Romilda Vane is unethical but also we get it by Rachel Leishman In an episode that tries to shock but ends up mostly just moving pieces, The Handmaid’s Tale is much more of a quiet ride this week. Everything in Gilead has a ritual on The Handmaid’s Tale. That includes funerals for Handmaids, who are buried in red coffins and have living Handmaids walk and touch the coffins. But it’s Aunt Lydia who speaks beyond the ritual — saying she wants to give them “a world without violence,” as if the very existence of handmaids and Gilead is not violent. In a more literal sense, though, the latest violence has affected Fred, although he hasn’t died. That means Serena’s in charge, as much as Gilead lets a woman be in charge of anything. It doesn’t stop investigators from invading the Waterford home and questioning June about her escape. And it is escape. Commander Cushing hasn’t bought the kidnapping story. This scene seems like it’s supposed to come off as intimidating, but something about it falls flat. Shooting a Martha in the street is new, but even Elisabeth Moss’ acting horrified doesn’t bump it up to the quiet horror that pervades an episode like “First Blood.” At least Serena calls it out as “asinine.” It’s a word that can also apply to Nick kissing June in the corner of the hospital! So is Serena talking smack about Cushing, even if it’s delightful to listen to. Less asinine but definitely wild is Serena asking Nick to help her forge warrants, since it also leads to her getting rid of Cushing as he tries to enter the Waterford house again … and asking June to read the orders and edit them. The payoff for Janine and Emily getting pulled aside in the Colonies takes almost the entire episode. It does, however, result in their becoming Handmaids again. And so, in the fresh market, the Handmaids start telling each other their real names. It spreads from Emily to June to Brianna to Dolores and beyond, and hopeful music swells to close their scene. Up in Canada/Little America, we finally get to spend more time with Luke and Moira (and June, in flashback). Turns out that before everything happened, Moira signed a contract for a quarter of a million dollars to carry someone else’s baby (using her egg). This isn’t the first time that the show has done something to allude to the lowering birthrates. We go through everything with Moira — even down to handing the baby over and forging a connection with the doctor who helped her, Odette — the girlfriend Moira mentions at the start of the episode. All of these flashbacks put a new spin on how Moira then sits and looks through Canada’s records of the dead, since there’s a special section for children. But it’s not baby Gavin we and Moira find; it’s Odette. The hopeful note from the Handmaids doesn’t last long, though, as the names of the dead are read out and Moira puts a photo of her and Odette on the memorial. For not using Little America often, The Handmaid’s Tale still has a good feel on how to use it to provide gut punches now and then. Those scenes and their related flashbacks are the strongest part of “After” as a whole. Don’t let the side thoughts grind you down:<doc-sep>Gilead will never cease to amaze me. At a time I thought the actions of one handmaid in such a public and revered setting would garner the wrath of the Republic as a whole, instead, we saw life anew for some at the colonies and other surprises on The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 Episode 7. Even the death of Commander Pryce didn't mean the end of life as June knew it at the Waterford's. This installment was full of surprising moments allowed the first glimmer of hope for the women of Gilead. It's not much, mind you, but Ofglen's bravery seems to have given the others who reside there at all levels a bit more of the same. With the arrival of someone like Commander Cushing who was willing to get answers without considering the ramifications of his actions, others had to think on his behalf. Related: The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 Episode 6 Review: First Blood Killing the family of a rebel handmaid and making an example out of them (and from the looks of those hanging in their yards, many, many others) was pushing the envelope a little too far for the comfort of other families who may not wish to imagine they, too, might have a rebel in their midst. Serena Joy knew she had one and still wasn't about to let a man like Cushing get his hands on her. Their circle of friends before Gilead was interconnected, and Serena Joy knew of the man and thought ill of him, to put it bluntly. Serena Joy: Praise be. You're alright. June: Yes, I'm fine. Serena Joy: Guardians shooting Marthas in the street, and it's supposed to make us feel safer. It's asinine. Permalink: Guardians shooting Marthas in the street, and it's supposed to make us feel safer. It's... Permalink: Guardians shooting Marthas in the street, and it's supposed to make us feel safer. It's... Fred's absence from the house was giving Serena Joy a sense of purpose again and a feeling of independence she hadn't had most likely since Gilead became a place, a place she unwittingly helped create. I've been trying to think it through, how Serena Joy got suckered into becoming a stand-by-your-man woman when she was once so competent and independent, and I don't think it was in the original charter of Gilead. It couldn't have been. Related: The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 Episode 5 Review: Seeds Living with my aunt (not an Aunt), a woman of the '60s and the original feminist movement, she's appalled that we are just now coming to terms with the #MeToo movement. She can't help but wonder what everyone thought they were doing years ago if not giving women voices to stop what we're only now beginning to say out loud. It's almost as if we live in an alternate universe. For years, we let fear keep us in harm's way being oppressed by men in myriad forms for fear we'd be oppressed or physically harmed. The women of Gilead are in the same boat but treading a lot more water. Serena Joy didn't realize just how much water she was treading until she had some time without the Commander watching over her like a prison guard. First, it was her speech that was laxer, then she began drinking a bit. Serena Joy: Commander Cushing made turned our streets into a war zone. These are drafts of the new security orders. June: From the Commander? Serena Joy: They'll remove the additional checkpoint and start scaling down Guardian presence. It's about time things started getting back to normal around here, don't you think? June: Yes, Mrs. Waterford. Permalink: Yes, Mrs. Waterford. Permalink: Yes, Mrs. Waterford. Serena Joy's use of the word "normal" in that quote seemed to be in neon. Nothing that she had been doing or did from that moment on was normal by the association of her usual behavior in the house in Gilead. My spidey senses picked up that she meant normal by the standards of the former United States of America. Since Nick assured her he knew how to get documents to the appropriate places, Serena Joy started writing up documents. I don't recall her being in Fred's study all that often, but what else did she have to do while he was gone? Related: The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 Episode 4 Review: Other Women Why wouldn't she want to know everything she could about the society she helped to create? She should know as much as possible about it to ensure she can speak at Fred's level if she's not the one who writes a lot of Fred's documents for him. Do we even know what he did before Gilead? Serena Joy: You're an editor; is that right? June: I used to be. Serena Joy: Good. Read over these for me. [long pause] June: I'll need a pen. Permalink: I'll need a pen. Permalink: I'll need a pen. The click of that pen was the perfect Peggy Olson moment. It was THE Peggy Olson moment from Mad Men Season 7. Peggy was normal. In this instance, for the first time, we saw Serena Joy and June acting as normal working women together -- well, as normal as things can get in a Commander's house in Gilead. It never even dawned on me that, once again, Elisabeth Moss is playing an editor. The idea of Serena Joy and June growing closer through intellectual pursuits is better than anything else I could have written. Women working in any kind of job that a man should be doing is strictly forbidden. Them doing it together is something we should relish. The question is how much of what they're doing is Serena Joy sharing with Fred? At first, I thought Nick was behind the warrant to arrest Commander Cushing, but since it was in the name of Commander Waterford, it's apparent that Serena Joy gave herself and Fred the authority to cut the man off at the knees. Will that come back to bite her, or will another, more Waterford friendly Commander take his place? Related: The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 Episode 3 Review: Baggage With all of the mystery surrounding Serena Joy and the waves of loyalty and kindness and back again, this is the storyline to watch as Season 2 draws to a close. That doesn't mean it's the only storyline that was worth watching, as when word of the bombing got to Little America (I didn't realize that's what it was called! ), Moira searched for her fiance in the available death records. We learned why she was chosen as a handmaid, how she met her fiance and that the love of her life was, indeed, gone. That's a terrible way to find your loved one and it's horrible how few people were named in the available records. That was also a theme of the hour, as when the handmaids were buried, they weren't even given the dignity of being done so with their given names. I wish I could give you a world without violence, without pain. That's all I ever wanted. And in your name, dear Lord, we remember them. Ofryan. Ofleo. Ofhal. Ofzed. Ofbill. Ofduncan. Ofcharles... Aunt Lydia Permalink: I wish I could give you a world without violence, without pain. That's all I ever wanted. And... Permalink: I wish I could give you a world without violence, without pain. That's all I ever wanted. And... What was interesting was that Little America waited to have the handmaid's full identities and photos of them before their indenture. I wonder where that information came from because it never seemed to me that Gilead would be all that invested in keeping track of the women with names. That seems to be confirmed when they choose more handmaids to go back to society in the most atrocious way -- literally plucking them off the street while they were on their way to the gaseous mountain in the colonies. Related: The Handmaid's Tale Renewed for Season 3 at Hulu<doc-sep>So, when Offred reveals that Cushing wants to know who facilitated her escape — and that Ofglen’s commander and his family have been executed for her crime — Serena understands that her own life is in danger. Canny as ever, she and Nick draw up a warrant for Cushing’s arrest, on behalf of Waterford. In the final moments of the episode, Serena enlists Offred’s help in editing more official documents. A turning point in their relationship, it also marks the first time Offred has done skilled work, or maybe even held a pen, since she was still June. It isn’t June’s only victory over Offred this week. Pleasantly surprised to see Emily (a.k.a. Ofglen No. 1) back at market — and haunted by the realization that she never knew Ofglen No. 2’s name — she tells her old confidante, “My name is June.” When another handmaid overhears them, Offred repeats her real name to that woman. Suddenly, a shop full of women in red who have, in many cases, known each other for months or even years are meeting for the first time. Rendered in slow motion and scored by soaring strings, the scene implies that this quiet act of resistance is every bit as crucial as the bombing. The handmaids are, in effect, giving each other access to the people they were before Gilead. Even more important, they’re establishing a way to trace each other as they’re relocated from home to home, changing names with each move. The scenes in Canada, where Moira spends hours searching photos of unidentified dead for her fiancée, and where it takes days to establish the identities of the handmaids who perished at Rachel and Leah, underline the importance of permanent names. They are a human right so basic that we rarely think of them as such. In this sense, the show’s writers seem to be drawing a parallel between the handmaids’ predicament and American slavery, which destroyed families of African origin, in part, by robbing them of their original names. (As always, on a series whose post-racial vision of dystopia is naïve at best, this unstated connection between black slaves and the multicultural casualties of totalitarianism comes across as both poignant and slightly tone-deaf.) Last week, I wondered if the bombing would make things better or worse for the oppressed people of Gilead. To its credit, “The Handmaid’s Tale” envisions a more complicated outcome. Commanders die, but so do innocent people. Fallen handmaids return from the Colonies, where they’re given one more shot at making sexual slavery work. A more brutal leader replaces Pryce, but his ascendance radicalizes Serena.<doc-sep>
Krypton season 2 to feature Doomsday, but did we see him before that finale? by Shawn Lealos The Handmaid’s Tale is making some major changes after this week’s episode–with continued resistance against the leaders of Gilead. In the aftermath of the Red Center explosion, The Handmaid’s Tale concentrated on the state of Gilead as Commander Waterford lay injured in a hospital. Many things are changing, and not in the way we expect. Thanks to Ofglen, activism is taking a step in the right direction, and it was shocking to see to what extent. The episode begins with a creepy, somber note as the Handmaids mourn the deaths of all those who lost their lives in the explosion. Perhaps the most jarring moment of this scene is seeing all the outfits the Handmaids are adorned in–black cloaks with a red cloth covering their faces. More than 30 Handmaids passed away from the explosion–but don’t worry June leaves to see another day. Gilead is more or less in a state of panic after such a catastrophic incident took place without anyone noticing. Brutal murders are taking place–more so than usual. June is even caught off-guard when a Martha is shot dead in the street because of suspected involvement. And with Cushing in charge after Pryce’s death, things are tougher than usual–way tougher. Credit: Hulu Cushing has one mission and one mission only–to get to the bottom of who perpetrated the attack, by any means necessary. First on his list of suspects? The Waterford house. He is suspicious about June’s disappearance and is certain someone from the house helped her do it. He asks June if Fred was the one who helped her, and though she denies it, he persists to find out. When June goes to see Fred at the hospital later, she runs into Nick and tells him about Cushing. But they’ve pretty much hit a dead-end and June has no other choice but to speak to Serena. Serena insists that June continue to stick to her story because Cushing is a very dangerous man–and there’s no telling what lengths he will go to get his way. And this begins a pretty epic rest of the episode as Serena has Nick take over Fred’s duties–even signing documents on his behalf or rather as him. Credit: Hulu Seeing Serena this week is such a stark difference between the Serena we’ve become accustomed to seeing over the last two seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale. She used to be outspoken and fierce, and this week we’re starting to see some of her old-self coming back. She manages to get Cushing named a traitor, with Nick’s help, and off he goes taking all their troubles away with him. And then something unexpected happens, Serena asks June to help her edit press releases. Say what? It’s such a thrilling feeling when June asks Serena for a pen and is handed one. It’s such a powerful moment for her character who has suddenly been woke from all the oppression she’s been subjected to. A-a-a-a-mazing. This week also takes us to Canada as Luke and Moira learn about the explosion in Gilead. Of course, they’re waiting to hear if June was one of the unfortunate individuals who died. We also learn more about Moira’s past and her girlfriend Odette. Even more surprising, we find out she was a surrogate for a British couple so she could make some decent money. Credit: Hulu Moira ends up looking through the library archives that holds pictures and information about all the unknown bodies that were found in Gilead. She comes across the picture of her ex-girlfriend whom she met while she was pregnant–and her reaction is absolutely heart-breaking. Thankfully, Moira doesn’t get all bad news when she learns June is still alive and well. The episode ends on an uplifting note when June bumps into Janine and Emily in the market. The two, along with others, are back in Gilead after being taken out of the Colonies to replace the Handmaids that died. When June and Emily meet, June whispers her name to her for the first time, and this begins a cluster of whispers amongst all the Handmaids who start sharing their names. What an oddly peaceful way to end the episode, right? The Handmaid’s Tale airs new episodes every Wednesday on Hulu!