This review contains information on the upcoming fifth season of The Handmaid’s Tale and contains spoilers for all four seasons.
The Handmaid’s Tale’s June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) through hell during its first four seasons. She was forced into childbearing “service” for a powerful Commander and his wife; she gave birth to a daughter she was not allowed to raise herself; she witnessed friends and compatriots being brutally murdered; she survived sexual violence, both within and without the country; and she saw her home country, the United States of America, overthrown by a group of Christo-fascists.
June has also achieved success, including arranging for more than 80 Gilead children to be relocated to Canada, poisoning a group of political insiders at a brothel, escaping Gilead, testifying against her former captors at the International Criminal Court, and participating in the execution of her former Commander by stoning with a number of other exiled Handmaids. The spectator is constantly reminded by June that Hannah (Jordana Blake), her daughter, is still in Gilead and that June will not stop working until they are reunited. The reasons for June’s violent behaviour are all believable—anxiety, loss, and guilt—and Moss effectively conveys them. The difficulty with The Handmaid’s Tale is that there are numerous other stories circulating around Hannah’s, which makes it harder for the audience to suspend disbelief.
In the opening episode of season five, June is found just hours after Fred Waterford was ritualistically stoned (Joseph Fiennes). After June informs them of what she did, her husband, Luke (O-T Fagbenle), and housemate/best friend, Moira (Samira Wiley), are unsure whether or not they should leave her alone with her toddler daughter, Nichole. The U.S. Government-in-Mark Exile’s Tuello (Sam Jaeger) counsels June not to feel secure against a Gilead counterattack. Waterford’s widow Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) admits to Tuello that she doesn’t feel secure around June. And given that one of June’s fellow ex-Handmaids has given her a revolver, she probably shouldn’t. Serena and June may have escaped Gilead, but they are unable to part ways.
Serena has been imprisoned on rape and sexual slavery accusations, but she is eager to return to Gilead to raise her unborn boy after discovering she is miraculously pregnant in the previous season. Serena’s acquaintance Mrs. Putnam (Ever Carradine) informs her that Gilead does not distinguish between the status of a widow and a (shock!) single mother, therefore Serena could not be allowed to raise her child there herself. Once her legal arrangement is finalised and she is able to move around Toronto more freely, Serena’s Canadian supporters—who we initially got to know last season—grow bolder. However, theocratic sympathisers outside Gilead might not be the comrades Serena believes they are.
The Handmaid’s Tale’s first season was successful because it adhered so closely to the book that served as its inspiration, both in terms of its plot and its environment. The audience was imprisoned in claustrophobic domesticity; the Waterford house appeared to be cosy and safe on the outside, which was in sharp contrast to the perversions occurring within. Since the TV series had to continue after the book’s conclusion, June had to be, at the very least, a more active, concentrated, and effective revolutionary. So June is now essentially a superhero. How many protests has June staged against this repressive government? How often has she been apprehended? HOW IS SHE ALIVE?! Additionally, the information we discover about Gilead in the context of the larger world appears to be completely flexible depending on what the plot of any given episode may demand.
Which brings up another query: has The Handmaid’s Tale now crossed into the realm of camp?
I understand it may seem unusual to say that about a programme that, until recently, included rape and physical torture in every episode. (These days, it seems to be every other episode.) But consider this. The basic sci-fi question is: what if American women were forced to live in a terrifying dystopia where they were denied control over their bodies? (Even trying to imagine?) The “romance” between June and her baby’s father, former Eye-turned-Commander Nick (Max Minghella), is another thing, though, and we’re expected to care about it despite Minghella’s, shall we say, limited emotional range. Bradley Whitford plays Commander Lawrence, a would-be reformer and barely covered apostate, with a gleeful enthusiasm last seen in a villain since Harry Groener played Mayor Wilkins in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The first episode of season five features a scene where June and her companion murderers completely demolish their big breakfasts at the diner, still dripping with the blood of their victims, which their overbearing waiter leaves unmentioned. The more sequences that end with a close-up of June staring directly into the camera make me feel like I must interpret them as running jokes.
Look, I am the last person to argue that a work of written entertainment requires more procedural and political material; we have all seen The Phantom Menace and found it tedious. However, I’m still unsure if Gilead has a president. And if you’re going to keep telling me about Gilead’s desperate attempts to join the UN and have sanctions lifted, you’re making me wonder how the economies of Gilead and Canada have managed to survive considering that in our reality, Canada and the United States are each other’s top trading partners. (For All Mankind, a different speculative series, did a much better job of establishing how lunar discoveries reduced the U.S. energy sector, stoking resentments among laid-off workers who later became domestic terrorists; in this case, we don’t know what the Canadians’ actual grievances against their new neighbours are.) You might feel as though you’ve completely passed through the looking glass by the time we get to Commander Lawrence’s suggestion that Luke and June return to Gilead voluntarily—and they give it some fairly serious consideration.
The Handmaid’s Tale has already won the Emmy for best drama series. It’s also crazy. Unfortunately, the performance is unable to fully embrace camp because a youngster is still present. Hannah (Jordana Blake) appears more frequently in season five than any other season since she is preparing to enter a new stage of her life as a Wife. Luke and June’s haste is accelerated by that terrifying possibility. This season and series ought to end quickly with a resolution to this issue for the benefit of this fake family. But I hope we get 50 more increasingly insane seasons of this show, concluding only when robo-June destroys the final Gilead outpost on Mars. I now view this show as a pitch-black comedy.
Follow Us on Twitter
Also, Read Destiny 2’s Season 18 Mods Might Overcrowd The Class Item Slot
