Best Album from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from the mixtapes the story is supposedly reconstructed from according to the Historical Notes in the back

The first episode of S2 was absolutely brilliant, stomach-churning stuff. The fact that they're going beyond the source text means they can take this in all kinds of fruitful directions. Like apparently they show the Colonies for example.

I loved the use of "This Woman's Work" at the beginning, and the vertiginous camera angles that emphasise the idea of surveillance. And Moss's acting is truly miraculous.

I watch the first and second eps of S2. Completely agree that it is brilliant. Some definite heart-racing moments.

Also, im starting to not like Luke at all.

I loved the use of "This Woman's Work" at the beginning

this was verging on self-parody for me. Show is always at its worst in the heavily soundtracked scenes

Agreed. The “Heart of Glass” cover still stands out as the serried nadir for me, so far.

it feels like it’s there to remind us that the world is this world, i mean yes we know that, but the regular reinforcement brings it back home. without it the world might feel more and more distant. not that music cues are necessarily the best way of achieving this.

It also follows an annoying trend that goes back at least a decade of slow, “serious” covers of old pop songs on contemporary tv series. The ads for the Dynasty reboot feature a draggy cover of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and I remember one of the teen shows from a few years back having a similar cover of OMD’s “If You Leave.” I suppose the “Mad World” cover from Donnie Darko is to blame.

makes the show absolutely unwatchable for me but i understand i am a fuckin weirdo

I suppose the “Mad World” cover from Donnie Darko is to blame.

oh yeah, this has ruined everything

judging from comments on here I think I'll avoid this like the plague. Also Moss being such a fucking vacuous scientologist puts me off watching anything with her in it now, yeah probably ridiculous - but it's the way I roll!

judging from comments on here I think I'll avoid this like the plague.

95% of it is excellent though

this is very good btw, despite stating the obvious

Also Moss being such a fucking vacuous scientologist puts me off watching anything with her in it now, yeah probably ridiculous - but it's the way I roll!

Your loss, pal. I hate Scientology as much as anyone but no way are her beliefs going to make me miss some of the greatest acting I've ever seen.

otm, also most scientologists are victims

lol! stop it! I'll take the loss, only a finite amount of shite one can watch in a lifetime!

this show is torture porn

Really wish there had been a proper thread started for the TV series, rather than we Moss fans having to use this stupid never-ending poll thread. Anyway, it's too late now.

I doubt the Commander will be killed in the blast but things are warming up nicely

this show is torture porn

I haven't watched beyond the first episode of Season 2 (even though it ended on an intriguing note) for this very reason. Now that the show is unmoored from the source material, I'm not sure I trust it.

this week’s episode has floored people and is getting some incredible reviews, but to me it felt like the torture porn was (repeatedly) contrived to elicit the most gut-wrenching reactions from viewers. especially that last big set piece in which the writers were so desperate to wring every last drop of pathos out of the scene that you could see them pulling the strings. apart from “some of these people are really bad” (especially in that earlier scene, yes you know the one) i don’t get exactly what narrative/character point they’re trying to make apart from staging some visceral theatre for its own sake.

the subtler aspects of this show continue to work really well though, like the unique complexity in the situation serena’s got herself into, and june’s incredible trump card which pretty much wouldn’t work the same way in any other story.

> this week’s episode

which episode? different countries are airing them at different times. uk channel 4 aired S02E05 Seeds last sunday...

sorry koogs, i meant date of very first broadcast, so s02e10 in the us and everywhere that fast tracks it (although i left out spoiler details for people/countries who are not on the same schedule)

Yes, I noticed, and appreciated that. And then wondered what you were talking about before realising it's probably not the one I saw.

I guess uk Netflix is probably on the same episode.

Will try and remember to check back in a month 8)

so it turns out the commander was nick all along, which is why you never saw them in the same room

i refuse to believe that car couldn't ram through the garage door.

"so it turns out the commander was nick all along, which is why you never saw them in the same room"

is that meant to be a joke?

I found it entirely believable that the car couldn't get through the door.

who do we think shot and nabbed nick and why, btw?

also nick's wife is annoying but her crying episode was some of the most realistic convincing crying I've ever seen an actor do.

let me tell you my nick impersonation: "mumble mumble mumble" *loom off-kilter in the frame while looking at the ground stoically*

i assumed the commander worked out nick was the father, after june told him the kid wasn’t his

well yes, but I don't know what you meant by "turns out the commander was nick all along"

also I don't think the commander had nick nabbed and shot.

well yes, but I don't know what you meant by "turns out the commander was nick all along"

that was a very bad joke about spoilers for uk viewers

I thought it was a good joke. I lolled at any rate.

The commander killing nick is intriguing but let’s remember Serena told him a while back the baby wasn’t his because he’s ‘not man enough’ to make babby.

Speaking of which, if all of the gilead men are sterile, why isn’t nick?

I thought it was a good joke. I lolled at any rate.

<3

The commander killing nick is intriguing but let’s remember Serena told him a while back the baby wasn’t his because he’s ‘not man enough’ to make babby.

completely forgot about this! there is so much going on in this show that it’s impossible to remember it all.

Another question I had last night: what happens when all the handmaids are too old to bear children? WhTs the plan in Gilead then? Are they prepping some of the children for future handmaid roles? Who knows

I thought it was interesting that the black dude was having a baby with his wife.

So clearly not all the men are sterile, just a lot of them, maybe most.

Another question I had last night: what happens when all the handmaids are too old to bear children?

this is covered really well in the book, iirc they become marthas

i know i’m harping on about the torture porn aspect, but it’s so magnified and so heavily played out that it’s completely taken me out of the show. i can’t see it for what it is any more, all i can see is the writers’ room trying its hardest to manufacture horrifying crescendos.

Yeah, I'm done with the show for that very reason.

A shame, as I just heard Bradley Whitford is joining the cast.

I dropped out after the first episode of season 2 cos of the torture stuff. Was wondering whether it'd be worth going back, but if that kept up then no chance.

it kept up. some of the set pieces just escalate the point that this is a terrible place with terrible people, like the way they found new and progressively more horrifying ways to stage rape scenes (not a spoiler for this show tbh).

bradley Whitford is a new kind of fucking horrible monster

or....maybe not. it's hard to tell yet.

being the architect of gilead's economy (?) puts him up there, but then every gilead architect/official is a horrible monster so

yeah I think the jury's still out on Lawrence, he could turn out to be some kind of heretic or even the covert leader of the resistance.

So it looks like I was kind of right about Lawrence. Incredible final episode.

i mean

also moss’s ~face acting~ is well beyond farcical at this point

i just, i don’t get that ending at all, i don’t get why anyone would choose to stay in THAT (avoiding spoilers here), apart from guaranteeing there’ll be a third series of this particular show and not, say, a thoughtful spinoff series set in canada

and even the notion that we’d ever feel even a tiny bit sorry for the woman who was heavily instrumental in the show’s most brutal and horrifying rape scene (which reminded me of those bits in downfall when hitler was being nice to his receptionist or whatever)

I have no problem with posting spoilers here. If you don't want to know what's happening you should avoid the thread until you've caught up. That's what I did in the Americans thread.

I think the idea is that she wants to stay behind to rescue her daughter.

exactly; in fact it would have been weird, really, for her to have left completely.

critical reactions to this finale seem really off the mark to me, saying it's left the series nowhere to go. if she'd escaped, that would have been true. there's certainly many places it can go.

think the ending made perfect sense. the first time she tried to leave, she hadn't seen her daughter except from a passing car, and Gilead was still fairly strong, so she probably felt like she had to accept starting over without her daughter.

now that Gilead's starting to crack (*26* commanders died, Canada expelled their diplomats, strict embargoes/sanctions), she's briefly reunited with her daughter Hannah, and she's formed much closer bonds with the Handmaids and knows them all by name, she's having a hard time saving herself and not staying behind to help everyone she loves in the fight against Gilead's government, now in a weakened state.

Her M.O. in almost the entirety of the last quarter of episodes is ensuring her daughter isn't born in a hostile, oppressive environment, and begging to see her first daughter. she's started to put her own needs aside and even smacked Commander Fred knowing that he could have her killed for it.

it isn't as if she's staying cos "ey, I kinda like it here now" or "boohoo Serena"....she's been through a lot with her fellow handmaids since the first escape attempt!