2x06 'First Blood'

[Dee]

Having found a reason to live and fight for, what's next for June?

[DawnFae]

The Handmaid's Tale 2x06 Promo

[Lori]

Oh my gosh! Last things first: The ending made my barely shaven leg hair stand on end! The defiance and strange beauty of the Handmaid running up the aisle with her hand in the air in the room of 'important' men opening a bigger, better, more efficient Handmaid hell was a thing to behold. The huge explosion with glass flying and the red skirts retreating. I feel like a Handmaid myself grasping onto this temporary victory - this rebel moment that for once does real harm to the Gilead puppeteers. I almost don't want to proceed with the next episode and would rather cuddle this violent and silent "Vicimus!" shouted by the battered lamb in red.

Whew. Done.

The rest of the episode - with the little wife in the picture, the dynamics deepen and Offred is back to being June, playing her cards and biding her time. The commander was his usual sickening perverted self.

Of interest was the fact that Mrs. Waterford was shot in the stomach while speaking at a university. She is now caught in her own web.

June crying over the photograph broke my heart. Such a loss.

This show makes me wonder how any society functions at all...

[Dee]

You've described that triumphant moment at the end so well, Lori. A real statement of 'enough is enough' from that poor mutilated woman, who has sacrificed her life now for the cause. No doubt there will be bitter consequences, if the opening episode of this season is any indication of how this regime deals with defiance, not to mention damage to state property and who knows what casualties the leadership has suffered in the building. Most of them would certainly deserve to be paralysed from the waist down for sure.

I know how you feel about not wanting to see the next episode just yet, riding on the high of this beautiful rebellious moment, enjoying the thrill of this victory.

Spoiler:

(A bit like in TWD after the mid season 7 finale, when our gang got reunited at Hilltop... )

I thought this was a stellar episode, digging deep into the complexities of the the relationships between the players.
June is back in the game of survival, mostly motivated by wanting to do right by her children now, and that appears to have boosted her strength. She can't plan her life with Nick any more now, it's just her and her children against this brutal world.

Our June is so wonderful at a supporting role. She was always amazing with Janine, and now she has been helping this sweet little girl who has been brainwashed by the new world order... Helping her, even if helping her cost her dearly. She advised her well, and she advised Nick well too, even if it was killing her. What a situation.

I was completely taken by the changing dynamics between Serena and June. I almost, almost began to feel sympathy again for Serena. She is in a very difficult situation herself. She wants nothing more than a child, and it seems she could in fact become a caring, loving mother too. But she knows deep down, I really think she does, that what she is doing is so very wrong on every level. She is basically stealing someone else's child, because she can't have her own. She has tried to connect with June somehow, but they simply cannot, because everything in their lives is about the preparation for Serena to take June's baby. The only way she could have improved things with June was helping her to reunite with Hannah, but she can't actually do that, can she? That's the impossibility of their situation. Everyone has been cornered now.

Including Nick. What a predicament. So was he really that desperate that being transferred and leaving June behind seems the best option for them all now? Or for him, anyway?

[Lori]

I believe the Nick relationship and his status in the household is the most loosey-goosey by way of plot and writing. His actions have been a bit all over the place. Surely he also trusts no one. His new marriage is a slap in his face and a signal of change. In effect, he now has his own Eye in his household in the form of a little brainwashed wife who has apparently been trained by the book. Remember, she was going to report him as a lover of men initially when she felt he did not want to consummate the marriage. In this strange world, that would be the only acceptable reason since men are not impotent or infertile or any of those non-alpha things, right?

Interesting that Serena was beginning to spark some sympathy chords for you, Dee. I only dug my heels in deeper with these completely daft attempts at some sort of placating June. (Which indeed seemed to only be to physically stabilize June for the baby's sake.) The little dinner party so well depicted the disconnect between Serena and the Handmaids. Her search for commonality was pathetic. Encouraging Ofglen to speak - even if Serena was unaware of her severed tongue...THIS SHOW ..... good grief!!! Her joy at June's heartbreak when Nick was married was sadistic. The glee that love for June was even further out of reach now reflected the chasm in Serena's own nearly dead marriage.

There was some foreshadowing with Aunt Lydia and the Commander. She has her eye on that household and it will be interesting to see how she makes him a pawn in the chess game.

And, yes - there definitely will be severe consequences for this defiance. No single person seems to be punished. Everyone will suffer.

[Dee]

I agree completely, that there are some plotholes and big question marks around Nick's story. "Loosey-goosey?" Word of the day!!

As far as I'm concerned, he exposed his relationship with June to Serena way back in Season 1, when he didn't give a rat's ass about Serena seeing him kneel infront of June with his hands on her belly. I couldn't comprehend they weren't following Nick on his escapades to see June.

The scene when he went up to the big boss in such a hurry to ask for a transfer, that was just so strange. A weird place to approach him with such request and without the leader demanding an explanation and digging for dirt on Waterford. Because I get that Nick is desperate to get out of there, the situation is now just so utterly impossible, but I am also sad that he would leave June behind. Surely not forever, just binding his time, but still. At least he could keep an eye on her. Who knows what will happen now though, after the explosion?

Regarding my 'almost-sympathy' with Serena in this episode... yes, I was surprised too, after her cruel enjoyment of June's suffering at the wedding and when she invaded June's personal space and started talking to her baby like it was hers, that in my view was simply the most horrible thing she ever did to June, besides taking her to see Hannah and not letting her out of the car.

But I am very intrigued by Serena's character. I think the actress is fantastic, and the complexity of the character is written exceptionally well. Bit by bit we discover more about her past and how it has affected her. I have some tiny speck of sympathy because I see her as an utterly miserable victim, even if she has been instrumental in the making of her own wretched situation. She has no one in this world she can rely on, no one she can love, and no one who loves her. She has become deranged as a result. And she's pinned all her final hopes on finding some happiness in this world on becoming a "mother". And she's singleminded enough to not let anything get in her way now to achieve this, especially as she's so close now. But despite her sheer focus and ruthlessness, she cannot help the remnants of her humanity pushing through, and realising that what she is doing is so very wrong, and I think this episode showed how tormented she is about it. She's pushed from one extreme to the other. She tried intimadation, violence, threats with June, in her desperate need to acquire this baby. And I think the near-miscarriage shocked her into not only realising how her actions actually geopardised her chance to get the baby, but also facing somewhat horrified, what a monster she had become. So she tried to be nice here. Yes, mostly for the sake of stabilising June and the baby. But I think also to rein herself in a bit, trying to connect to who she used to be, untwist the twisted. And it was almost working. But of course the closer she was letting June, the worse it hurt Serena, because of what she is about to do to her, taking her baby from her, after June had already one taken from her, because of the new world order Serena had helped to create. The gulf between the two women is so vast, it cannot be bridged, unless Serena gives up on the baby, chooses to help June, decides to right wrongs and joins the revolution. I wonder still if that might happen eventually. She is obviously conflicted, so we'll see what wins through in the end. But I had crumbs of sympathy because I saw how she was suffering too. I have forgiven her nothing yet though.

[Lori]

Yes, I am in lock step with you regarding Serena. I too believe she will eventually join the revolution. That is, unless they tear her limb from limb for her part before she steps foot past the threshold. Of course she must suspend her humanity and indeed her sanity to implement the plan of taking a child from a woman. She has to convince herself it is for the better....somehow. The sheer evil this requires is caustic and erosive. I have trouble feeling her motivations stem from conscience, however it does work when I think about how sometimes the very difficult feelings guilt produces makes the perpetrator lash out even more severely. At least the Handmaids do not deal with this particular fallout on this level. Yet, they do in ways because their actions reflect on the whole and thus do the punishments.

The actress playing Serena is so compelling - really my favorite actor in the series. Whenever she is on screen I am glued to her every expression. Her character is one of the saddest and cruelest amongst them.

Then there is Aunt Lydia. Doesn't she just strike like a snake from the screen? Doesn't she elicit so many emotions in the viewer? Childhood fears, needs, and the hope of comfort from someone so sure of her torment and remedy? UGGGGHHH! Again. THIS SERIES!!!!!!!!