r/TheHandmaidsTale

It would be nice to be housed, fed, and clothed by the state!

Can we just take the socialist parts of Gilead?

How is it that the Aunts, handmaids, and Marthas don’t have to pay for housing, food, clothes, etc. What if the state could just provide for its people, as a benevolent state?

Working for a wage sucks and I hate capitalism LOL. Why can’t I just exist.

My understanding is that only the economen actually work for a wage, which would suck.

I’m on my second run-through of the show, and I’m noticing a lot of things I didn’t notice the first watch.

Wharton seems very fixated on Serena before he really has any reason to be. He specifically asks Lawrence to find her and bring her to New Bethlehem. He seemingly arranges to “bump into” her on the street. He goes out of his way to learn what interests her so he can say all the right things and get her to drop her guard and be interested in marrying again. He asks her to marry very quickly - maybe a few weeks after running into her in New Bethlehem. He hides all the things he knows she wouldn’t like until after the wedding takes place.

Is it just a matter of that he had known her for years and thought she was beautiful? Or was there something else she represented to him? He does tell her that he saw her dancing with Fred in DC and that he felt bad for coveting another man’s wife.

What's a tiny, easily overlooked detail in The Handmaid's Tale that completely changed how you viewed Gilead?

I’m a first-time watcher, on S2, and I’ve actually studied the book. The only problem is that I’m British, meaning I don’t really understand the geographical (and political) landscape.

For example, when Mark Tuello tries to sway Serena, who is he representing? I understand that he represents American government AKA anti-Gilead, but does Gilead encompass the entirety of the USA? Are the Colonies states? I’m just a bit confused. Any help would be appreciated!

Why do many characters on the show not recognize June? I thought June would be very famous in that world…Especially after the angel flight and the TV broadcast, she literally became the face of handmaids. But many times, many people just didn’t recognize her.

June even went back to Gilead after she successfully escaped…as the number one wanted criminal. That’s a ridiculous move. She tried to escape many times and got captured many times. Tbh she would be locked up after her first time failing to run away. The plot armor is so strong lol.

Since Gilead put an emphasis on being all green, healthy and clean, it’s obvious there won’t be any fast food or any of those processed products with the whole Cultural Revolution and purges thing. From the show we’ve seen things like soups, porridges, proteins like chicken and filet for the average citizen but for the more powerful and affluent ones having access to luxuries like macaroons or high end steaks made by Marthas, I theorize for them they source those who were professional chefs and cooks. But we still haven’t gotten a clear picture of even one cuisine, like what do they call it? Do they just eat like medieval peasants? What did Rita made for the boy from Angel’s Flight that couldn’t stand real true American patriot food?

Has anyone else noticed how infantilized the handmaids are? The title “aunt”, the example of Janine, it’s all clear evidence that they, for obvious reasons, did NOT want these girls (who yes, I know were largely teenagers) to psychologically grow up.

just finished rewatching THT and listen! i know he helped build gilead. i know he has blood on his hands and that doesn’t just disappear because he eventually started doing the right thing. but that’s exactly why i think he’s one of the best written characters in the entire show. he isn’t redeemed because the writers tell us he is he’s redeemed because we slowly watch him remember that people arent numbers. beneath all his sarcasm and superiority was a man who just loved his wife and watching eleanor slowly crumble under a world HE helped create kinda felt like a punishment he could never escape.

one of my favourite scenes is when he gives naomi the book for angela. it’s such a small thing but it says everything about who he’s become. earlier in the show he toys with june by asking her to fetch him books she isn’t even allowed to read and later he’s handing over a book simply because children deserve stories. and it feels enormous because it’s lawrence finally choosing humanity over ideology. the same man who once hid behind cleverness starts using his intelligence to protect people instead.

his relationship with june is one of my favourites in the series because it never becomes comfy for either of them. she hates him and challenges him (honestly she has every right to!!) but over time they develop this strange understanding of each other. june never lets him forget what he’s done and lawrence never asks her to. instead they become reluctant allies who are constantly pushing each other to be better. neither of them can fully forgive the other but they still choose to keep fighting together.

and that’s why his ending really hit for me (unlike nick who totally deserved it imo). he dies trying to leave gilead better than he found it not because he expected forgiveness but because i think he’d finally accepted that redemption isn’t something you’re given but something you spend the rest of your life working towards. he knew history would probably remember him as one of gilead’s architects and not one of the people who helped dismantle it. but he kept going anyway. for a man who started the story treating people like pieces on a chessboard, ending it by sacrificing himself for people he’d grown to love felt like the most fitting and heartbreaking ending he could have had! 

Ok, June rescued from the gallows. I can accept that. What I can't accept is she is definitely now Gilead enemy #1 because she masterminded mass murder of Commanders, TWICE. As well as one Commander herself alone. Gilead is attacked during her failed execution and escape and yet she can take a leisurely drive to the airport with Lawrence so he can plant a bomb on a plane. A plane carrying Commanders...and yet there's NO ONE guarding the airport? And absolutely NO ONE guarding the plane?!

It blows up after take off and somehow she gets back in the car and just drives away ?! Back to Mayday and Luke and more unbelievable storyline?

I'm only at season 2 and this is my first watch ever. My sister and my mom are big fans of this show and have been pushing me to watch it for years but I have been avoiding it because of the main theme (women's slavery), even though I love dystopias.

However, I am finding myself wanting to punch something every episode and I am barely at season 2. I imagine things will get slightly better for the good guys in the story, however it's very very hard. For now the worst things are Aunt Lydia and Serena or the wives calling the babies from the handmaidens "my baby", "my child". It makes me crash tf out and wanting to punch the screen. The normalization of violating other women and stealing their children. Using women who are not in the elite as human incubators!!! I literally can't even watch some scenes and end up skipping through until they're over. This is just the surface of the iceberg that's causing me to be unable to watch this show. I take numerous breaks during some episodes.

I also plan on reading the book. Do you think I should stop watching and read the book first? Would that make me not crash tf out so often?

So I’m only about halfway through season 4, but we know that June is absolutely wrecked because she wasn’t able to bring Hannah with her out of Gilead.

We also know that Hannah no longer recognizes June, and that Hannah is even fearful of June.

While I think it’s obviously wrong that Hannah was kidnapped in the first place by Gilead, wouldn’t it be like June kidnapping her back if she was able to get Hannah? (I’ve seen and read The Testaments, I know they don’t finally reunite until Hannah is a young woman).

By that point…is the kid really “yours” if they no longer recognize you and are even afraid of you? I don’t think Hannah would willingly leave with June at this point, if she got the chance. She’d probably feel like she was getting kidnapped.

I’d be interested in learning about real life cases of stolen children who grew up with a new family and no longer recognize their birth parents.

Now I’m not saying that the US will become Gilead 100% (or maybe it will idk) but I’m curious to know if you think Boston would be the first to fall in modern day USA.

I’ve heard people say that it’s not likely because it’s one of the best states when it comes to women’s rights, but I’ve also heard other people say that it would be the first to fall because there’s not much diversity in Boston. (So I guess maybe what they meant by that is that there wouldn’t be as much push back? I’m not sure)

What are your thoughts on this?

(haven't finished handmaids tale yet, still at s4, but I couldn't keep myself from watching the testaments and now I'm even more confused. I don't mind spoilers!)

she was not a violent person before Gilead took over, she seemed to be stern but not evil. she pretty much was the pioneer of the role of aunt but that was only due to the fact that this was the way she found to escape an execution, I doubt she even had a say about having to harm others to punish them despite growing desensitized by it.

but that leaves me wondering: why in every opportunity she gets of retiring she throws it out the window and is scared of being pulled away from her post? I'm assuming by now, after everything she did for the cause, the execution is no longer a concern, so what is causing this behavior? is it the lack of certainty of what she'd become next? or because that gives her some weird sense of purpose? she grown to be a maniac? I just don't think it makes sense for her to start to fr belive in the Gilead system just because she got desensitized, I thought she was just doing what she could to survive and became good at it yet this reluctance of hers leaves me puzzled.

So I’m actually from Michigan and I have taken the ferry from Milwaukee to Muskegon and back, but how are they getting all the way to Toronto? In 10 hours??

Also, what territory are the Lakes in? How is Gilead letting the NGO take refugees from Chicago to Toronto?

Also Moira said she was “born and bred” in Toronto and she used her real name with the Gilead coast guard people. Wouldn’t they know she was from Gilead?

Also…like what kind of claim does Gilead have over escaped refugees? If someone wants to emigrate from Gilead?

At the wedding when ALL the Handmaid's are leaving the room as one big group, June steps out of line, turns and walks in the opposite direction, back towards the center of the room. (WHY???) She stops when she is just several feet from Serena and Lydia, turns around again and heads out with the Handmaids after all, ending up as the last in line.

Then she basically ran when Lydia called out to her, making herself stand out even more. After all of that, she still makes it back into the wedding reception area and passes thru it without ANYONE noticing she was the ONLY Handmaid in the room?! Of the several dozens or more that were in attendance, this one particular Handmaid was walking around on her own and no one, no Commander, no wife, no Guardian, no Eye nor Martha...saw her and questioned why that was happening? A lone Handmaid stuck out like a sore thumb, yet she waltzed right thru....

So, what was she doing to begin with? Where was she going? Look for Janine?