doesn't even subscribe to the religion, the lifestyle or attitude of the other Commanders. 

Serena continues to be stupid.  She was just widowed. She could use that as an excuse to Mrs. Wheeler to buy time.  She could have just said: "I don't feel that I have honoured Fred's memory enough as of yet. Give me time regarding Dr. Landry." Geez louise. 

Why are there men serving at the restaurant where the Putmans are eating breakfast? I mean it's Gilead. Even Economen wouldn't be doing that type of work - would they?

What I dont understand is why it seems that Esther can remember prior to Gilead while the Eye who was killed last week seemed older than Esther but can barely remember before Gilead.

I wonder if Serea's kid is the prize for loyalty from Gilead to the Wheelers. I mean Serena doesn't belong in Gilead anymore.  It would be a way to get rid of Serena and reward the Wheelers.
 

Serena definitely has suspected the Wheelers intend to steal her child. Perhaps why she was crying -- she had little hints before, but being sent to her room, and having the conversation about pruning brings more life over the roses. I just wish they would drop the whole series, and we could move on for another year until the rest are distributed. Likely a ploy to keep people paying for their monthly subscriptions.

[Redrum]

43 minutes ago, HMFan said:

All of this handmaid drama could easily go away if they would simply offer to pay women to have babies for the idiots that can't have them without being raped.  If they're so worried about protecting the population, why not inscentive having babies, instead of enforcing the ones why a woman would not want to bring her child into a world of slavery, harsh punishment, child rape, and no joy.

I hate to say that deep down, I don't think this would work but....

No one makes a living being a surrogate. I've not been pregnant myself but I am told that it wreaks your body. Its emotionally difficult to give up the child even if it isn't yours genetically. Just encouraging breeding without dispersing the children means the rich have nots don't get the babies they want. There will always be women like me who would not accept any incentive to have a child. I'm not advocating the Gilead system at all, but... having babies can kill you. Its hard to incentivize for that. 

[greekmom]

1 hour ago, Redrum said:

I hate to say that deep down, I don't think this would work but....

No one makes a living being a surrogate. I've not been pregnant myself but I am told that it wreaks your body. Its emotionally difficult to give up the child even if it isn't yours genetically. Just encouraging breeding without dispersing the children means the rich have nots don't get the babies they want. There will always be women like me who would not accept any incentive to have a child. I'm not advocating the Gilead system at all, but... having babies can kill you. Its hard to incentivize for that. 

I do recall one pre Gilead scene where Moira did accept money in exchange to being a surrogate. She was able to payoff her student loans or debt or something like that.

[Redrum]

36 minutes ago, greekmom said:

I do recall one pre Gilead scene where Moira did accept money in exchange to being a surrogate. She was able to payoff her student loans or debt or something like that.

I recall that too. I just think its not a common thing at all.

[circumvent]

3 hours ago, Redrum said:

No one makes a living being a surrogate.

As no one should. I agree with you. It is a big change in a person's body and hormones, it changes everything. Even the smooth pregnancies cannot scape those big changes. Not to mention that things can go wrong at times. Being pregnant is not a job, or an occupation. It is a big step. I will not bash individuals that decide to be surrogates but I would have to sit with them to understand the reasoning. If it is just about the money, my impulse is to go "ugh" but I guess each one should know what do do with their lives, so the reasons must be very strong for them. Not my thing though, nor is the sperm donor solutions. I look at the bigger picture, so many kids without families, and people seeking complicated ways of having children. My desire to "pass on the genes" is not a priority at all. Maybe it is for others. Why, it beats me.

[iMonrey]

Quote

It makes no sense that Serena didn't  kill Ezra. If she'd killed him and then gotten caught with June later on she could claim that June killed him, forced Serena to go with her and held her captive until she gave birth,  with the intention of stealing her newborn son as revenge for having her children taken from her in Gilead. But no, Ezra will live to tell everyone the truth, thus moving the plot along.

It makes sense in that the show doesn't want Serena to go that far, they see her as some sort of anti-hero rather than a true villain. I've gotten whiplash watching her start to come around to being a better person only to do an about-face and go full-on meanie, again and again and again. If she actually shot Ezra and killed him she would have crossed a line the writers don't want her to.

[crashdown]

47 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

It makes sense in that the show doesn't want Serena to go that far, they see her as some sort of anti-hero rather than a true villain. I've gotten whiplash watching her start to come around to being a better person only to do an about-face and go full-on meanie, again and again and again. If she actually shot Ezra and killed him she would have crossed a line the writers don't want her to.

I'm not sure about that; I would have thought that crossing the line was having Serena orchestrate June's rape when June was nine months pregnant. That's not quite as bad as cold-blooded murder, but we see a lot of cold-blooded murder in this show in characters we're supposed to admire. (To my mind, one of the most outright evil things that anyone on this show has done was Emily's murder of that Wife in the Colonies. I could write a lot about exactly what made that action so ethically abhorrent, but I'll spare you that. At any rate, it didn't seem to make a dent in the audience's general love of Emily as a character.)

I'm pretty sure that the writers left Ezra alive because it gives Serena no way to wiggle back into Gilead's good graces. (If he were dead, she could pin the whole thing on June if she wanted to do that.) Serena tried to murder a guardian and she rescued the outlaw June Osborn after she had been miraculously apprehended. She can't go home again.

[greekmom]

1 hour ago, crashdown said:

I'm not sure about that; I would have thought that crossing the line was having Serena orchestrate June's rape when June was nine months pregnant. That's not quite as bad as cold-blooded murder, but we see a lot of cold-blooded murder in this show in characters we're supposed to admire. (To my mind, one of the most outright evil things that anyone on this show has done was Emily's murder of that Wife in the Colonies. I could write a lot about exactly what made that action so ethically abhorrent, but I'll spare you that. At any rate, it didn't seem to make a dent in the audience's general love of Emily as a character.)

I'm pretty sure that the writers left Ezra alive because it gives Serena no way to wiggle back into Gilead's good graces. (If he were dead, she could pin the whole thing on June if she wanted to do that.) Serena tried to murder a guardian and she rescued the outlaw June Osborn after she had been miraculously apprehended. She can't go home again.

Personally, I think Serena is morally and ethically corrupt.  I think that June's rapes are far worse than shooting and killing an Eye.

I'm curious to see what happens to Esther's baby. I highly doubt it that Mrs. Putman will get it as she is a widow unless she marries up quickly. 

[Kel Varnsen]

On 10/12/2022 at 1:10 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

When the doctor asks Serena to dinner he says "My Martha makes a great cedar planked salmon."  How the heck can he have a Martha?  They're in Canada!  Has Gilead made that many inroads into Canada?

The whole thing with him being some big shot faculty member at University of Toronto and being a Gilead sympathizer seems like a stretch. It seems like if that was a big part of your personal life it would be extremely hard to hide it 

On 10/12/2022 at 1:28 PM, chocolatine said:

Speaking of that - the doctor called it "harvesting her uterus" - what purpose does it serve exactly? Most of the women who are considered barren have uteruses, it's their eggs that aren't viable (or in most cases, their husbands' sperm). It would make a lot more sense to harvest Esther's eggs and use them for IVF.

I was really wondering what uterus harvesting meant. Can a doctor do a uterus transplant?

Also about time that Putnam finally got killed. I can't believe a slimy weasel like that, who no one seems to like lasted that long in a violent place like Gilead.

[kitkat343]

12 hours ago, Redrum said:

I hate to say that deep down, I don't think this would work but....

No one makes a living being a surrogate. I've not been pregnant myself but I am told that it wreaks your body. Its emotionally difficult to give up the child even if it isn't yours genetically. Just encouraging breeding without dispersing the children means the rich have nots don't get the babies they want. There will always be women like me who would not accept any incentive to have a child. I'm not advocating the Gilead system at all, but... having babies can kill you. Its hard to incentivize for that. 

I've had 3 kids.  And honestly, I was extremely lucky and being pregnant wasn't a particularly difficult experience for me.  For some women, it is truly awful - especially those with serious, life threatening complications or conditions like hyperemesis gravidarum.  But for others pregnancy isn't nearly as difficult, and I'm sure if you offered all women enough money you'd have volunteers from the women who have easier pregnancies.  And even from women who had harder ones - this could be a path to survival for themselves and their children in Gilead, which might make a lot of women sign up.  You could offer to provide a small livable stipend for 10 years and housing for women who agree to be surrogates or undergo IVF to be egg donors (I also underwent an IVF cycle, and which wasn't too bad for me luckily, but is much harder on some women).  There are even women who would "volunteer" if they saw that children from "unfit" homes were taken away, and they knew if they "volunteered" as a surrogate their own children would be protected, because it would show enormous allegience to the state.  That would still be really traumatic, but less so than what the handmaids are living through.  I really don't believe this kind of situation would need to be adopted even in the face of a massive fertility crisis.

Edited October 15, 2022 by kitkat343

[Bluesky]

17 hours ago, HMFan said:

All of this handmaid drama could easily go away if they would simply offer to pay women to have babies for the idiots that can't have them without being raped.  If they're so worried about protecting the population, why not inscentive having babies, instead of enforcing the ones why a woman would not want to bring her child into a world of slavery, harsh punishment, child rape, and no joy.

They will never give up the kind of power they got because of this crisis.   Just like the real world men controlling women’s reproduction rights even when it’s not needed.  In the name of religion of course!   It’s the power, greed, status, riches.   

[HMFan]

18 hours ago, iMonrey said:

It makes sense in that the show doesn't want Serena to go that far, they see her as some sort of anti-hero rather than a true villain. I've gotten whiplash watching her start to come around to being a better person only to do an about-face and go full-on meanie, again and again and again. If she actually shot Ezra and killed him she would have crossed a line the writers don't want her to.

Serena's going to claim she saved June in order to get back in Canada/America's good graces.

[The Mighty Peanut]

So. June assuming she had any kind of pull with her captors that they'd call anyone on her behalf--why? And why would she so clearly imply an alliance with two people who are supposed to want her dead? She just outed them as traitors. 

So they kind of just glossed over being about to harvest Esther's uterus, which is weird (also, creepy). It seems so at odds with so many other things, I don't even know where to start.

I guess the main thing is Esther's fertile years have just begun and even if we assume Giladean science is so advanced that uterus transplants are commonplace and generally successful (which why would they be if they had to bring back Emily and Janine because handmaids were in such short supply) it's still nothing compared to 20+ years of breeding potential. She seems like a perfect candidate for the Magdalene Colony.

I feel so bad for Esther. I hope she gets to kill someone eventually for therapeutic purposes. Normally I wouldn't say this but I think it would be good for her.

[HMFan]

On 10/15/2022 at 11:03 PM, The Mighty Peanut said:

So. June assuming she had any kind of pull with her captors that they'd call anyone on her behalf--why? And why would she so clearly imply an alliance with two people who are supposed to want her dead? She just outed them as traitors. 

So they kind of just glossed over being about to harvest Esther's uterus, which is weird (also, creepy). It seems so at odds with so many other things, I don't even know where to start.

I guess the main thing is Esther's fertile years have just begun and even if we assume Giladean science is so advanced that uterus transplants are commonplace and generally successful (which why would they be if they had to bring back Emily and Janine because handmaids were in such short supply) it's still nothing compared to 20+ years of breeding potential. She seems like a perfect candidate for the Magdalene Colony.

I feel so bad for Esther. I hope she gets to kill someone eventually for therapeutic purposes. Normally I wouldn't say this but I think it would be good for her.

Why would Lawrence and Blaine want June dead?

On 10/14/2022 at 10:35 PM, kitkat343 said:

I've had 3 kids.  And honestly, I was extremely lucky and being pregnant wasn't a particularly difficult experience for me.  For some women, it is truly awful - especially those with serious, life threatening complications or conditions like hyperemesis gravidarum.  But for others pregnancy isn't nearly as difficult, and I'm sure if you offered all women enough money you'd have volunteers from the women who have easier pregnancies.  And even from women who had harder ones - this could be a path to survival for themselves and their children in Gilead, which might make a lot of women sign up.  You could offer to provide a small livable stipend for 10 years and housing for women who agree to be surrogates or undergo IVF to be egg donors (I also underwent an IVF cycle, and which wasn't too bad for me luckily, but is much harder on some women).  There are even women who would "volunteer" if they saw that children from "unfit" homes were taken away, and they knew if they "volunteered" as a surrogate their own children would be protected, because it would show enormous allegience to the state.  That would still be really traumatic, but less so than what the handmaids are living through.  I really don't believe this kind of situation would need to be adopted even in the face of a massive fertility crisis.

But then again, who wants their children growing up in Gilead? You have a girl, she has an assigned marriage, and likely rape. You have a boy, he's sentenced to a life as a guardian or eyes. Really there's no real life for any child in Gilead. Yes, they are able to create life, but what is the joy in life when there is no joy in living?

[Kel Varnsen]

44 minutes ago, HMFan said:

Why would Lawrence and Blaine want June dead?

Gilead official policy is that June is an enemy of the state right? It's not like Lawrence or Blaine can publicly support her. So as far as those border goons know they want her dead.

[The Mighty Peanut]

On 10/17/2022 at 8:17 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

Gilead official policy is that June is an enemy of the state right? It's not like Lawrence or Blaine can publicly support her. So as far as those border goons know they want her dead.

This, but I'd add Lawrence especially should have an axe to grind because June hid the kids and Marthas for Angel's Flight in his home and nearly got Lawrence tortured and executed. 

Mainly though I just meant June is enemy #1 and a Gilead higher up can't show any support for her without putting themselves at risk, so June really put them in harm's way by demanding to speak with them as if they were her lawyers, and it seems like the TPTB are just going to treat it as a throwaway comment. 

Edited October 23, 2022 by The Mighty Peanut

[bettername2come]

McKenna Grace needs an Emmy. And then she needs to be in something that stresses me out less. Another Ghostbusters would be acceptable.

Aunt Lydia's got such a weird, fascinating twisting of her beliefs. I believe her sincerity about trying to make things better for the girls, and how much she cares about Janine, yet she's the cause of so much of their pain and doesn't/refuses to get it through her head that she's being a hypocrite. 

Luke asking June how her butt was made me laugh. Yeah, they're setting us up for disaster trying to make them a loving, functional couple. 

The phrasing of Putnam's charge as "The rapе of unassigned property" is deeply disturbing, but surprisingly honest. Also surprisingly honest to me was Mrs. Putnam's exasperated "why, what did you do?" when discussing everyone staring at them at the restaurant right before. 

[anna0852]

9 hours ago, bettername2come said:

McKenna Grace needs an Emmy. And then she needs to be in something that stresses me out less. Another Ghostbusters would be acceptable.

She's guest starred on Young Sheldon several times

[Anela]

"This isn't really Gilead." Yeah, just come right out and admit that you aren't on-board with their rules, for some people. 

[paramitch]

I loved this episode. Absolutely loved it. And it's what I've been waiting for, for years now.

There has always been this sense of unwilling yet real connection between June and Serena. Yes, Serena has been a monstrous abuser to June, and June is fully justified in hating her forever or doing a Snoopy dance at Serena's execution.

But as I posted in an earlier thread last season, emotions are tricky things. I do think there is love there from June for Serena (maybe 10% love, 90% hate) as someone who she also viewed as both abuser and fellow victim. And the same from Serene for June (same percentages, too) mixed in with guilt and self-loathing (she was horrified at herself and Fred during the rape, which we saw, and frequently visibly horrified at what she found herself doing. That doesn't excuse her war crimes, but it does make her human and somewhat relatable. Then you add in their periods of collaboration, the moments of real mutual affection or emotion, and it just gets really complicated.

So it just felt like this is where this has been going -- some kind of resolution beyond mutual hate and violence. And it's so interesting to me -- so much more so than the mutual plotting for destruction. I'd honestly much rather see them evolve somehow. And it feels natural and right as far as the writing -- this entire season, we've watched the two women almost parallel/counterpoint each other as they processed their feelings and struggled to find new lives. I loved watching Serena have to deal with her own captivity and denigration, her own realizations in the tiniest way of what she put June through. And am so happy to see June move past blind rage and into a new way to handle her trauma.

June's final speech to Serena about what she prayed for was just beautiful, and beautifully acted by Moss. As was Serena's reaction by YS.

So yeah -- I was very moved at the end here, and am so invested in where it goes next.

[crashdown]

21 minutes ago, paramitch said:

So it just felt like this is where this has been going -- some kind of resolution beyond mutual hate and violence. And it's so interesting to me -- so much more so than the mutual plotting for destruction. I'd honestly much rather see them evolve somehow. And it feels natural and right as far as the writing -- this entire season, we've watched the two women almost parallel/counterpoint each other as they processed their feelings and struggled to find new lives. I loved watching Serena have to deal with her own captivity and denigration, her own realizations in the tiniest way of what she put June through. And am so happy to see June move past blind rage and into a new way to handle her trauma.

I totally agree, and I'm glad that the Hero vs. Supervillain stuff that we saw at the beginning of the season was just a setup for the more emotionally complex, more thoughtful arcs that we're seeing in this episode. I also, by the way, loved Serena's reaction to Wheeler telling her about June's capture:

Wheeler: We caught your arch-enemy! I'm sending Ezra into No Man's Land to torture and kill her! Isn't that awesome of me?
Serena (visibly weeping): Yep, that's exactly what I want for her. I'm so happy. Cool, cool, cool.

(I realize that it could be argued that Serena was crying out of joy and relief, except for the fact that she so obviously wasn't.)

[paramitch]

On 11/20/2022 at 10:48 PM, crashdown said:

I totally agree, and I'm glad that the Hero vs. Supervillain stuff that we saw at the beginning of the season was just a setup for the more emotionally complex, more thoughtful arcs that we're seeing in this episode. I also, by the way, loved Serena's reaction to Wheeler telling her about June's capture:

Wheeler: We caught your arch-enemy! I'm sending Ezra into No Man's Land to torture and kill her! Isn't that awesome of me?
Serena (visibly weeping): Yep, that's exactly what I want for her. I'm so happy. Cool, cool, cool.

(I realize that it could be argued that Serena was crying out of joy and relief, except for the fact that she so obviously wasn't.)

Yes! 100% I felt the same way there. That's when I started feeling this hope, this "please let this go the way I think it might..."

[crashdown]

1 hour ago, paramitch said:

Yes! 100% I felt the same way there. That's when I started feeling this hope, this "please let this go the way I think it might..."

It also was consistent character writing for Serena. Throughout the series, no matter what abuse she herself might bestow upon June, Serena *never* wanted anyone else to hurt June. (Even after their knockdown drag out at the Lincoln Memorial, Serena's first instinct is to help and protect June when she sees her practically out of her mind in the hospital a couple of episodes later.)  This season, for instance, I thought it was amusing in the third episode, when Mackenzie says that June is a cancer that needs to be cut out. Nick has as much of a "Yikes!" look as his impassive nature allows, but Serena looks practically as stricken at the idea. I've always imagined a little thought bubble saying "Hey! That's *my* cancer, not *your* cancer!"

[paramitch]

On 11/22/2022 at 8:30 AM, crashdown said:

It also was consistent character writing for Serena. Throughout the series, no matter what abuse she herself might bestow upon June, Serena *never* wanted anyone else to hurt June. (Even after their knockdown drag out at the Lincoln Memorial, Serena's first instinct is to help and protect June when she sees her practically out of her mind in the hospital a couple of episodes later.)  This season, for instance, I thought it was amusing in the third episode, when Mackenzie says that June is a cancer that needs to be cut out. Nick has as much of a "Yikes!" look as his impassive nature allows, but Serena looks practically as stricken at the idea. I've always imagined a little thought bubble saying "Hey! That's *my* cancer, not *your* cancer!"

[Beatriceblake]

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.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Beatriceblake