Mi||iê Måë

That's awesome!

kayrey

L i N d $ @ y

DGSAFDMD - I love your icon and ADORE Killing Eve.

I still haven't seen ep 3 but will try and watch it soon.

That was fast but yes! More misery to come though.

Mi||iê Måë

^^ is it weird that I look forward to seeing the new season of misery!

stlavin95

Awesome news

MsPerfectionist

yay S3 renewal, at least we won't risk a season ending with no resolution.

L i N d $ @ y

I've already seen the latest ep.

Not as scary or dark as the 1st two eps but still tension-filled. I'm realizing that if I was in June's position, I'd probably do the same, be a bit brave because I cannot stand that life anymore (if I was a handsmaid). It was very interesting to see that for the poorer families, females are forced to be wives (Econowives) so I'm thinking I'd rather live this life than be a handsmaid, provided that I was loyal to my husband.

I was also kind of waiting when June would be caught. She knows that the location of the airplane is already compromised so she still risked it? And now that she's caught, is this how she gets back to the Waterfords or does she pay a visit to Aunt Lydia first to be punished? They can't really hurt her too much since she's pregnant.

Alexa

Another amazing episode...

203:
It’s nice seeing Luke and Moira happy but makes me so sad for everyone stuck in stupid Gilead. I did love getting to see Moira though and watching her help the people that get rescued. The bathroom sex scene was hot. It’s too bad that Moira cant let herself be intimate with someone for herself yet because of everything that happened to her before.

It’s weird that we haven’t seen much of the waterfords this season. It will be interesting to see how they are handling June’s disappearance. And if they got a new handmaid already.

What does June think she is going to if/when she sees Luke again? Tell her about Nick? Leave Nick in the dust? I’m scared for that. Nick and June are precious though. I love all their intimacy this season and trust. sdfsdfsdfs they are so cute.

I love the actress that plays June mom, so I liked seeing her in the episode. June didn’t deserve her criticism in the flashbacks though. June seeing her mom at the colonies in the photo was heartbreaking.

I am glad they moved June to a new location because it would have been boring seeing her in the same place for too long. The wife of the man that took her in, what a bitch. June has another daughter to think about. But I am confused, who are these people that are living in this house? How are they allowed to live on their own like this? People that never “sinned” and that are religious are free to do so? I did like the guy that took her in though. I wonder if she had stayed if they would have returned or if that family was caught too?

When June was on the run, ugh that gave me so much freaking anxiety. I love this show, but hate this show. It made me so nervous for what was going to happen. I didn’t want to see the flashbacks of her and her daughter getting caught. It would be awful trying to sneak around and constantly worrying if they would find you.

Why does June keep using phrases that were/are said in Gilead when she doesnt have to? Gross. Also, it hurt so much seeing June gets captured. I think we all knew it was coming because there was no way she was going to get out this so soon. But ughhhhhhh I was so frustrated. And now she is going to be so much more depressed than she even was before. Her life is going to be more miserable too. So glad this isn't real and I pray nothing like this ever happens.

CONDEMNED666

The song to a rare glimpse of hope in midst all the bleakness->

Regan

What I'm interested in knowing is whether the Waterfords are in hot water, given that they have lost two Handmaids in a row. The previous Offred committed suicide so, at the very least, I would expect that they were reprimanded for letting her have access to something she could use to kill herself - the Handmaids don't even have shoelaces! Now their pregnant Handmaid has run away, but not before leading all of the others to rebel.

The Handmaids aren't supposed to be mistreated at their postings. According to Aunt Lydia's viewpoint, the couples they are posted to are supposed to welcome and love them.

Serena is arguably one of the worse "mistresses" in terms of how she treats the Handmaids posted to the Waterford household. Janine's room at the Putnams looked nicer than June's; Serena has pretty much banished her to the attic. Ofglen said that the people she lives with are nice to her. The Wives who spoke to June at the birth treated her like a five year old but they seem to have been trying to be pleasant. Oferic and Ofsameul's comments in the pilot may hint that they can expect a positive response from the Wives in their household if they get something she likes when shopping. The Wife at Emily's last posting was kind and sympathetic.

I think that it would be interesting if the Waterfords were regarded as unfit to be entrusted with the care of another Handmaid. That would make June their last chance at a baby, instead of her being the only one facing any real risk if it doesn't work out.

I think that Holly was having trouble recognising that true freedom isn't about being free to follow any one path. She was free to choose not to marry, June was free to choose to marry. She was free to choose to devote her life to activism, June was free to choose to work in publishing, or any other career she might choose.

Pretty much.

I wondered about it before but the Econowife's words about being threatened with the red dress confirmed that the show will follow the book in this respect. The Handmaids are fertile women who have been found guilty of a crime of some description. They are spared the Colonies in exchange for service as Handmaids.

Econowives, Wives, and maybe even some of the younger Aunts may be fertile. In fact, given that they don't test the men's fertility, it's entirely possible that Serena is capable of conceiving and carrying a pregnancy to term.

In the book, non-marital unions and marriages where one or both parties was divorced were declared adulterous. The female partners were arrested and the children were taken from them on the grounds that they were morally unfit. In the case of the series, it's unclear if June is regarded as an adulteress because she is Luke's second wife or because they were involved before he was divorced.

What's interesting is that this system is unsustainable as it is.

In the early days of Gilead, they were able to arrest single mothers, mothers involved in "adulterous" unions, lesbian and bisexual women, women deemed overly educated, young nuns, etc. Now, the women who couldn't be found to be at fault the first time around are on their guard, and transgressions are likely to be rare. They will be rarer still among the next generation of young women, who will grow up indoctrinated into Gilead's ways.

I have my suspicions about where future Handmaids will come from but I really hope that I'm wrong.


Part habit, part test, I imagine. She may be on the lookout for any hint of unease a person shows when she uses Gileadean platitudes, or when they return them.

Mi||iê Måë

Her eyes are so green!

L i N d $ @ y

Yeah not much of the Waterfords which surprised me but June is caught now so we'll see them again.

Me too! I kept wondering what happened to her and then they show us that she was at the colonies. Is she still alive or already dead?

It also kind of seems to me that these families have a better life than the richer families of Gilead. Plus what exactly do they do? The women here also seems a bit better off than the handmaids at Gilead. What is their way of life and how are things run there? I have so many questions!

Alexa

Can the waterfords really get in trouble? Dont they run the whole thing practically? lol

Which is so dumb. You would think they would make ALL of the women try to conceive because of the low population.

Im pretty sure she is dead but maybe they will surprise us and she will end up meeting Emily.

I think so too! They can at least be with their husband and kid in the house. Are they allowed to be intimate with one another? So many questions.

Regan

Yes. Serena certainly can, as a woman. As for Fred, I don't think that it's a coincidence that he started to try to build bridges with Serena after Naomi Putnam convinced the ruling council to amputate her husband's hand for the same offence that he committed. We know that Nick was placed in the Waterford household to keep an eye and report back, so they're obviously not fully trusted.

Even if they're not punished, it could be regarded as a waste of resources to send another Handmaid into the Waterford household.



They do. A woman who marries a Commander, or a soldier high-ranking enough to be issued a woman, is expected to try to conceive. The problem is that, if conception does not happen, the legal assumption is that the woman is barren. There is no testing to confirm which of them has the problem, which means that fertility issues that might be treated aren't caught. If the man is of sufficiently high rank, a Handmaid will be assigned to the household. If she doesn't conceive, she gets the blame and, if she "fails" often enough, she's sent to the Colonies.

I counted 67 Handmaids at the Salvaging in the Pilot. There were no more than 12-15 Children of Gilead at the banquet, and the oldest of them was probably four or five, indicating that the system has been in place for five years at the minimum. They should have had at least ten times as many children, taking two children in five years as a reasonable average for a Handmaid.

To put it bluntly, and leaving aside the human rights violations for a moment, Gilead is wasting the Handmaids as a resource.

They won't use IVF or artificial insemination. Considering that the Handmaids are frequently described as having viable ovaries, egg donation and IVF would allow Wives to carry to term, but they won't consider that option. I get that Gilead considers the practice sinful but how has Mexico forgotten that assisted reproduction is a thing? Why was the ambassador acting like she had no choice but to accept the Handmaid system instead of hinting to June that, if the deal went through, the Handmaids sent to Mexico would be treated like Queens if they were willing to donate eggs, and would be free to take the next plane to Canada after harvesting, or to have their families join them in Mexico?

Fred has had at least two Handmaids that we know of, and he and Serena Joy also tried to conceive for years. He has failed to father a child with at least three women, yet Gilead prioritises him as a potential father by repeatedly assigning fertile women to his household. In contrast, Nick, too low in status to be assigned a woman, fathered a child after just a few tries. If the goal is to produce as many healthy babies as possible, it would make much more sense to identify healthy, fertile young men to father children by the Handmaids. At the very least, Commanders should be screened before being assigned a Handmaid to ensure that one of the few healthy, fertile women is not forced to waste her time on a sterile man.

Instead, the elite of Gilead decided that, if only a few women were able to bear children, they should be the ones to father those children. They refuse to acknowledge the possibility that they may not be capable of fathering children. There may be a minority of genuinely devout Commanders who truly believe that they will be blessed with a child if their faith is strong enough but I can't believe that most of them have forgotten science, even if it suits them better to be blind.

How many healthy, fertile Handmaids have been sent to the Colonies as Unwomen because their Commanders were firing blanks?

If they die out, it will be because they've decided to prioritise coddling the fragile egos of the Fred Waterfords of their world over repopulating their country.

Alexa

Thats what I am saying though. Its silly that Serena isn't expected try to conceive still. I understand the messed up theory behind it, they think she is the one with the problem, but its silly for them to assume that without testing anything. Just as, like you said, its silly that they ship handmaids off to the colonies. They are so dumb. Gilead is 100% more about religion and power than it is about actually solving the fertility problems in the world.

There are a lot of questions for this show, for sure. Because if Gilead is only in America then what are the other countries doing for the fertility issues? Surely they are finding better resources.