The Eyes: News and Media

[Brn2bwild]

On 5/31/2018 at 2:32 PM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Madeline Brewer discusses The Handmaid’s Tale:

Both interviews are really good.  Loved Madeline Brewer's line about how optimism was fight.  The only thing I hated was that blown-up, airbrushed picture of Elizabeth Moss's face.  Holy uncanny valley, Batman!  It made me so uncomfortable, I couldn't even look at the screen directly.  

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Yvonne Strahovski said that the cast likes to sing Taylor Swift between takes:

[Baltimore Betty]

Well, looky, looky the Commander is not sterile after all...a baby for Mrs. Waterford!  

[chaifan]

Has there been any mention that they're working YS's pregnancy into the show?  I think they could easily shoot around it - capes can hide a lot. 

I thought it was a little funny that YS's dress was in the Handmaid's color scheme.  Seemed to fall somewhere between Wife teal and Martha/Ecowife grey. 

[chocolatine]

4 hours ago, Baltimore Betty said:

Well, looky, looky the Commander is not sterile after all...a baby for Mrs. Waterford!  

She looks great - pregnancy really suits her.

[AnswersWanted]

Why I’ve stopped watching the Handmaid’s Tale

 

I agree with the writer on a number of points, especially this one: “The new season is unrelentingly bleak – gone is Atwood’s astute social commentary”. 

I definitely have felt that’s been lacking from episode one of season two and it just keeps getting worse and worse.

I don’t know why they feel the need to deviate so from the source material when it was so impeccable.

 I do feel as if it’s becoming more about how to make a popular, ratings hit of a television show than make a good show.

[greekmom]

On 6/16/2018 at 1:54 PM, AnswersWanted said:

Why I’ve stopped watching the Handmaid’s Tale

 

I agree with the writer on a number of points, especially this one: “The new season is unrelentingly bleak – gone is Atwood’s astute social commentary”. 

I definitely have felt that’s been lacking from episode one of season two and it just keeps getting worse and worse.

I don’t know why they feel the need to deviate so from the source material when it was so impeccable.

 I do feel as if it’s becoming more about how to make a popular, ratings hit of a television show than make a good show.

I agree with some of the points only if the writers are going to keep on what is rumored a "ten year plan". What I would like if they can clear up this wave of characters by end of next season (ie. give june and company their happy endings, kill the waterfords, etc) and start fresh in s4 with a fast forward to middle period, a twist on the story, a new handmaids, more mayday, etc. Then fast foward into s6 with the final period of Gilead and full on fighting with the remaining USA and mayday. Maybe even Canada being involved in the war. With a final season on rebirth of the United States.

[Pachengala]

I think that’s a good take. I’m on record as hating the direction the all-male show runners began to take in the first season, largely abandoning Atwood’s bleak, nuanced social commentary in favor of reductive girl-power nonsense, and now in the second season deciding in favor of serialized abuse and endless repetition in service of additional seasons. They’ve lost the lede—or indeed perhaps never had it; perhaps that lived and died with Reed Morano. 

All of that said, I still watch; it’s still a beautiful show visually and if you can let go of your disappointment and forget that it’s based on one of the most prescient and chilling novels of the 20th Century, it can be entertaining. I guess my article would be called “Why I’ve Stopped Taking ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Seriously.”

Edited June 19, 2018 by Pachengala
Big typos!

[scrb]

Ten years?

I haven't seen the series yet but they're going to wear out their welcome after about 5-6 seasons, like all series.

I would think some of the cast members would want to look at other projects too, before they get too old for certain roles.

Ten years from now, Moss may have to play parent to young adult kids or even grandmother roles.

[Ceindreadh]

7 hours ago, scrb said:

Ten years?

I haven't seen the series yet but they're going to wear out their welcome after about 5-6 seasons, like all series.

I would think some of the cast members would want to look at other projects too, before they get too old for certain roles.

Ten years from now, Moss may have to play parent to young adult kids or even grandmother roles.

Maybe they mean ten years in Gilead time. I think this is the type of show that they need to set an end date and work to it, rather than just keep going as long as they have viewers. 

We need to see Gilead fall. 

[NoSpam]

Wrong thread

Edited June 19, 2018 by NoSpam

[Umbelina]

12 hours ago, Ceindreadh said:

Maybe they mean ten years in Gilead time. I think this is the type of show that they need to set an end date and work to it, rather than just keep going as long as they have viewers. 

We need to see Gilead fall. 

The showrunners recently said something about this.  It's in the spoiler thread if you are interested.

[QueerGirrl]

Yvonne’s take on episode 10:

https://www.eonline.com/news/945610/from-horrific-to-human-the-handmaid-s-tale-s-yvonne-strahovski-on-serena-joy-s-big-year

[GraceK]

Fantastic article! Thank you!

[maxineofarc]

Interview with the writer of s2e10: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2018/06/20/done-watching-the-handmaids-tale-after-that-brutal-scene-the-episodes-writer-responds/

[Umbelina]

So, I really haven't been reading reviews (which is VERY unlike me.)  Who is doing the best ones of this show? 

[Umbelina]

I googled Yahlin Chang, as the writer of this one, The Last Ceremony.

Many articles came up.  I'm going to link them, but I haven't read them as yet.

http://www.abc6.com/story/38471584/the-handmaids-tale-writer-reveals-secrets-behind-the-last-ceremony-episode
 

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To me, it’s important to show that no matter what the ceremony is, no matter what bullshit you put on top of it, it’s always this bad. It is always this brutal. Let us not forget that it is rape. All the handmaids are being raped every single month, and it is that terrible, and it’s just that they’re taught to hide it. They’ve been taught to make it easy on their perpetrators by not reacting, but that is what they’re going through. It’s like the brutality of that scene is what they’re experiencing at every single ceremony. Offred is too pregnant to not experience that. In some way, that is the most honest ceremony we’ve had, because it really shows that it is rape.

Otherwise, it gets sort of normalized …

 

 

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/6/20/17482370/the-handmaids-tale-family-separation-episode-10-recap-yahlin-chang
 

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Todd VanDerWerff

Handmaid’s Tale is always timely, but the scene between June and Hannah is eerie in how prescient it is, especially since you wrote this last fall. I’m wondering as you’ve watched this growing humanitarian crisis on our southern border, how has having worked on this season of the show affected your thoughts on that?

Yahlin Chang

When I first knew that I was going to write this reunion scene, it was like, “Okay, what is this crazy situation where you have a mother whose child has been ripped away from her, and she’s only going to see her for 10 minutes. What would happen in that scene?” And then for this episode to air when it is happening every day in this country, it’s really shocking and depressing.

 

 

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For it to be happening now in America, so close to home, it’s just really horrible. I was listening to those audio recordings of kids being torn away from their parents in the detention centers and I just couldn’t believe it.

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For me personally, yeah, it was a super hard scene to write, and I was on set also when we were shooting it, and it was hard. I have three kids. I had to go to a pretty dark place to write the scene and to imagine what if my kids were kidnapped and then I could only see them for 10 minutes? What would happen? It’s such a nightmare scenario.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/06/handmaids-tale-season-2-episode-10-yahlin-chang-interview

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There is, according to Chang, a straightforward message to take away from this series and all its horrible events: “It’s really wrong to rip children away from their mothers, and it’s really wrong to rape people,” she said. “With this particular episode, I think, those are two messages I would like to hammer home.” She later expanded on that notion with one more pillar, inspired by June’s remarkable resilience and continued devotion to Hannah: “That loves survives is an amazing thing . . . In a gooey way, it’s like love is the most powerful force in the universe, and love survives. And that’s an incredible message. I’m going to add that as my third thing I want people to take away: It’s wrong to rape, wrong to rip kids from their mothers, and that love survives.”

One more, Is the handmaid's tale worth watching?

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/27/17285182/handmaids-tale-season-2-hulu

This last one is really good, several people interviewed, all with a myriad of reactions to this show, especially in today's political climate, each makes interesting points.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Umbelina

[marinw]

Interesting article on  Serena Joy and Yvonne Strzechowski https://io9.gizmodo.com/serena-joy-is-the-handmaids-tales-most-infuriating-yet-1826878132

I first saw Strzechowski in the 2014 season of 24. She was a badass CIA agent. This actor has range!

[GraceK]

Great article! Thank you!

[Anela]

11 hours ago, marinw said:

Interesting article on  Serena Joy and Yvonne Strzechowski https://io9.gizmodo.com/serena-joy-is-the-handmaids-tales-most-infuriating-yet-1826878132

I first saw Strzechowski in the 2014 season of 24. She was a badass CIA agent. This actor has range!

I saw her in Chuck, in 2007. She was good in the role, too. I started watching 24 in February (late to the party by seventeen years), but it was too much to binge. I need to get back to it. 

[LBS]

6 minutes ago, Anela said:

I saw her in Chuck, in 2007. She was good in the role, too. 

Just started binge watching Chuck for the first time! What a great show! I like to watch it right after the Handmaids Tale a) to breathe and forget that the world is a dumpster fire (Gilead and reality) and b) that Yvonne Strzechowski is an amazing actress and is not Serena Joy.

[marinw]

31 minutes ago, Anela said:

I started watching 24 in February (late to the party by seventeen years), but it was too much to binge. I need to get back to it. 

I can literally talk about 24 for hours, but this is obviously the wrong forum for that! I will just say that if you can only binge one season, binge Day 5. I could never get into Chuck.

[chocolatine]

I also really liked Yvonne in The Astronaut Wives Club, an ABC miniseries from a couple of years ago.

Edited June 23, 2018 by chocolatine

[LBS]

@chocolatine I loved that show and didn’t realize she was in it!

[chocolatine]

1 minute ago, LBS said:

@chocolatine I loved that show and didn’t realize she was in it!

She played Rene "like peachy keen" Carpenter. She wore a platinum blond wig and 60s makeup, so she looked very different from how she usually looks.

[LBS]

@chocolatine thank you!  I can see her in the role now but she did look so different. Hmm... off to see if that show is available to watch again 

[bonniejmac]

I LOVED Astronaut Wives Club and Yvonne was fantastic in it. Rene Carpenter was (probably still is - Google tells me she's still living at 90 years old) such a hard-core feminist - it's such a contrast. I have 4 episodes still on my DVR - stupidly erased the other 6 and I couldn't find it on Hulu or Netflix last time I checked. Definitely a good antidote show to watch after an episode of THT. 

[LuvizBlind]

After reading this I looked and found Astronaut Wives Club playing on abc.go.com, but for some reason the Pilot/1st Episode wasn't available.  I've watched the first few episodes already.  It's good to see her in a much different role. 

[Umbelina]

http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/the-handmaids-tale-greatest-failing-is-how-it-handles-race.html

How Hulu's version of The Handmaid's Tale handles race.

I googled for another reason and found this well written article, thought some might  like to read it.

[GraceK]

So since things have been super dark lately and alleviate some tension I thought you guys might enjoy this. It’s the most wtf and random thing but I thought it was hilarious ??

 

[chocolatine]

4 minutes ago, GraceK said:

So since things have been super dark lately and alleviate some tension I thought you guys might enjoy this. It’s the most wtf and random thing but I thought it was hilarious ??

 

Love it (I lived in Scotland in my early 20s, some of my fondest memories)! I'm sure that's what The Handmaid's Tale would have been like if Irivine Welsh (author of Trainspotting) had written it.

[GraceK]

5 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

Love it (I lived in Scotland in my early 20s, some of my fondest memories)! I'm sure that's what The Handmaid's Tale would have been like if Irivine Welsh (author of Trainspotting) had written it.

I loved “ offbread” ???? and  “ day time! Night time!” I almost peed myself ??

[Stiggs]

OMG, that was hilarious. She never read anyway! LOL!

[marinw]

Hope this is the right place to post this:

In Canada, the show airs on Bravo at 10 PM Atlantic Time. I watch the show in real time. Right before THT is The Garage Sale Mysteries, which is one of the most boring shows of all time, with leaden dialogue and acting to match. The last five minutes seem a hour long! I find it hilarious that this show airs just before THT.

[chocolatine]

1 hour ago, marinw said:

Hope this is the right place to post this:

In Canada, the show airs on Bravo at 10 PM Atlantic Time. I watch the show in real time. Right before THT is The Garage Sale Mysteries, which is one of the most boring shows of all time, with leaden dialogue and acting to match. The last five minutes seem a hour long! I find it hilarious that this show airs just before THT.

Sometimes the only way to get anyone to watch a boring show is to play it right before a popular show and catch the viewers who tune in early. :)

[Umbelina]

10 Best TV Shows of 2018

Guess which show didn't make the list?

[Umbelina]

Producer and writer Kira Snyder pulls the curtain back on the Hulu drama's momentous episode.
 

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Throughout the episode, Offred sees a wolf outside. What does the wolf represent for you?

It's representative of a couple things. First is more of a subtle point about wildlife coming back, since among Gilead's very few good qualities is that they do care about the environment, so things like wolves are actually coming back into the fringes of the world. The fact that wolves are around in rural Massachusetts is encouraging, because Gilead is taking their stewardship of the world pretty seriously. But really, it's a signifier for June of wildness and resilience. She starts off being scared of the wolf and afraid of what it's gonna do to her. The wolf later is a moment of inspiration where she has a terrifying slip and fall outside the garage where her water breaks and the water breaking was, when you're having your second child, [a signal that] the baby is imminent. She's not going anywhere, even if she could get the [garage] door open; she's not going anywhere. Basically, she's having her lowest point. And the wolf there is a reminder she's also a wild thing. She has it in her to do this, so it gives her a little bit of the push that she needs to get back up on her feet and get into that house and have that child. At the end, she sees the wolf for the last time, when she fires the gun and scares the wolf away. She's returning herself to Gilead, to civilization, the same time the wolf has returned to wilderness. She's basically giving up on that promise of that wild and free sense of feeling.

 

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We hear the signature Offred narration twice in the episode, near the beginning and end, as she talks about why she's telling her story: she believes in "you." In your mind, who is she talking to? What do her words mean?

Both of those pieces of narration are from the novel by Margaret Atwood, so that's Margaret's lovely prose there. My belief is that she's talking to a lot of people. She's talking to the baby, she's talking to some unknown future listener of the story that she's recording, because these are recordings that a future June is making of her experiences in Gilead, and I think she's also talking to us the viewer. These stories are hard to hear, the last episode in particular, for lots of reasons. It's a particularly powerful and challenging episode. These stories are important and they need to be told. And part of the importance of telling a story like that is knowing that someone will hear them. So to me, it addresses a few different yous.

 

Several other questions asked and answered in this article.

[Umbelina]

Vulture: The Handmaid’s Tale Recap: Hungry Hearts By Hillary Kelly

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Admittedly, I worried that June’s labor and delivery would feel ham-fisted, like they’d shoehorned it in there to lure female watchers with an emotional touchstone. And the spread of bright blood, reaching out like a gruesome red carpet beneath her, adds a touch more melodrama than the scene needed. But Elisabeth Moss brings so much dignity to a scene that must have been incredibly difficult to shoot. Naked and sprawling, rocking from hands and knees to an upright perch, with her face contorted and deep groans and screams ripping out of her throat, June looks the way all women unknowingly look while laboring: powerful and vulnerable all at once.

NY Times recap by By Judy Berman

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Can we just pause for a second to appreciate Elisabeth Moss? She isn’t just the star of “The Handmaid’s Tale”; she is its heart, soul and, above all, its endlessly expressive face. It is her physical performance that digs the show out of narrative ruts and sells its most unconvincing twists. Her Offred can look meek and subservient or utterly dejected, but the character’s core is solid steel. Lest we take Moss for granted, this week’s episode, “Holly,” was a reminder that her work on this series comprises some of the most empathetic and nuanced acting in any medium.

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What Offred does and doesn’t do with her weapon says a lot about who she is now. She’s not a predator like the Waterfords and the wolf; she won’t inflict unnecessary pain. But she’s no helpless victim, either. In the two-part season premiere, it was Nick who facilitated her escape (although the gumption to remove a piece of her own ear was Offred’s alone). Now, he’s the lover in distress, and she has the power to save herself. As Grandma Holly reminds her in a flashback, Offred is stronger than she thinks.

I agree, she's changed a lot from that first escape attempt, she was calm, and logical, and gathering supplies, and ready to defend herself against Fred and Serena if needed.  She's learned and grown.

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• Not that it was ever hard to guess, but now we know how Waterford and Serena really feel about each other. He thinks she’s a shrew. She thinks he’s a fool and a pushover who’s harboring a “sick infatuation” with Offred. Serena also drops an inevitable bombshell: “I gave up everything for you — and for the cause,” she says. “And I only ever wanted one thing in return: I wanted a baby.” Her voice gets high and soft, almost like a baby’s, at the end. There must be more to her story: Why did such a smart, strong woman sacrifice her power, not to mention every other woman’s, to become a mother? As Serena sobs and tells Waterford, “I have nothing,” they lock eyes with the anguish of two people united by the misery they’ve inflicted upon the world and each other.

https://www.themarysue.com/serena-joys-the-handmaids-tale/

I'm including this, but I won't quote from it.  The entire article is interesting and quite good, but it's extremely political and discussing parallels between today's USA and Gilead.  For those so inclined?  It's worth a read.

VOX review by By Todd VanDerWerff and Constance Grady
 

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Todd VanDerWerff: If the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale has a major flaw, it’s that the show has, in many ways, grown past its protagonist. June’s story, which drove the first season forward in myriad fascinating ways, has reached a bit of a narrative cul de sac, just as everybody else on the series has found new interesting dimensions. (Even the Commander gets some bitterly human moments in “Holly.” Ol’ Patriarchal Fred!)

I hope that the series has a fix for this in season three, because it can’t tell a long-term story where June almost escapes multiple times, only to end up back in the twisted soap operatics of the Waterford household, without feeling deathly repetitive, especially after seemingly everybody in that house is ready to murder each other.

 

Indeed, also they need to tell Gilead's story here, not just the character's story, IMO.  I've wanted answers since the book was first published, get on with some of those.
 

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Todd VanDerWerff: If the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale has a major flaw, it’s that the show has, in many ways, grown past its protagonist. June’s story, which drove the first season forward in myriad fascinating ways, has reached a bit of a narrative cul de sac, just as everybody else on the series has found new interesting dimensions. (Even the Commander gets some bitterly human moments in “Holly.” Ol’ Patriarchal Fred!)

I hope that the series has a fix for this in season three, because it can’t tell a long-term story where June almost escapes multiple times, only to end up back in the twisted soap operatics of the Waterford household, without feeling deathly repetitive, especially after seemingly everybody in that house is ready to murder each other.

 

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Constance Grady: But I agree with you, Todd, that the show desperately needs to find something new for June to do besides try to escape and then narrowly get recaptured, over and over and over again. The endless sequence in which June prepares to drive off to Canada, only to realize that, oh no, she has to find a key to the garage first, and then oh no, she has to cover her red Handmaid’s gown before she drives away and then oh no, the garage door is iced shut — it’s all tense, sure, but it’s also starting to feel dull. And not dull in a productive “I’m learning something about totalitarianism” way. Dull in a boring way. You know that it’s not going to go anywhere.

Listen up Handmaid show runners, these are two great reviewers here, and they are telling you the truth.  Wonderful acting and disconnected stand alone episodes with no real resolve or information won't carry you much longer!

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Serena has always been an avatar for the “fuck you, I got mine” ethos of commodified white feminism: Her whole thing is very Ivanka Trump posting a picture of herself hugging her son on Instagram while families are ripped apart at the border. But the complication with Serena is that she has not yet quite gotten hers yet. She doesn’t have her hands on the thing that she believes she is owed, which is a baby. Which means that she’s been operating under a “fuck you, I’ll get mine” mindset for the entire run of the show, and the more that she doubts that she will actually get “hers,” the less willing she is to embrace the status quo.

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Todd: I kind of think no, but I also don’t really know what form her rebellion might take. The season has been so focused on building up Serena Joy’s character in a way to make her unhappiness seem palpable that it’s clear the writers are laying groundwork for something. And the fact that baby Holly is a girl in Gilead can only increase the pressure Serena will surely feel about whatever is to come next.

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This is one of the reasons I hope that season two’s expansion of the world beyond Gilead — here we find out that the United Kingdom, at least, is leveling sanctions against the country — is pointing in the direction of some sort of longer-term arc about the American resistance. (Now I’m imagining Oprah marching through the rubble, waving the flag.) The premise of the show necessitates that the audience be kept as much in the dark about what’s going on in the wider world as the characters — another weird similarity between this show and Westworld — but to give itself room to operate, the series has to keep dropping little hints. I have to believe they’re pointing somewhere, but maybe I’m ramming my car into a garage door, too.

I seriously hope the writers of Handmaids, and specifically the show runner, pays attention to this.  Off to find more reviews.  This one is great all the way through, worth a read.

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Besides, I’d love to get to see Elisabeth Moss play a few new notes with this character. She’s been doing wonderful work all season, and her mingled rage and gritted-teeth determination in this episode was enthralling to watch — but wouldn’t it be great to see what she can do with a June who has stopped repeating herself?

Todd: Yes, but also it’s amazing to me how Moss keeps finding new notes to play in a scenario that would have exhausted most other actors. I’ve occasionally called her the most talented actor of her generation, and watching this episode reminded me why I’ve said that. Her guttural cries as she delivered a baby, by herself, in front of a fire, in a large, rambling country manse, felt like they came from some other portion of her soul than we’d gotten to see before.

 

Edited June 29, 2018 by Umbelina

[GraceK]

17 hours ago, Umbelina said:

including this, but I won't quote from it.  The entire article is interesting and quite good, but it's extremely political and discussing parallels between today's USA and Gilead.  For those so inclined?  It's worth a read.

Holy shit that article gave me the willies. Thanks for sharing. 

[alexvillage]

18 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Throughout the episode, Offred sees a wolf outside. What does the wolf represent for you?

It's representative of a couple things. First is more of a subtle point about wildlife coming back, since among Gilead's very few good qualities is that they do care about the environment, so things like wolves are actually coming back into the fringes of the world. The fact that wolves are around in rural Massachusetts is encouraging, because Gilead is taking their stewardship of the world pretty seriously. But really, it's a signifier for June of wildness and resilience. She starts off being scared of the wolf and afraid of what it's gonna do to her. The wolf later is a moment of inspiration where she has a terrifying slip and fall outside the garage where her water breaks and the water breaking was, when you're having your second child, [a signal that] the baby is imminent. She's not going anywhere, even if she could get the [garage] door open; she's not going anywhere. Basically, she's having her lowest point. And the wolf there is a reminder she's also a wild thing. She has it in her to do this, so it gives her a little bit of the push that she needs to get back up on her feet and get into that house and have that child. At the end, she sees the wolf for the last time, when she fires the gun and scares the wolf away. She's returning herself to Gilead, to civilization, the same time the wolf has returned to wilderness. She's basically giving up on that promise of that wild and free sense of feeling.

If the writer needs to explain why she included something in the show, it was't very well done. 

 

17 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Can we just pause for a second to appreciate Elisabeth Moss? She isn’t just the star of “The Handmaid’s Tale”; she is its heart, soul and, above all, its endlessly expressive face. It is her physical performance that digs the show out of narrative ruts and sells its most unconvincing twists. Her Offred can look meek and subservient or utterly dejected, but the character’s core is solid steel. Lest we take Moss for granted, this week’s episode, “Holly,” was a reminder that her work on this series comprises some of the most empathetic and nuanced acting in any medium.

I can appreciate some of her scenes but this part: "its endlessly expressive face" - hahahahahaha

And this: "in any medium" - ANY? never saw her on stage. Has anyone? I don't even know if she has any stage experience.

Yes, she is the heart and soul of the show. She is also the executive producer.

[Umbelina]

12 minutes ago, alexvillage said:

If the writer needs to explain why she included something in the show, it was't very well done. 

 

I can appreciate some of her scenes but this part: "its endlessly expressive face" - hahahahahaha

And this: "in any medium" - ANY? never saw her on stage. Has anyone? I don't even know if she has any stage experience.

Yes, she is the heart and soul of the show. She is also the executive producer.

Yes, she's been on stage, and in several movies, as well as many TV shows.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Elisabeth-Moss/

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005253/

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The Handmaid’s Tale has been nominated for three TCA awards:

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA - Elisabeth Moss

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

[Umbelina]

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One such example of time that could have been better spent: Rohan Mead’s Isaac. We meet Isaac as a sort of counterpoint to Eden, a terrifyingly young soldier whose obvious commitment to the job and Gilead makes him a powder keg. He’s introduced as being callous, ruthless, and savage, with that baby face making his presence all the more upsetting. Then he’s kissing Eden. Then he’s dead.

What’s frustrating is that, while it’s totally possible to engage with a character like Isaac—someone successfully indoctrinated by a brutal regime, who is both responsible for his reprehensible actions and the product of a world designed to take people like him and transform them into remorseless soldiers—The Handmaids’s Tale doesn’t stop to explore those complexities. Instead, he is one thing until he is the other, instead of being all things at once. That the show doesn’t choose to develop that character is perfectly fine. That it seems to expect its audience to care about the death of that character is decidedly less so.

 

https://tv.avclub.com/the-handmaid-s-tale-takes-an-intriguing-left-turn-at-th-1827343557#skwxix4ag

[Umbelina]

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It is, however, yet another narrative ruse to get June back into the Waterford house — a compulsion on the part of the writers that is getting rather stale by now. This is the third time this season June has ended up housed in that attic bedroom unexpectedly — first, after she was tortured and then found to be pregnant, and then after she attempted to escape Gilead — and while the June/Serena/Fred triangle has been rich and provocative, it’s time to move along now. While other Commanders have lost hands or their lives for misbehavior, Waterford manages to tell one improbable lie after another (this time, saying that Nick took a 40-weeks pregnant June for a drive onto dangerous, snowy roads just for kicks). Perhaps it’s a testimony to his power in Gilead, but it’s more likely that the writers need to drag this dramatic tension out as long as they can. (And surely enough rumors have floated around Gilead that June, despite her productive ovaries and flourishing uterus, would not be a “popular girl,” as Aunt Lydia claims.)

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Meanwhile, the Eden story line — one that, admittedly, hasn’t entirely piqued my interest — rushes to an abrupt, unlikely, and yet still moving ending. Just as June and Nick are fantasizing about taking Holly and running off to the coast, or the mountains, or anywhere but the Waterford house, they learn that Eden has run off with Isaac, the guard whom Nick caught her kissing. She did it, to some extent, at June’s unknowing urging to “grab love wherever you can find it.” But the idea of pious Eden breaking so dramatically with Christian law feels too convenient of a way to winnow down extraneous characters.

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Even with her mother and sister on the bleachers — Gilead certainly has a knack for transforming sporting facilities into torture chambers — Eden meets her death like a martyr. And thus she becomes yet another example — there were plenty of other weights left at the bottom of that pool — of a single piece of scripture being misguidedly co-opted for evil: “If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

http://www.vulture.com/2018/07/the-handmaids-tale-recap-season-2-episode-12-postpartum.html

[Umbelina]

Bradley Whitford on the ‘Profoundly Creative Experience’ of Joining ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

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“It is obviously one of the most emotionally brutal shows that has ever been made, and it is truly the sweetest, kindest set you’ve ever been on, which I think enhances the work. But it is quite a contrast once they say action,” Whitford says.

 

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“What Lizzie, and Yvonne [Strahovski], and Alexis, and what everyone is doing on that show is a generational achievement in storytelling,” he says. “I’ve done this enough that you can see it’s a wonderfully creative atmosphere because everybody’s blood is flowing and there are great performances across the board. I could see from the outside that creatively everyone is at their best. When you see a situation like that you want to get in there. And I’m telling you it’s everything.”

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“Holy God, it’s terrifying. I did ‘Real Time With Bill Maher’ with Michael Moore and he went on and on about how one of the most fascinating things about the show is in those flashbacks and the moments where we didn’t realize what was happening was happening,” Whitford says. “One of the moments that he found most terrifying was when Alexis’s character got in trouble because one of her students saw a picture of her with her wife and so she basically endangered her job at the university… that happened at a high school in Texas this year.”

[marinw]

Filed under "Things that are in poor taste":

https://slate.com/culture/2018/07/5-handmaids-tales-products-almost-as-bad-as-the-shows-branded-wine.html

Edited July 11, 2018 by marinw

[Empress1]

Interesting article about season 2's missteps.

[alexvillage]

29 minutes ago, Empress1 said:

Interesting article about season 2's missteps.

It is interesting and it has valid points.

I see that the author agrees that some plots seem needless or, like Eden/Isaac, that happened off screen don't get viewers invested. Which turned my snark on with the thought that maybe EM's contract calls for a certain amount of close ups and eyes shots per episode, which doesn't leave much for anything else.

[PepSinger]

The failure of intersectionality is on point.

[Umbelina]

5 hours ago, Empress1 said:

Interesting article about season 2's missteps.

I agree with every word.

Characters are all over the place, continuity and follow through on stories from episode to episode is atrocious, and pace is so off as well.