S02.E10: The Last Ceremony

[jennblevins]

We happened to be at our local MLB team’s Pride night a few weeks ago, and Gilead Sciences was one of the attending groups listed on the Jumbotron. I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or alarmed at the coincidence. 

[secnarf]

4 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Yeah, I never thought it had any relation to Atwood's Gilead.  It was just a shock, in the middle of horrifying news stories that parallel this show to see a giant GILEAD pill pop up.

I didn't know that!  Interesting.

Well, Atwood published her book  five years before GILEAD the drug company was founded.

The book is just two years older than the drug company, I think - but I am too young to have read THT when it first came out, so I actually encountered the drug company first!

[LeGrandElephant]

On 7/2/2018 at 3:44 AM, watchTV said:

The most ridiculous scene was June antagonizing Fred that the baby isn't his own. That was after she asks aunt Lydia to protect it. She said if Fred could hurt a woman then he could hurt a child. Why would you then give him a reason to resent it?

Yeah, that was really stupid. 

[Beatriceblake]

A discussion on another forum is making me cranky.

Just because most of the Handmaids have not shown more outward signs of distress when being raped, doesn't make the Ceremony any less of a violent rape. And the scene wasn't gratuitous, it's there to underscore the fact the Ceremony is rape and to show why most of the Handmaids don't attempt to physically fight back (it doesn't make any difference).

Anyway this was a good but super depressing episode. The reunion with Hannah seems more cruel and ill-judged than kind to either of them and it necessitates them going through the trauma of another forced separation.

Eden sobbing away to herself broke my heart as well. Whatever Nick's feelings toward her, I found him unbearably cruel in that scene. She's a 15 year old kid who feels completely unloved and alone and like Hannah, she's been taken away from her family. She mentions her mother in most of her scenes.

[smartymarty]

On 7/22/2018 at 7:14 PM, Beatriceblake said:

The reunion with Hannah seems more cruel and ill-judged than kind to either of them and it necessitates them going through the trauma of another forced separation.

But it allowed June to ask the Martha to look out for Hannah, explain that she and Luke had tried to find her, and basically give some closure to their separation. What I didn't understand was that the guard ripped Hannah and June apart inside the house saying that they must leave, but then stood around during their reunion out in the snow.
 

On 7/22/2018 at 7:14 PM, Beatriceblake said:

She's a 15 year old kid who feels completely unloved and alone and like Hannah, she's been taken away from her family.

What basis does she have for thinking Nick should love her or that she love him? They were paired up by others and forced to marry. That's not love. As for being taken away from her family, she seemed happy about performing this new role. But the new role was not "wife in a loving marriage."

[Ashforth]

3 hours ago, smartymarty said:

What basis does she have for thinking Nick should love her or that she love him? They were paired up by others and forced to marry. That's not love. As for being taken away from her family, she seemed happy about performing this new role. But the new role was not "wife in a loving marriage."

She was taught that it was going to be exactly that. Naive? Yes. But she was do do her wifely duty (through the hole in the sheet, omg) and cook and clean and her husband would love her.