The Handmaid'southward Tale Epitomize: Trivial Miss Muffin

Photo: Jasper Fell/Hulu

Tucked away in this episode is an astonishing fact of Gileadean life. It's been five years, June mentions as she roots around in the Ruby-red Center files in the Lawrences' basement, since the American regime fell and the earth looked on as religious fundamentalists took over the country. Five years of Ceremonies, and Salvagings, and Guardians patrolling the streets with automated guns, and babies kept out of their mother'southward arms, and Red Letter–red uniforms, and trauma, and despair. Five years in which the world has done nothing to rescue the imperiled citizens of Gilead.

That's well-nigh the limit June tin striking earlier this story turned from an imprisonment and escape narrative to a revenge plot. "Some other walking partner dead," she thinks to herself this episode, "They must call up I'chiliad cursed. Or a terrorist. I'grand non though. Not nonetheless." Yikes.

Which isn't to say that she'due south decided in error. The Commanders, led by Waterford and a sometimes begrudging Winslow, have decided that Boston ought to run as tight a ship as D.C. does, requiring or perhaps plainly suggesting that Lawrence take downwardly that dissenter'southward collection of gimmicky art and go along his home's décor in line with Victorian standards. Later a slew of incidents demoralizing to the State — June'due south outset escape, the bombing of the new Rachel and Leah Center, Baby Nichole's "kidnapping" — the freshly promoted Waterford is keen to demonstrate his capabilities as a leader, all the manner down to the primary-color paintings that adorned the Lawrences' walls. Where showtime the modernistic art goes, we know, more of humanity is sure to fall equally well.

But why exactly is June back at the Lawrence house to notice such things? That's unclear. Only earlier Ofmatthew/Natalie pulled a gun in Loaves and Fishes and so went down, Aunt Lydia approached June to tell her that she'd no longer be serving the Lawrence family as a handmaid. She was being reassigned, Aunt Lydia illogically claimed, to protect her from the Lawrences' strange predilections (every bit if it weren't June who was causing the, ahem, issues). And yet, despite the fact that none of that has changed over the months June spent kneeling in the hospital, she's deposited dorsum on the Lawrences' doorstep equally if nothing e'er happened.

Mrs. Lawrence, who is part captive and part ward, has turned fifty-fifty more Bertha Mason while June's been gone — her disheveled hair, I'm guessing, is meant to symbolize the state of her mind. The meds that control her bipolar aren't coming through (does Gilead ban psychiatric medicines à la Scientology?), and June sees an opportunity. Mrs. Lawrence is hanging on past a thread, she knows, and while Lawrence may be the economic genius who buoyed Gilead in its infancy, he's also utterly dedicated to his wife — or at least as dedicated as a state of war criminal can be. "He's scared," June says. "Fear can exist a great motivator." Lawrence, she realizes, may finally have come against his own limit and might exist persuaded that helping June, or even getting out himself, is worth the risk.

(All of which makes me wonder if Hjalmar Schacht, the economist who worked with Hitler to strengthen the High german economy in the 1930s, was an inspiration for Lawrence. Schacht was tried at Nuremberg, though not for crimes confronting humanity, and acquitted later on it came to low-cal that he had been in contact with the Resistance, been imprisoned in Dachau himself, and had denounced Hitler's policies.)

June's programme is no longer just to observe Hannah and escape. Oh no, it's non nearly that unproblematic. After months of nothing to do but pretend to pray and muse on her situation, June has a programme — or at least an idea for what kind of program she'd like to have. She'southward going, she says, to get alllllll the handmaids' kids out of Gilead. Start she proposes the idea to Beth, whose Resistance connections — all those distressing scones! — may be of use. (Though when June asked if anyone in the Resistance could "get kids out," I did want to offer her a lilliputian reminder information technology probably already would be doing that if information technology could.) Then, gazing into the refrigerated department at Loaves and Fishes (are those freshly squeezed juices they're handling?), she announces her intention to Ofrobert/Alma, whose part in the Resistance ought to gird her loins for such a wild idea, but information technology doesn't. You lot're insane, she basically tells June, a sentiment that anyone who has looked into her wild blue optics equally of late might second.

Meanwhile, Waterford is amping upwards the regime's ability and command with a new series of measures. Called together in that bespoke Brutalist amphitheater, the handmaids line up for inspection, with Commander Stabler (I'm sorry, just I actually can't assist simply phone call him that in my head whenever he appears onscreen), Serena, and Aunt Lydia in tow. Waterford offers June a transfer to D.C. — which is nearly certainly a veiled threat — but the more important chat is taking identify in softer voices in the background. The Commanders are "rolling out the veil and ring," i.eastward., those cruel masks and lip sutures June saw in D.C. Aunt Lydia, slightly concerned, hopefully asks if they volition exist "voluntary" (practiced God, who would volunteer?) and the Commander answers in the affirmative. But a crackdown is still coming, one that could dampen or hamper June's plans.

Back at the business firm, June goes to root around in Lawrence's office for those Cherry Middle files, hoping to figure out exactly where all the handmaids' children have been placed. When Mrs. Lawrence wanders in, rather than seeming flummoxed about why the handmaid is using a kitchen knife to (unsuccessfully) pick a filing-chiffonier lock, she offers a magical solution. Those files? They're in the basement, but sitting in boxes! (Side notation to Boris Johnson: This is why some organizational skills are necessary for those in ability.) As partners in crime for the 2d time, June feels enough kinship with Mrs. Lawrence to urge her to flee Gilead with her hubby. Mrs. Fifty has a clear-headed answer as to why they can't: "Joseph is a state of war criminal." But mayhap with the right offering to Canadian officials, June implies, that small issue of him having designed the Colonies will merely float away.

Information technology's hard for The Handmaid's Tale to shock united states anymore — after all the hangings, beatings, and ritualized rapes — merely the scenes of June and Lawrence's forced, observed "Ceremony" provoked a tormented gasp out of me. June has been through dozens of Ceremonies with the Waterfords; in season ane, nosotros watched equally she lay between Serena's legs and Commander Waterford grotesquely pumped his semen into her. But this encounter was somehow more degrading, more reminiscent of that soul-blasting Blackness Mirror episode in which the British prime government minister is forced into a live televised sexual meet with a squealer. June'southward bond with Lawrence and his wife turns an already cruel rite into an emotional horror show.

Luckily, the show's writers knew exactly how much to show. Had they foisted a gratuitous sex scene on us, information technology would accept undone the brilliant work of the actors, who do some of the season's best work hither. June, Lawrence, and Eleanor run through every available choice. "Nosotros can't just sit here," June says as they stare at one another in the darkened room. "We could play canasta," Lawrence jokes, before learning that a dr. will examine June after the Ceremony. Waterford and Winslow volition know if no sex has occurred. They'll all terminate up on the Wall, including Beth and Sienna. Eleanor's keening is entirely understandable.

And and so June begins to slowly, steadily talk Lawrence into raping her, or having sex with her, or whatsoever you might call a mind-boggling, uncompartmentalizable scenario like this. "Just treat it like a job," she says. "You're not you, I'grand not me." These are the words of a pro, of someone who has disassociated for years. They are also proof, yet over again, that a woman's piece of work is never done. This is the very heaviest of emotional labor.

In the aftermath, when the md comes in to examine June and he reaches toward her groin to examine her, I had hoped she'd use her legs like a vise on his neck. Instead, she at least gets her jollies by quipping to Waterford: "At least it wasn't y'all."

The forced Ceremony is all the proof Lawrence needed that his days in Gilead are numbered. He offers June what he tin — get-go, a packet of nascence-control pills ("The penalization for contraception is beingness torn apart by dogs"), although he cruelly does not cascade her a drink, and second, a truck, so she tin can get Eleanor and others to safety. Will he come, too? If someone every bit high upward every bit Lawrence turns on Gilead and brings a core of freed children along with him, he might just plough from state of war criminal to "hero."

And then it's back to Loaves and Fishes (where the handmaids are shopping with those fisherman internet bags that every good farmers'-market place shopper now owns). To convince Ofrobert/Alma to bring together her, June wields the power of the Scarlet Center files and tells her that her son, Dylan, is merely a few towns abroad and can easily be brought to safety. Janine too wants her son to join them, just nosotros know from June'due south reading that he'southward expressionless, killed in a car accident a few years prior, and that Gilead didn't fifty-fifty bother to let Janine know. Is information technology cruel to lie to her and say he'due south been relocated to California? Or is it merely the correct kind of lie, an unselfishness that June knows she owes Janine?

In the episode'south last moment, nosotros finally encounter some momentum toward the story line fans (myself included) have been hoping for, for a while now. The Resistance will act. The Marthas — who oh-so-brilliantly telegraph their intentions with goddamn baked goods — volition assist. That ten-seater van won't be enough. They're gonna demand a bigger boat.

The Handmaid's Tale Recap: Piffling Miss Muffin