S05.E10: Safe

[Kel Varnsen]

On 11/10/2022 at 9:22 AM, circumvent said:

Just to mention again, as far as I know, Canada has never stopped their immigration program (except for Quebec) because they always need people to work and pay taxes to fund programs, as it should be. And even if one considers racism and bigotry, lots of white Americans would be applying.

I was thinking about the anti immigrant storyline and it got me wondering, in the world of the show are people from other countries moving to Canada. Would anyone want to move to Canada from overseas when they know Canada shares a border with those crazy Gilead bastards who are always at war and have nukes? In the real world the majority of Canada's population growth is due to immigrants. If there was a massive drop in birth rates and no one from anywhere moving to Canada I am not sure that many people would be too upset about people from Gilead coming here. 

[AntFTW]

Yes Rose! Know your worth! Nick ain’t shit!

[Anela]

They've all lost people, and been responsible. June has done a few stupid things, but she isn't the only one, and all of the losses aren't solely on her shoulders.

They were sex slaves in Gilead. Women had their mouths sewn shut and clamped with metal bars. They had all sorts of horrific shit done to them, including being pushed off the top of skyscrapers, when June wouldn't do what they wanted her to do. 

I'm not debating, I'm dealing with shit offline, and I'm just not debating anyway. I think it's really easy to just hate a character, and blame them for everything, when these women were never going to live happy, normal lives again, and were going to be killed or have body parts removed, if they dared to speak out of turn.

[AngelaHunter]

On 11/12/2022 at 7:07 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

And yes Tuello does suck for not getting them on a private jet or a car or their own bus

Yes, with a red carpet and a champagne luncheon. It IS June, after all, so a private jet should have been in the offing because the taxpayers haven't footed enough bills for these ingrates. How dare he expect Queen Wonderwoman June to take a train and mingle with the commoners?

I did like how June lifted the baby out of the stroller and just abandoned it in the middle of the aisle in that packed train. Fuck everyone else trying to move around.

[Kel Varnsen]

4 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

Yes, with a red carpet and a champagne luncheon. It IS June, after all, so a private jet should have been in the offing because the taxpayers haven't footed enough bills for these ingrates. How dare he expect Queen Wonderwoman June to take a train and mingle with the commoners?

Well he does keep saying how she is an important intelligence/PR asset for their side. If she is that important then maybe he should at least make a tiny bit of effort to keep her safe. 

[TigerLily20]

Did I flat out laugh out loud once they showed Serena.....yes, yes I did lol.  Do I think they will make it to Hawaii.....ehh I feel like that's a hard no.....I feel like I was left with a bit more questions than answers but oh well.....

[circumvent]

30 minutes ago, TigerLily20 said:

Did I flat out laugh out loud once they showed Serena.....yes, yes I did lol.  Do I think they will make it to Hawaii.....ehh I feel like that's a hard no.....I feel like I was left with a bit more questions than answers but oh well.....

If this was the last season and there were no The Testaments, I would totally expect to see June and Serena in Hawaii, kids playing in the sand, drinking Mai Tai, stretching in the sun watching hula dancers...Cuts to the ocean, the sunset, ukulele music. Fade to black

The End. Never mind what happens to Gilead, Luke, Hannah, the rest of the world. 

With these writers, ridiculous endings are no more than a blink away

[Beatriceblake]

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.

 

[captain1]

Well I’m very late the the party since I was waiting for some friends to catch up to me so we could watch “together” and I’m just going to ignore as best I can all of the plot holes.   I know I’m in the minority, but I like June and Serena together, and I fantasize that before all is said and done, they, together with Lydia, bring about the takedown of Gilead.  
 

Here is my take on the Canadians turning against the American refugees:  the writers have been trying, albeit clunkily, to convey that the “ideals” of Gilead have been taking root in Canada.   Gilead has been waging a huge PR campaign there. Remember when Serena was so heartened by all the demonstrators who were protesting for her?  So more and more Canadians are pro Gilead, and anti American - does this make sense?

[txhorns79]

On 4/10/2023 at 9:34 PM, captain1 said:

So more and more Canadians are pro Gilead, and anti American - does this make sense?

I can see how Canadians might tire of being hosts for millions of American refugees, but it's hard to imagine how people could become pro-Gilead, unless they really don't know what living in Gilead entails. 

[Dobian]

My thought before this episode started - WHY are they doing a season 6?

I just can't with this show anymore.

I read the novel.  Only the first season is the novel, and they should have left it at that.  Season 2 and beyond has been Junebo: First Blood.

I can't get into every little thing or this post will be 10,000 words.

This season had even more things that didn't make sense than previous seasons.

I kept asking myself, where do they get their income in Canada?  Does any one of them work?  Moira I guess.  That's a nice big suburban house they live in.  Is the exiled American government paying for the whole thing?  Because June's such a great asset?  No wonder the Canadians are pissed.

This show might have worked if they changed it to an ensemble format, but everything is so June-centric.  Almost everything Gilead does is driven by what June is up to, including moving anti-aircraft guns around to stop her from rescuing Hannah.  June's even in the war room like she's a Secretary of State or something.  When you think about it, June is not only the most powerful woman in Gilead, but one of it's most powerful people, period.  She's all the Commanders think about lol.

In the beginning, it made sense for the show to be from her pov, because that's how the book was written.  It was about life inside a dystopian society where women are controlled by a patriarchy in an infertility crisis.  But then they strayed from the book and turned it into a macro-level geopolitical show.  So they needed to change the structure.

Serena becomes the international face of women in Gilead through that funeral broadcast, so they make her a handmaid.  I guess Gilead doesn't have a marketing department.

And everyone pining for June...Luke, Nick, Lawrence, Serena.  She's the friend on FB everyone wants.

I could go on and on, like the over-the-top Canadian response to the American refugees, but I'll leave it there.

Overall, Handmaid's Tale is a terrible mess.

Poor world building (compare to Man in the High Castle where you have a clear understanding of Nazis controlling America from the East to the Rocky Mountains, then a neutral zone, then the Japanese-controlled West Coast.  And a good depiction of the relationship between the Germans and Japanese and how the neutral zone works).  I've never have a good feel for how Gilead, Canada, exiled America, and neutral zones all fit together in this world.

Bad character development, motivations, and actions.  Half-baked ideas, like Gilead being reformed into a kinder, gentler, fascist society.

And June's face.  Lots and lots of June's face.  June's face is a character in this show, separate from June herself.

That's all I have.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Dobian

[GreekGeek]

I wasn't going to watch this season because I was fed up with all the SuperJune stuff, but I watched a couple of episodes on a plane and got hooked again. I'm much more interested in Serena, Lawrence, Janine, and Lydia at this point than I am in June, Luke, and Nick. 

Like many others, I was so annoyed with June for continuing to run in the street once she realized that car was following her. I thought of this Test Your Survival Skills question:

You are a high profile refugee in a country with growing anti-refugee sentiment. You are walking down the middle of the street when you realize a car is following you with intent to harm you. Do you:

A) run to the sidewalk and start running across lawns?

B) turn around and run in the other direction?

C) continue walking down the middle of the street, quickening your pace slightly?

I admit I was stupidly pleased to see June and Serena on the train together.