Thread for discussion of the Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

Season 3 now underway so have at it.

Too sadistic for my weak stomach. I gave up after the first episode of Season Two.

I am still trying to get through season 2. Not sure if I will pick it back up. The pacing is just too ho hum.

Season 1 was impressive in its design and atmosphere. Season 2 was repetitive sadistic bollocks.

There are a number of illogical gaps in the world building, which is also a problem I have with the book.

I don't know how much longer I can stick with a show this slow. I'm three episodes into the new season and haven't managed to stay awake through a whole episode yet.

SPOILERS (to the end of s3e03)

It's not that it's slow, it's that it repeatedly undoes plot development. At the end of S2, Serena is more or less an agent of the resistance. In S3 she has (implicitly) tried to kill herself by walking into the sea and actually burned her house down - neither of which are mentioned again (by the end of e05) and in e05 her actions in the first half are those of a completely different person to the back half. And Aunt Lydia has been 'killed' twice or three times to my recollection, and her actions in e04 (which are clearly supposed to be pivotal) are forgotten by e05.

Yeah, at least have the cast kinda should have been written off the show at this point. Make that three fourths.

the change in serena in this last episode was weird. so frankly is her attachment to this baby that isn't hers. Also I don't exactly know what they think they're going to get out of that video, it's not like Canada is going to agree to an extradition treaty; presumably having June there was just a threat directly to her husband that if he didn't do something they would hurt her.

good fucking god this show was becoming a really depressing slog until this week. This show is like the Prisoner where it dangles a tiny ray of hope at you and then throws you in a fucking grave. At least this week the plot machinations seem to be moving in a more interesting direction than endlessly torturing June in new ways.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

BTW i just finished the Testaments (Atwood's sequel book) and it's really good.

want to read it

been watching the third season of this, I like it but it is grim,

Obviously not looking for spoilers, but my general feelings after the first season are a) absorbing most of the way, b) Elisabeth Moss fantastic (expected that), Ann Dowd too (big Leftovers fan--if Dowd had been around in 1976, she would have played Sybil's mother) c) didn't find the ending all that credible (after everything we know about the Aunts and how casually brutal they can be, suddenly Aunt Lydia is "You shouldn't have done that--there'll be consequences!", and d) after a couple of S2 episodes, not sure how they sustain this for two more seasons, and then a new one. I guess you could say that of most good shows after the first season; some do manage quite well. Anyway, I'll be all caught up when S4 starts (April, I believe). We don't get Hulu here, but maybe it plays on Prime?

When June gags on the vitamin drink in S2/E4, I have to believe (whether book or just TV show) that's an allusion to Rosemary's Baby and Minnie's tannis-root concoction.

Not sure what to make of the music. It's far from central--which is fine, I'm easily distracted by that--but every couple of episodes, they seem to make an attempt at something. "American Girl" was good, but not as good as in The Silence of the Lambs. They bypassed what I thought was a sure thing: ending the one episode with "Hollaback Girl." There was an episode-ending thing I liked--newer, slow and atmospheric--that I'm too lazy to look up right now.

First really great musical moment midway through S2; you'll know what I mean if you've seen it.

I also used to wonder how they could sustain it, and it does turn into a miserable slog for a bit, but the story definitely advances in interesting ways in season 3, I felt.

One thing they're obviously going to do is continue to fill in backstory; they've layered on so much by now it's hard sometimes to sort out chronology. Not having read the novel, I wondering when they cross the line into non-novel embellishment. Maybe they already have.

oh they crossed that line in the first season.

Another way they stretch this out is to go back and forth endlessly on a couple of things: the June/Serena relationship (a little kinship/they hate each other) and June's overall outlook (defiant insurrectionary/resigned and broken). I realize they account for a lot of the show's drama, but it can get wearing. I'm almost onto S3: the acting and look of it are still strong.

S3/E4: Aunt Lydia's way of doing things is over, it's finished. Even she knows that.

This has changed so much in the space of about three episodes, I'm basically lost--or at least there was a transition that I missed. June, who logically should have been killed a dozen times, is now brokering deals behind the scenes.

Granted, I haven't yet seen episode 3, so maybe that will allay some fears, but I've found this season frustrating already. I really like what they are doing in Canada, I like the diplomatic concerns triggered by the Waterford's arrest, it's interesting to see that develop. And the probing into the trauma that these kids went through in Gilead could be good, but I also appreciate anything that gives Samira Wiley more screen time.

My problem is with June being seemingly stuck in this endless loop of "do brave shit to undercut Gilead, narrowly escape, get recaptured, get tortured, repeat". It's beginning to stretch credulity that Gilead just doesn't kill her, considering all of the seemingly minor infractions that get people killed in Gilead all the time. I get that she's the driver, but the loop feels like wheel spinning while the other characters and storylines are actually moving forward.

Again, I still mostly enjoy the show - there is some great cinematography and I always love the attention paid to the architecture of Gilead and the stark contrast of what we've seen in some of the Canadian admin buildings. And, as noted, that scene with "Ripple" is beautiful and was really unexpected.

Maybe season three rights the ship wrt to June's storyline, but I was a little annoyed when she got captured again at the end.

Shit, apologies if I should have spoiler tagged. I sometimes forget that's now an option, hopefully most interested folks have seen the first two of the three released eps already.

Found S4's first episode boring, although the music--Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Grateful Dead--was encouraging.

I didn't go near this for three or four weeks, I had gotten so bored, but I'm caught up now, ready for the finale (Wednesday, I believe). Once June is in Toronto, things picked up again. The two or three episodes in the middle--back in captivity and brutalized, then escape and getting to Toronto--were a low point. It was like it turned into Mad Max or something--interminable.

I don't know if Wednesday is just the season finale or the end. I know I could find that answer in three seconds, but I don't want to know as I watch (so don't answer that). I really, really hope this is it.

On December 10, 2020, ahead of the fourth season premiere, Hulu renewed the series for a fifth season.[9]

Aargh! No problem, I brought it up. Then I hope something truly amazing happens Wednesday that justifies another season...Gilead turns out to be a Truman Show-like alternative reality that characters step in and out of, something like that. (The geography of this show does confuse me. Meeting with Nick the driver? We'll arrange that right away. Visitors from Gilead for the Waterfords? Waiting in the lobby.)

Lawrence is one of those characters whose almost every line cracks me up. "Hello, Canada!" Can't even begin to figure him out, but he is witty.

Nick's not just a driver any more, he's a Commander now. I agree with you about the geography being confusing though. I think Nick & June met in some kind of neutral zone.

As for season 5, I suspect June is going back to Gilead to be with Nick and try to get Hannah out. She seemed a lot happier with Nick than she does with Luke.

"Mad Max: Interminable" would be an awesome name for a Mad Max sequel.

(xpost) I called him Nick the Driver, but I knew that--I meant more that Gilead seems like it's just across the river suddenly, and people come and go as they please. I read the Vulture review after I posted and the writer commented on the same thing:

The Canadian–Gileadean border is much more porous than we’ve been led to believe. Just a few episodes ago June was forging an NGO ID card to make it across Lake Michigan while American citizens wept on chainlink fences, desperate to storm the boat. But in “Progress,” new lines of communication are set up left and right. June simply calls Lawrence on his desk phone. Boop boop beep, the numbers are punched, and there he is, ready to chat treason. The Putnams — a high-ranking family and part of the leadership chain — not only jet into Canada, they also pay a little social visit to their friends in international war crimes jail, bearing navy blue baby sweaters and what I’m assuming are Cuban cigars. Nick too shimmies up into the land of eternal snow, taking what must have been an exhaustingly long car ride to meet June, without attracting any notice or suspicion.

Now that June is across the border, it seems as though the line has disappeared. Tuello (despite Lawrence’s claim that the Americans “don’t have a pot to piss in”) can arrange any call, any visit. Presumably, he and other government agents have contacts on Gilead’s side, spy-craft methods for arranging such rendezvous. But “Progress” makes it all appear so simple that I wondered why the hell Tuello didn’t just reach into Gilead last season and pluck June out himself.

I suspect June is going back to Gilead to be with Nick and try to get Hannah out.

I think so, yeah. The one thing E9 was clear about was that no matter how rational and supportive and pretty much perfect in every way Luke is, the bond of Gilead between June and Nick is much deeper than that.

The whole Aunt Lydia subplot has again become interesting; feels like she's learned something about the carrot and the stick, and she's about to transform into a better human being, possibly even join the resistance (even though she seems like the ultimate company man).

Yeah, I fully expected her to have Janine tortured when she was recaptured, but for whatever reason she decided not to.

Aargh! Messed up the coding...Don't read the above post if you're following along. Sorry.

I give up.

Tried to post this a couple of times the night of, but I've just learned that you can't hide things with paragraph breaks. So once more, just to keep it in this thread.

Three things that made me laugh in the season finale:

-- Moira referring to Serena as "his Viking-ass wife"
-- Lawrence: "It was worth a shot"
-- getting the pandemic in there: "Yes, Fred--we can Zoom"

Spoilers: 1) The big revenge scene was worth the build-up. (I knew that somehow, Fred and his "it" would be parting ways.) Only thing I didn't like was bringing back Lesley Gore on the soundtrack. I get the (too literal) relevance, obviously, but I'm not crazy about the song, and I think they could have done much better. 2) Found the ending somewhat confusing, or at least that no words were exchanged--Luke was able to just look at June and realize that she was heading back to Gilead? 3) Does June now target the Viking-ass wife?

The guy who plays Tuello is good.

Praise be that this season is over. It's gotten so vague and contradictory and repetitive. Obviously I'll still watch the final season but I don't feel like anyone's actually doing anything clever or useful?

Didn't realize this had resumed (they're five episodes in)--evidently I'm the last person on this board who'll make the effort to finish. I've got Atlanta to catch up with too; will probably go back and forth.

Me neither. And it's not even the final season - there's a 6th planned?!

Seriously? I just assumed this was it.

First episode of S5 wasn't bad--better than today's Jays game, for sure. I found S4 exceedingly convoluted, but it looks like it's now settled into a very focused revenge drama, headed for a showdown between the mom and the mother-to-be. (Or at least I thought so till news of this sixth season.)

Four episodes into S5, and I think it's a definite rebound from the last one or two. The ending of E2 was one the show's best ever. Eerie cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" in E4.

It's not started in the UK yet but I think is coming soon.

23rd october

If you had soured as much as I had, give the new season at least two episodes.

i never got far into S3. premise too exhausting to me, better served by a two season series.

E5 takes a song that Tarantino completely wasted in Pulp Fiction and does it right.

Finished E7, so caught up. How sappy you find it (if there's a "you" left) will depend. I found it moving--I've been waiting almost since the beginning for something similar, probably the only reason other than inertia I've stuck around.

I'm almost caught up--two episodes left in S5--and I've found this a much more satisfying watch than a lot of you apparently did. The relationship between June and Serena has evolved in interesting directions over the course of the series.

I'm finally reading The Testaments so no spoilers please but I'm curious as to how the TV show was written with some of the plot points I've read so far (that weren't in The Handmaid's Tale book)? e.g. baby Nicole. Did Margaret Attwood direct the story for the tv show or was The Testaments out before the later seasons of the tv show was written? I can't remember when each came out.

Haven't read the book, so I don't know, but your revive reminded me to check on S6; with the strike, now pushed back to next year.