S02.E01: June / S02.E02: Unwomen

[Umbelina]

6 hours ago, lucindabelle said:

Also

 

i can’t hewr “this woman’s work” without tearing up- it is such a beautiful song about the terror of a husband while a woman gives birth, written for the movie “she’s having a baby,” and while it plays the montage is of the wife in danger, husband being hustled out of delivery room, and every scene we’ve seen of his complaining is recalled (silently) but with the sweet moments we DIDNT see: so in the movie there was a scene of the couple bickering, now we see the moment after where they splashed paint on each other and laughed.

 

and all of a sudden we realize as the voiceover does how much he loves her and she loves him and he’s spent the movie kicking at marriage and suburbia. And now she might die and Kate bush is singing “I know you have a little strength left.” 

 

And Kevin bacon in the delivery room remembering all this and weeping while his father in law with whom he’s always had an uneasy relationship pats him on the shoulder.

 

even trying to explain this to my mother I cried.

the 1988 movie is worth it for this alone  brilliant brilliant editing. I was young when I saw it and never forgot it: the lesson on HOW WE FORGET until it’s almost too late those moments. 

Oh my.

Are future episode titles spoilers?  I honestly don't know.  Just in case? Under this spoiler tag is just an episode title, no details.

Spoiler

S02E08 is called Women’s Work and will air on 6 June 2018.

[stephinmn]

I wonder if that means she will give birth during that episode?

[SourK]

On the torture porn front: me too. After watching the first two episodes I felt sad, scared, and unsafe and I started to question whether there's a good reason why it's necessary for the show to do some of the stuff it's doing. As others have said, the hanging scene didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, didn't completely fit into the philosophy espoused by Gilead (obviously they won't mass murder their handmaids, come on), and also could have been deleted from the episode entirely without losing anything. I honestly think it would have been fine to start at the part where they're holding rocks. It's more directly related to their "crime," it's a plausibly cruel thing these people would do, and it didn't linger forever while a Kate Bush song played.

I haven't made up my mind about whether I think it's worth it to keep watching, but I feel like, in the absence of giving us some kind of suggestion about what we might do to PREVENT the future from ending up this way, it's just a bummer to watch people get tortured all the time.

(On top of that, I'm also one of the LGBT people who sat there saying, "Shit, is this literally my future?" and that sucked.)

On 4/26/2018 at 6:28 PM, oldCJ said:

 It isn’t like anyone knows whether who actually go to the colonies or not since no one comes back. And why did they send Jeanine instead of making the handmaids stone her to prove that they had the power to make them after the torture?

I wondered about that, too. At the end of season one, it seemed like Aunt Lydia caved to their defiance because she actually didn't want Janine to get killed. Now she's saying it would have been better that way so... why not kill her anyway and then still punish everyone? Or, as you say, why not torture them until they agree to kill Janine themselves? I'm not saying I want either of those things, but their choices seem weird, given who they are, and what we've seen them do.

On 4/30/2018 at 9:18 PM, marinw said:

I didn’t quite understand the airport scene, horrible as it was. If Gilead hates Lesbians so much, why not make it easy for them to leave the country?

Not that logic has anything to do with it.

Because they don't hate lesbians. They f--ing love lesbians because it gives them somebody to feel superior to and because it means they get to punish all the unbelievers who don't live according to the strict set of rules they've imposed on themselves. There's no scenario where Gilead wanted everyone who didn't agree with them to leave the country. Then they wouldn't have anyone to boss around. They needed to keep people there if they could.

[Ceindreadh]

19 hours ago, SourK said:

On the torture porn front: me too. After watching the first two episodes I felt sad, scared, and unsafe and I started to question whether there's a good reason why it's necessary for the show to do some of the stuff it's doing. As others have said, the hanging scene didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, didn't completely fit into the philosophy espoused by Gilead (obviously they won't mass murder their handmaids, come on), and also could have been deleted from the episode entirely without losing anything. I honestly think it would have been fine to start at the part where they're holding rocks. It's more directly related to their "crime," it's a plausibly cruel thing these people would do, and it didn't linger forever while a Kate Bush song played.

 

When this ep aired, for some reason my DVR only started recording from the scene with the rocks (I think they changed the schedule but it hadn't updated on my set top box) and I didn't realise that it had missed so much until it went to a commercial break about 5 minutes later (which is waaaay sooner than they'd normally put one). 

When I finally did get to see the first act it didn't really have as much of an impact because I knew it had to be a fake out.  But yes, starting from the holding rocks in the rain scene wasn't all that implausible.

[Pepper the Cat]

Interesting. 

Prosfessional/Prehandmadian Emily wears glasses

But Handmadin/colony Emily manages fine without glasses.m

[chocolatine]

43 minutes ago, Pepper the Cat said:

Interesting. 

Prosfessional/Prehandmadian Emily wears glasses

But Handmadin/colony Emily manages fine without glasses.m

I can't speak for Emily, but I only need my glasses for reading, writing, working, and driving. Women in Gilead aren't allowed to do any of those things.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Inside the episode S2.E1:

 

Inside the episode S2.E2:

[Miles]

On 3.5.2018 at 5:34 PM, shelley1234 said:

I don't care how much I am pretty pretty pretty sure that they are not going to go through with it because they NEED me....if someone brings me up to a gallows and puts a noose around my neck, I'm gonna freak the fuck out.   Sorry, not sorry.  

I mean you can freak out as much as you like, no need to apologise. I just think these women would be more jaded than that by now. They've seen all of Gilleads manipulation tactics, lived through torture and know that they will be harmed, maybe even severely, but they will never be killed. In fact the regime will do anything in their power to keep them from killing themselves.

So I didn't buy it and I didn't buy that they bought it. Had they been lead to some kind of torture chamber, I would have freaked out and I think they should have freaked out. This death threat fell flat for me. *shrugs*

[BradandJanet]

5 minutes ago, Miles said:

I mean you can freak out as much as you like, no need to apologise. I just think these women would be more jaded than that by now. They've seen all of Gilleads manipulation tactics, lived through torture and know that they will be harmed, maybe even severely, but they will never be killed. In fact the regime will do anything in their power to keep them from killing themselves.

So I didn't buy it and I didn't buy that they bought it. Had they been lead to some kind of torture chamber, I would have freaked out and I think they should have freaked out. This death threat fell flat for me. *shrugs*

Of course, they didn't actually expect Gilead either, so life is uncertain. Maybe the regime found a new supply of handmaids or decided some of these women were no longer worth the trouble or needed to be sacrificed as an example.  Gilead, for all its surface order, is a place of chaos and constant terror for the people who live there. 

[bijoux]

Just prior to this these women were supposed to stone Janine to death. That was no fake out. And Janine has proven she has a working reproductive system, plus she's supposed to be extra fertile right now. I don't find it implausible that the handmaids would expect to be offed. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had executed one of them as warning, but who's going to bet on the fact it's not going to be the floor under their feet that will drop? Gilead isn't based on rules, it's based on intimidation anf subjugation. 

[Miles]

Janine is one handmaid, who proofed multiple, multiple times, that she is more trouble than she's worth. These were all the handmaids form the Boston area and it was one act of disobedience.

But like I said, ymmv.

I just think a torture room would have been more effective in scaring the audience and more realistic in scaring the handmaids. I guess then the writers couldn't have had the elaborate torture porn later, if they had played that card too early, but would that reall have been a bad thing?

[Umbelina]

The Inside the episodes for both episodes.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Umbelina

[ElectricBoogaloo]

1 hour ago, Umbelina said:

The Inside the episodes for both episodes.

FYI - I already posted both of these a few posts above yours :)

[Umbelina]

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

FYI - I already posted both of these a few posts above yours :)

Sorry!  I have this set to read the last post, but somehow it skipped over those, or maybe I forgot they were there when I posted the latest one.  Duh.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Umbelina

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Just now, Umbelina said:

Sorry!  I have this set to read the last post, but somehow it skipped over those.

No worries! I have my settings the same way but I've noticed that sometimes it jumps above or below where it should. At least when it jumps further up, I recognize that I've already it and scroll down a post or two, but there's really no way to know when it jumps further down than it should.

[Clanstarling]

On 4/24/2018 at 11:18 PM, chocolatine said:

Some of the flashback scenes felt uncomfortably like real life: a woman being called Mrs. Husband's Name when she has clearly stated that she goes by her own name, female STEM students being mansplained to, invasive questioning by ICE agents (I'm an immigrant so I've had quite a bit of experience with the latter).

 

And as a woman, and as a woman in tech, I've had quite a bit of experience with the former two. I withstood the pressure to change my name to my husband's when it was the in-laws, and random people (and the pediatrician's nurse) but then when our oldest daughter really wanted us all to have the same name, I caved. Ultimately, I was happy to get rid of my maiden name, but that is a different, unrelated, story.
 

On 4/25/2018 at 6:43 PM, secnarf said:

Who did Emily barter with to get the Tylenol, alcohol and poison? I probably would have wanted the poison for myself if I was in the colonies too. All of Emily's scenes just killed me, especially the flashbacks. I wish we had seen a bit of her home life, like we did with June's. I hope this isn't the last we see of Clea DuVall. The scene of them saying goodbye and knowing they probably wouldn't see each other ever again was heartbreaking.

That scene when June and Hannah came home and Luke was standing in front of the TV watching news about the attack in Washington really resonated with me. After 9/11 I came home from school and I remember my parents standing in front of the TV watching the news too - something about them standing, not sitting, always stuck with me. We have chairs/couches there, but they were standing similar to how Luke was.

I can't imagine hiring Clea DuVall and then not giving her a speaking part at some point. Then again, I wouldn't have figured Marisa Tomei for a one and done.

And yes, I remember standing too. Except when I got on the computer to cancel the business travel plans I had the next day. (turned out to be a moot point, of course).

On 4/26/2018 at 7:24 AM, Baltimore Betty said:

Non of it makes sense.  They somehow have uneducated themselves, dumbed down, forgotten the science behind reproduction, etc...these are the first generation of Handmaids and Lydias so they remember what life was like before.

 

Sounds like my news feed, which is pretty frightening, actually.

On 4/26/2018 at 8:55 PM, Scarlett45 said:

Since Emily is the biological mother of Oliver, I’m surprised they let HIM leave the country. I figured they would claim him as a property of Gilead (like they did Hannah). I always thought her wife was the bio-Mom and that’s why she was able to escape with him as two Canadian citizens.

Did anyone else have that impression?

 

I did wonder about that - I was trying to parse what the right answer would have been - what they were trying to get at.

On 4/27/2018 at 6:20 AM, Lady Calypso said:

I was so fine with Emily poisoning the Wife, if only to see those smiles on the other women's faces when it happened. It was almost satisfying, even if it didn't make a difference in the long run

Cleaning up radioactive fields isn't giving them much of a long run, so I found it fairly satisfying

On 4/29/2018 at 12:47 PM, Umbelina said:

Those ICE scenes were probably the most chilling scenes of all for me, because we are already watching it happen in real life.  Well done show.

When I read the book way back when (I haven't re-read it), I was horrified, but comfortably certain this sort of thing would never happen. It is far more chilling in current context than it was for me then, and this season in particular, I think, is showing us just how close to reality it can be.

On 4/29/2018 at 12:56 PM, nodorothyparker said:

The scenes of her with Nick were shot the way you more often see male characters "possessing" women onscreen.  SHE was doing this, right down to insisting he try to go again when he said he didn't think he could.

Yes - she's totally in charge of her body and desires, and completely dominating Nick. It took me a bit to see those scenes in that light.

On 4/29/2018 at 3:44 PM, AllyB said:

I assume that the aunts were the type of women who made up Serena's fan base in the pre-Gilead days. Religiously brainwashed women. Women who campaign against abortion and contraception. Women who are venomously homophobic. Women, usually childless, who don't want mothers to choose whether they work outside of the home or not. Women who look down on and resent single mothers (though they'll claim to love both until they talk them out of abortion). Women who think that women who enjoy sex are whores. Serena's book seemed to be part of a social movement that she grew as part of the plan to create Gilead. So when it came down to choosing the Aunts, they already had a long list of names ready to go.

Yes, this is what I think too.

On 4/30/2018 at 9:48 PM, Brn2bwild said:

It struck me that The Handmaid's Tale and Children of Men could exist in the same universe.

Nice.

On 4/30/2018 at 9:56 PM, Emily Thrace said:

The barking German Shepherds were a nice touch to reinforce the Holocaust imagery in the intro. I also liked the use of Fenway park I suspect actual hangings are probably what passes as entertainment in Gilead. I wonder if the actual site used for the shoot was Christie Pitts(it was too small to be the Blue Jays stadium). It would be a twisted irony if it was since it was the site of of a fascist riot in 1933.

Given all the Holocaust imagery used in the first half I half expected Emily's colony to have 3 tiered wooden bunks and gray striped uniforms. As some who grew up in Canadian farm country it was actually a little disturbing how familar it was. I agree with others though that Emily's story is almost more interesting than June's right now. I have a feeling we are not just following her to just watch her die or at least not to see her go down without a fight.

To me, the imagery in Fenway was a call back to more recent events - the Taliban's execution of people in soccer stadiums. I'm not saying the Holocaust imagery isn't there - I think it's there too, but the Taliban was the first thing I thought of.

On 5/3/2018 at 8:40 PM, SourK said:

(On top of that, I'm also one of the LGBT people who sat there saying, "Shit, is this literally my future?" and that sucked.)

I'm a mother of two LGBT women, so that is there for me too. But also, just as a woman in general.

On 5/4/2018 at 9:02 PM, chocolatine said:

I can't speak for Emily, but I only need my glasses for reading, writing, working, and driving. Women in Gilead aren't allowed to do any of those things.

I need mine to see. Anything. (well, actually, I can read just fine w/o my glasses, oddly enough).

As for the "execution" scene. I did not think they'd kill all of the Handmaidens, but I did think there was a chance that they'd kill one platform's worth.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Clanstarling

[llewis823]

On 4/25/2018 at 9:05 AM, mamadrama said:

She's giving such a nuanced performance, too. As Rory I thought she always came off as very wooden. Her high-pitched baby voice was kind of monotone, too-it didn't change for mood. Here, though, she's great!

I thought the same thing. As much as I loved GG, I never thought Alexis Bledel was a good actress - until now that is.

[Beatriceblake]

Just to respond to one idea in this thread: mock executions are a form of torture in themselves. And I agree with everyone else, they could very easily have to chosen to execute one in ten or a couple of the handmaids at random as a warning. It's not as Gilead never chooses to sentence fertile women to death, since both Emily and Janine are sent to the Colonies even though both are fertile.

I found the Emily stuff more compelling in this pair of episodes than a lot of the June stuff. Her scenes at the airport with her family were gut wrenching. Also it's telling that so many of the more sympathetic characters do not realise how bad things have become. June and Luke are still considering trying for a second child and Emily doesn't realise how far the people in power are going to go. She thinks she's still dealing with subtle discrimination rather than an existential threat. I guess the show's point is that if we get complacent one can morph into the other very quickly.

I thought Emily's cold-blooded murder of the wife was a very powerful commentary on how brutality breeds brutality. She's been through so much it's almost impossible to condemn her for taking the only small revenge available. She's just playing by Gilead's rules.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Beatriceblake

[LeGrandElephant]

I’m only watching this now, but here are my thoughts as I’m watching... (I wish they’d keep the threads separate even when the first episodes air together; now I can’t read this thread till I watch both first episodes). 

 

I knew the whole time that the whole scaffold thing was just to scare them - and I wonder if some of them will realize this means they’re too valuable of kill if they rebel en masse. The music playing over it bugged me. 

 

I thought June would get out of the whole punishment thing much sooner on grounds of being pregnant, since Serena and the Commander knew (and Nick too?) and that kind of stress is a good way to cause a miscarriage. What kind of operation are they running here? Well, we already knew it wasn’t a remotely rational one. And why did Nick say “trust me”? Is it that he knew they weren’t going to kill them? But they are still being tortured and maimed. (I wonder if they hadn’t decided last season where exactly she was going in that van - I was hoping Canada). 

 

We saw last season that when June gave birth to Hannah, the maternity world was totally empty and someone immediately tried to steal the baby - that was some pretty dramatic societal infertility (which I think was a mistake, narratively,  to take it quite that far, but whatever, they already did it). Given how incredibly unusual it was to have a baby at that point, it seems weird that June would be taking birth control pills that long after having Hannah. I know they wanted to make a point about Luke having to sign off on it, but couldn’t that scene have taken place further in the past when she was younger?

 

Ugh, the hand burning was a bit much - I don’t want to watch torture porn. And again, don’t they know that stress impacts fertility? Are they trying to make them all infertile and suicidal? There are so many better ways to have surrogacy slaves, logically. At least with Janine’s eye it was one as an example to the others, but now they’re going to burn off everyone’s hands? And I know Aunt Lydia engineered that to make all the other handmaids hate June, but also June didn’t have to take a bite right then. 

 

Ok, I see Nick was in on some kind of escape. He’s lucky she didn’t have a miscarriage from the stress before he showed up, though. And why didn’t she ask him to help her cut off the ear thing? At least he’d be able to see what he’s doing, and maybe minimize bleeding all over the place, which doesn’t exactly help with laying low and escaping. 

 

I do like the theme of her keeping her maiden name, and people making an issue of that. My mom kept her maiden name and people used to ask me if my parents weren’t really married, or if it wasn’t weird and confusing, etc. No, it was never an issue, and I would do the same. 

 

The second episode was, surprisingly, kind of boring. Lots of long slow scenes mostly in the dark with very little happening and hard to see what was on the screen. I don’t usually multitask during this show but I found myself browsing the web during some parts. 

 

I find it hard to identify with June wanting to have sex in any of these situations - how many people were doing it while on the run from the Nazis? But fiction tells me that sex is life affirming in these horrible situations and maybe it really is, I wouldn’t know. Or, cynically, having sex with Nick might make him more likely to go out on a limb for her. She’s largely at his mercy, he has all the power and she has none. 

 

Who is the Wife who got sent to the colonies, are we supposed to know her? Was she still wearing the dark blue Wife outfit? I didn’t notice until the very end when she was on the cross thing. Interesting that she was still spouting True Believer phrases.

[LeGrandElephant]

The flashbacks were the best part. It still seems like a big jump from something so close to us to where they are now, but I guess the point is that it has happened and it can happen here. Chilling having it explicitly set in Boston. 

On 4/25/2018 at 11:02 PM, Bnwcat said:

Did I miss a scene where June says how she feels about her pregnancy?  I was taken aback when Nick said something about “our baby.” Like, I was kind of assuming when she got to Canada that pregnancy would be terminated. 

I wouldn’t think that just because babies are apparently so rare and precious now, but I would think she’d view it as HER baby, not Nick’s. I don’t see her wanting to stay with Nick if they got to Canada, even if Luke was dead. 

It doesn’t make sense to shoot Nick, she needs him on a practical level. And his politics are unclear. But that’s different than being in love with him. 

Edited May 31, 2018 by LeGrandElephant

[LeGrandElephant]

Interesting that Gilead still respects Canada enough to let Emily’s wife and child go just because they had Canadian passports. Otherwise that’s another baby to give to a high ranking couple. 

[LeGrandElephant]

On 4/26/2018 at 11:30 AM, SiobhanJW said:

When I saw the shoe lying on the floor in the office- I realized immediately that they probably just rounded them all up and killed them without a second thought because they were the Free Press. My friend whom I was watching with at first thought June saw bodies/bones etc. when she first went downstairs. I thought showing of the Nooses & Bullet Holes with Blood was more impactful to the audience- at least it was to me. I think showing all the dead bodies would of been too gratuitous but seeing the aftermath years later and the things they left behind gave it more weight I thought. 

I can tell I’m going to have to watch on a better screen - I could barely see any of this. All the scenes were so dark, even though I turned up the brightness all the way. It sounds like I missed some powerful details, so I shouldn’t have called the scenes too slow. But they need to remember not everyone has a big new TV when they’re lighting the scenes. 

On 4/26/2018 at 7:51 PM, AllyB said:

The original story was that the fertility crises was real but not in any danger of ending the species. (It was also heavily implied that the problem lay more with male fertility than female.) But Gilead made people fear that possibility and used that fear to cement control. Less babies just increases the fear because people, like Lydia, aren't in a position to object that it makes no sense. So they go along following the rules and celebrate the handful of babies that comes out of the nonsense they can't acknowledge. But unfortunately the series writers screwed this up by having the Mexican ambassador essentially tell us that Gilead's baby production methods are so significantly better than anything they can produce with what we can naturally assume is the implementation of scientific knowledge. Mexico, with access to fertility drugs, IVF, IUI, treatment for endometriosis, sperm dna fragmentation, etc still can't produce live births and they are envious of Gilead's handful of children. It was a terrible mis-step in plotting all to service a stupid twist that the female ambassador was willing to trade in Handmaids but her male aide was actually a resistance agent in contact with Luke.

Yes, this was a big mistake. 

[LBS]

26 minutes ago, LeGrandElephant said:

can tell I’m going to have to watch on a better screen - I could barely see any of this. All the scenes were so dark, even though I turned up the brightness all the way. It sounds like I missed some powerful details, so I shouldn’t have called the scenes too slow. But they need to remember not everyone has a big new TV when they’re lighting the scenes. 

We have a new big screen and it still is too dark!

[Umbelina]

My trick is to watch the show in total darkness, no lights on anywhere in the house, and I certainly can't watch it until long after the sun has set.

That, and closed captioning are saving me.

[bijoux]

12 hours ago, LeGrandElephant said:

Interesting that Gilead still respects Canada enough to let Emily’s wife and child go just because they had Canadian passports. Otherwise that’s another baby to give to a high ranking couple. 

That was the very early days, before Gilead was even official. They were letting all foreign citizens leave the country, not just Canadians. 

[LeGrandElephant]

13 hours ago, Umbelina said:

My trick is to watch the show in total darkness, no lights on anywhere in the house, and I certainly can't watch it until long after the sun has set.

That, and closed captioning are saving me.

I guess that would work but I prefer watching it in the daytime, psychologically. I always use closed captions but it doesn’t help with things that are purely visual, like the wall at the Globe - I saw nooses but I didn’t see boood or bullet holes, I read that here afterwards. 

I just looked up the Boston Globe on google maps - is she in the heart of downtown Boston? I thought she was somewhere a bit more isolated and industrial?

[Umbelina]

8 hours ago, LeGrandElephant said:

I guess that would work but I prefer watching it in the daytime, psychologically. I always use closed captions but it doesn’t help with things that are purely visual, like the wall at the Globe - I saw nooses but I didn’t see boood or bullet holes, I read that here afterwards. 

I just looked up the Boston Globe on google maps - is she in the heart of downtown Boston? I thought she was somewhere a bit more isolated and industrial?

I can't see the show in daytime, or at least not many of the scenes.  All I see is my wall of books reflected in the shadows.

[kathe5133]

10 hours ago, LeGrandElephant said:

 

I just looked up the Boston Globe on google maps - is she in the heart of downtown Boston? I thought she was somewhere a bit more isolated and industrial?

I'm from Boston.  The Boston Globe recently, like this year, moved to downtown Boston.  Previously their main offices were in Dorchester, which is a Boston neighborhood.  It's not rural, but off of a main roadway in an area where there are mostly stip mall like structures.  From what they showed on the show, I could believe they were in the Globe's old offices on Morrissey Blvd.  Actually the Boston Globe did a feature about this show and many of the Globe reporters commented that it was uncanny how the production recreated the Globe's old offices even though they never actually saw them!

That Globe article is why I started watching the show.  I never read the book, had no interest in the movie and I thought I didn't want to see this show either.  I binge watched last weekend, thinking season two was already complete and up on Hulu.  Finished "First Blood" and eagerly clicked on "After".  " Noooooooo.  I have to wait til midnight on Wednesday!!!!!"  I was bereft!  I find it fascinating!

[LeGrandElephant]

13 hours ago, kathe5133 said:

I'm from Boston.  The Boston Globe recently, like this year, moved to downtown Boston.  Previously their main offices were in Dorchester, which is a Boston neighborhood.  It's not rural, but off of a main roadway in an area where there are mostly stip mall like structures.  From what they showed on the show, I could believe they were in the Globe's old offices on Morrissey Blvd.  Actually the Boston Globe did a feature about this show and many of the Globe reporters commented that it was uncanny how the production recreated the Globe's old offices even though they never actually saw them!

That Globe article is why I started watching the show.  I never read the book, had no interest in the movie and I thought I didn't want to see this show either.  I binge watched last weekend, thinking season two was already complete and up on Hulu.  Finished "First Blood" and eagerly clicked on "After".  " Noooooooo.  I have to wait til midnight on Wednesday!!!!!"  I was bereft!  I find it fascinating!

Ah thanks , that makes more sense. 

[BARISTA]

Bit late to the party but the following thoughts struck me and even angered me in the context of June being on the run and knowing the severity of the consequences were she to get caught AND knowing there were search parties scouring the whole place for her:

Why would she light her clothes on fire, thereby creating smoke in the stove which may or may not have gone up a chimney and attracted attention ? 

Why would she turn on the lights anywhere in the Boston Globe offices, again what a risk. Her hide outs are meant to be abandoned facilities, surely any activity around them would arouse suspicion from an observant passer-by

Why did she not even attempt to hide in either truck? There were boxes and items strewn around the truck which she could have at least attempted to hide behind just in case the truck was stopped by the police.

Why would she openly wander around any of these buildings? There is no question but that she realises people are looking everywhere for her, so the building is at some risk of being searched. I would have maybe initially scoured it for the best possible hiding spot in the event of it being raided, and I would not have budged til someone came to get me. 

I think this has already been mentioned here, but wouldn't all members of the Commander's household be interrogated and closely monitored after June's escape? Add to that the fact that, as far as I recall, Serena knew about June and Nick, so wouldn't Nick be a top suspect? I couldn't imagine how he would get away with being gone for so long and to out of the way places without a) his absence being noted or b) the car being tracked. How will he explain himself when he gets back? And when he was willing to give his gun to June, how would he have explained that?! 

Where did Emily get those pills and the alcohol in the colonies? And what they are doing there with the soil doesn't make a whole load of sense

PS. I do get that this is a fictional tv show and all that that allows for, these are just my general observations on these 2 episodes and perhaps some might even be explained as I continue watching. 

Also, not being American, I am perplexed at how people on here are comparing aspects of this show to modern day America ? Extreme, no ?! :/

[Clanstarling]

1 hour ago, BARISTA said:

Also, not being American, I am perplexed at how people on here are comparing aspects of this show to modern day America ? Extreme, no ?! :/

Speaking just for myself (and not all Americans), no - not so extreme. The seeds that led up to the Handmaid's Tale universe are present in our reality at an alarmingly increasing rate. I don't know that I think it will go that far, but is more of a possibility (in my mind) than it was when I read the book originally.

Also, being the child of an immigrant whose country was absorbed (willingly for some) by Nazi's, and who survived bombings and famine, among other terrible things, I'm well aware of how normal, civilized nations can swiftly turn into nightmares.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Clanstarling

[secnarf]

9 hours ago, BARISTA said:

Why would she turn on the lights anywhere in the Boston Globe offices, again what a risk. Her hide outs are meant to be abandoned facilities, surely any activity around them would arouse suspicion from an observant passer-by

Why would these abandoned buildings have electricity in the first place?

Either not abandoned - in which case, potentially more dangerous - or internal inconsistencies in the story. Funny given how much we all complain how dark the show is visually, that when they turn on the lights it is illogical and jarring.

[Umbelina]

She only turned on the lights in the sub basement.  As for why it still had power?  Gilead's a mess, nothing is run well, including probably the electricity system.

9 hours ago, BARISTA said:

Where did Emily get those pills and the alcohol in the colonies? And what they are doing there with the soil doesn't make a whole load of sense

Who knows?  There is always a black market in Gulag situations.  What they are doing with the soil actually happened in real life in Japan.  The link is upthread. 

9 hours ago, BARISTA said:

I think this has already been mentioned here, but wouldn't all members of the Commander's household be interrogated and closely monitored after June's escape? Add to that the fact that, as far as I recall, Serena knew about June and Nick, so wouldn't Nick be a top suspect? I couldn't imagine how he would get away with being gone for so long and to out of the way places without a) his absence being noted or b) the car being tracked. How will he explain himself when he gets back? And when he was willing to give his gun to June, how would he have explained that?! 

They may have been.  We were with June then.

Serena couldn't tell them about Nick, not without risking her own life.

Nick's an eye, and apparently can come and go more freely than most.  We also saw him meeting with that Eye commander.  Fred would not make waves, he's already on shaky ground.  As for the car, I doubt they would still have GPS available, everything there is barely working.  The gun?  Again, I don't really care, because June gave it back to him right away.  Nick could probably get his hands on another, he's in the black market.

[BARISTA]

7 hours ago, Umbelina said:

8 hours ago, Umbelina said:

She only turned on the lights in the sub basement.  As for why it still had power?  Gilead's a mess, nothing is run well, including probably the electricity system.

Serena couldn't tell them about Nick, not without risking her own life.

  As for the car, I doubt they would still have GPS available, everything there is barely working.  

 

She also ran to the entrance door when she heard someone approaching, that could have been anyone. Who knows how anyone would have acted in that situation, but the amount of silly risks irritated me while watching it. 

Serena wouldn't have to tell anyone about Nick and June per se, what she could have done in the aftermath of June's disappearance is subtly pointed a finger towards Nick and cast suspicion on him for aiding June's escape. They must have suspected that she had help from someone within the household. Nick's mysterious disappearances thereafter, coupled with him stealing extra food from the house would have fueled any initial suspicion. 

As for the GPS tracking, was that not the point of June cutting out that section of her ear? To cut out the tracking device they had implanted in her ? Or was that merely an identification tag if found?

[kathe5133]

Re June turning the lights on.....  The real, old Boston Globe building had these huge windows in the front of the building.  The printing presses were there and in the olden days you could observe from outside as the printing presses ran.  You could watch the papers being generated from outside as it happened.  It was a design feature of the building.  Had June turned on the lights in that part of the building, she would have been illuminated to any passing traffic.  That was my stress.  That she would turn on the lights and there'd she be!  But, I too find the lighting very dark.  I watch on an iPad and I never realized just how dirty my screen was until I started watching this!  So my fear of her being caught was tempered with my desire to actually see something other than my fingerprints and the spot where the salad dressing must have dripped!

[AnswersWanted]

4 hours ago, BARISTA said:

As for the GPS tracking, was that not the point of June cutting out that section of her ear? To cut out the tracking device they had implanted in her ? Or was that merely an identification tag if found?

 

 

Unless they are pretty shitty trackers, the ear tags are used merely as handmaid property markers.

No woman could remove one without multilating herself, as we saw with June, and only handmaids get tagged so it would it very easy to determine if a woman was a wife or aunt or econo wife or Martha or was she, in fact, a handmaid in disguise and on the run. 

 I don’t think there’s any way a GPS tracker was ever involved with the tags, just because of how they seem so unable to actually track the girls when it seems to matter most.

If they were tracking their movements June should never have made it out of that hospital to start with, or last season when Janine made it to the bridge to nearly commit suicide, they should’ve seen these girls moving long before they ever got to their desired locations. 

Not to mention all of last season June kept sneaking out to Nick‘s room and I don’t think that would’ve been possible if she had been watched. 

[Beatriceblake]

On 01/06/2018 at 12:21 AM, LeGrandElephant said:

Interesting that Gilead still respects Canada enough to let Emily’s wife and child go just because they had Canadian passports. Otherwise that’s another baby to give to a high ranking couple. 

I got the impression they didn't want to cause any international incidents at that stage.

Quote

The printing presses were there and in the olden days you could observe from outside as the printing presses ran.  You could watch the papers being generated from outside as it happened.  It was a design feature of the building.  Had June turned on the lights in that part of the building, she would have been illuminated to any passing traffic.  That was my stress.  That she would turn on the lights and there'd she be!  But, I too find the lighting very dark.  I watch on an iPad and I never realized just how dirty my screen was until I started watching this!  So my fear of her being caught was tempered with my desire to actually see something other than my fingerprints and the spot where the salad dressing must have dripped!

Yeah I was surprised to see June using the power at the Globe, you would think that would be both conspicuous and traceable.

[TimetravellingBW]

Just finished s1 and the book, and working my way through s2. I'm with everyone on the "torture porn." I didn't mind the hanging fakeout too much. (Yes logically we know they're not going to kill that many Handmaids, but the Handmaid's terror in-universe sold it for me and they can't know for sure what this regime will do to them next). And the rock punishment seemed suiting. But I lost it when they started burning Alma's hand. At that point it felt like shock value. 

Also - were they going to do that to all the Handmaids? Or just Alma as a warning or maybe because they knew she was June's friend? 

On 6/3/2018 at 11:00 PM, BARISTA said:

She also ran to the entrance door when she heard someone approaching, that could have been anyone. Who knows how anyone would have acted in that situation, but the amount of silly risks irritated me while watching it. 

Ugh, June in the Boston Globe drove me crazy. Scraping that hammer around, turning on the lights, wandering around by the windows etc. A chilling and realistic part about last season was the constant tension in every scene and how unbelievably cautious everyone had to be. (At least most of the time).  Hope they don't lose that now. 

I was also confused at the choice to go through the Handmaid's punishments, take June back to the Waterfords and then have her escape. We now know that Nick was engineering her rescue, but it wasn't anything to do with her being taken at the end of s1 - that was all the Guardians and Aunt Lydia. His escape plan was after she got back. So how could Nick assure June that she was going to be ok at the end of last season? Did he mean that's 'it ok you're only going to be horrifically tortured?' Was he the one who got news to Aunt Lydia that she was pregnant, which then "saved" her? It would have made more sense for her escape to have happened before going back to the Waterfords. 

The second episode was miles better - imo, one of the best episodes in the whole show.

Edited June 9, 2018 by TimetravellingBW

[kathe5133]

On 6/3/2018 at 8:34 AM, kathe5133 said:

Re June turning the lights on.....  The real, old Boston Globe building had these huge windows in the front of the building.  The printing presses were there and in the olden days you could observe from outside as the printing presses ran.  You could watch the papers being generated from outside as it happened.  It was a design feature of the building.  Had June turned on the lights in that part of the building, she would have been illuminated to any passing traffic.  That was my stress.  That she would turn on the lights and there'd she be!  But, I too find the lighting very dark.  I watch on an iPad and I never realized just how dirty my screen was until I started watching this!  So my fear of her being caught was tempered with my desire to actually see something other than my fingerprints and the spot where the salad dressing must have dripped!

Spoiler

 

Sorry for the blank Spoiler!  What I was trying to do is upload a photo of the old Boston Globe building where June was supposed to be hiding.  Note the large windows per my above post.  Thought some would like the outside view.

[Ashforth]

On 4/27/2018 at 2:49 PM, Lemons said:

The airport incident immediately made me wonder what I would do. Should she answer in the affirmative to "prove" her biological tie to her child (as @Scarlett45 said) or would I have an inkling that they might force me to stay and bear children for Gilead and then lie?

in another connection to real life, I cite the recent incident in which Southwest Airlines asked a mother to produce proof that she is the biological mother of her mixed-race child.

[LillyB]

I had just finished watching episode 2 annd then the Annapolis killing the reporters happened. I am getting scared.

[Clanstarling]

11 minutes ago, LillyB said:

I had just finished watching episode 2 annd then the Annapolis killing the reporters happened. I am getting scared.

That's definitely frightening timing!

I'm certainly very worried these days. But my understanding is that the Annapolis shootings were motivated by a personal grudge held long before the current climate- if that brings any comfort at all. Though I haven't thoroughly researched it, so I could be wrong.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Clanstarling

[LillyB]

We are also taking children from their mothers at the border, too. I watched one of the rallies yesterday and one mother was told that she would never see her son again; that he would be adopted.

[Baltimore Betty]

1 hour ago, LillyB said:

I had just finished watching episode 2 annd then the Annapolis killing the reporters happened. I am getting scared.

Once again there is senseless violence in real life, (it is 45 minutes away from me) and we are "entertained" for lack of a better word by violence  on HMT.  It's gets a little too much for me but I will turn off the news before I turn off HMT.   

[Hanahope]

For all the focus on fertile women and needing babies, it certainly does appear that Gilead doesn't care that much if the fertile woman is too much of a pain in the ass.  Considering the ways they really could keep the fertile women around, impregnate them, and control them while pregnant, how Gilead is treating Janine and Emily, two women proven fertile, makes no sense.

Similarly, it is also a bit amazing that no one was left to watch over June in the doctor's office.  Yes, SJ probably felt some security in threatening June's child, but would SJ really have the ability to do something to Hannah?  Even the wives have little ability to do much of anything.  I was almost surprised that Warren's wife was able to give input as to the punishment of her husband, when you know that most of the husbands break the rules too.  I totally believe that if Warren's indiscretion did not become public knowledge, nothing would have happened to him.

I wish we knew what that one wife did that caused her to be sentenced to the colonies.  And after what they did to the handmaids after defying the law, I'm a bit fearful for Emily and her crew.  If Gilead doesn't care that much about fertile women, why would they care about a bunch of unwomen?

And are we to assume that men either followed Gilead's laws (or pretended to) or were shot/hung?  No "unmen" cleaning up toxic waste?  I do hope we see some of the life of "ordinary" Gilead citizens, those that aren't commanders or working for them as guards and such.  Were children and women taken away from other men?  

[secnarf]

4 hours ago, Hanahope said:

I wish we knew what that one wife did that caused her to be sentenced to the colonies. 

Didn't she have an affair?

[Umbelina]

On 9/6/2018 at 4:11 PM, secnarf said:

Didn't she have an affair?

Yes.

[Violetgoblin6]

When Kate Bush's This Woman's Work came on, I lost it. 

I was expecting TPTB would play it for the season one episode, A Woman's Place (I kept think the episode was "A Woman's Work") so to hear it for June was shattering to me.

That song killed my heart when I was 14 and watched She's Having a Baby (1988). Now...it was so much worse. To see them walk into a deserted and terrifying Fenway and to see the nooses against the night sky. I almost had to turn it off.

I'm watching the series now for the first time. I'm reading each and every thread as I go along, in its entirety. I'm mostly staying mum as you all have such brilliant commentary. I couldn't possibly add much more. But I had to let it out...it was horrific.

 

I'm shocked how much I missed:

The probing regarding children, asking the women while the commanders were slithering into government.

The wife getting off the bus at the colonies

The bloody shoe

Among others. It was so dark, honestly. I need to rewatch on my tablet or a better tv. 

 

And the second episode? I could barely see it. So dark. But I knew that was Marisa Tomei! My favorite! 

Edited November 17, 2018 by Violetgoblin6

[Violetgoblin6]

On 4/27/2018 at 11:51 PM, AdebisiLives said:

Until a new thread is made, I'll just go ahead and say that I do not like Luke (the actor isn't helping either). He's quite dull & doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities... & superficially I don't even find him attractive.

I find Nick's character more sympathetic on the show than in the book... & he's definitely hot, although boyish.

Nick looks like my husband, so yes, he's very hot! Lol. Agree about Luke, he does nothing for me in any way. 

Edited November 17, 2018 by Violetgoblin6

[angora]

I'm not at all surprised that Emily confirmed being her son's biological mother at the airport.  There's a long history of LGBTQ families not being viewed as legitimate, and she and her wife had just been told that their marriage license was no longer valid.  Her thinking had to be, "Prove we're a 'real' family so we can stay together," and based on the experiences she'd had so far, her biggest fear was surely persecution as a lesbian (and thus having her family ties disregarded and severed,) not being kept as a brood mare.