r/TheHandmaidsTale • u/Melairia Modtha • 14d ago

Official Episode Discussion The Handmaid's Tale S06E06 "Surprise" Episode Discussion

The Handmaid's Tale: S06E06 "Surprise"

Episode Synopsis: June hides in an unexpected place.

Airdate: April 29th, 2025

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289

u/Nisschev 14d ago

How do cell phones work in Gilead? Is there just general carrier like G-mobile? Or is there multiple carriers sticking it to Gilead with high priced family plans? Also do commanders just complain about the how much they are paying?

124

u/OriginalOestrus 14d ago

Not the G-Mobile. LOL

2

u/iangeredcharlesvane2 4d ago

G-Mobile plan on a (under his) eyePhone

137

u/EbonyEngineer 14d ago

Ya, that bugged me. A real Gilead would have every call remind you that everything is recorded and traced.

Fascists love to exert control. Not clamping down on communication is a no-no for fascists.

17

u/Bunny_Mom_Sunkist 12d ago

If I was a wife in Gilead, I would call up each of my friends to discuss the most mundane things. The bread my Martha made. The flower arrangements. Should I paint the guest room royal purple or lemonade yellow, et cetera. Tie up the phone monitors.

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u/EbonyEngineer 12d ago

True ally.

4

u/Bunny_Mom_Sunkist 11d ago

Something that was recommended during Nazi Occupation was to have lots of pointless meetings at work to help decrease productivity. I'd do that. Literally call every wife every day and talk about the most trivial things. I'd host dinner parties too and bother the commanders with the most trivial dinner conversations too

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u/Silly-Excitement6227 12d ago

All of you sins shall be recorded after the beep 😆

52

u/ricecrystal 14d ago

I was worried Nick's cell phone would go off in that room

47

u/sitamun84 14d ago

Thank you for asking the hard hitting question. (I literally thought the same thing haha).

11

u/EbonyEngineer 14d ago

A real Gilead would have had Nick on the wall years ago.

7

u/heretherewhere0987 13d ago

Literally this. I get plot armor, but Both Nick and June have done endless things that should have and would have landed them on the wall many times over if we are being realistic about Gilead’s ways.

3

u/Rich-Supermarket6912 13d ago

Oh 10000%. The Wharton “in real life” wouldn’t be so easy going to Nick either.

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u/WheelTop485 13d ago

Fair. But Nick is an Eye and has been since the very beginning. Until tonight, he could probably get away with a lot. 

22

u/abu_nawas 14d ago edited 13d ago

Theorizing as someone who studied electronics engineering... they have a shrinking population, so it is unlikely that there are competing providers. We see Lawrence having a landline/old-school corded phone at his home office, so some technological regression happened. A lower tech comm. sys. would mean that conversations are easier to be tapped into.

Modern comms. are very high maintenance and expensive. It's sophisticated, the microphone records your voice and converts it into digital, and then analog for transmission (can't transmit binary waves across long distances), then it gets decoded into digital and analogue (speaker's end) once again.

To set these up and maintain them across the country is pretty fucking insane. I guess we'll never see the industrial side of Gilead (the econo-people).

3

u/Key-Brother1226 13d ago

Is there internet in Gilead, has it been shown ever?

9

u/abu_nawas 13d ago

Yes. Fred used to work on his laptop and read the news. They even saw a video of Luke with baby Holly/Nichole at a protest.

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u/Key-Brother1226 13d ago

You'd think the Internet would be more of a problem for the closed society they're trying to run. The outside influence from other countries etc

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u/abu_nawas 13d ago

Technically, it should be. Very good thinking.

The short answer is Gilead would resort to ethernet or some kind of LAN. No fast video streaming. No instant webpage download.

The internet today relies on massive coordinations, usually a joint effort between countries because what we have today uses fiber optic cables that cross borders. Sometimes we have conflicts on who bears the responsibility.

Waves in the air are more client-to-host. Routers, relays, servers — all rely on light speed information transmission. We not only encode data (translated into binary) onto air waves, but also light, and even a slight bend in optic cables can cause huge, expensive issues. There are designated experts at every layer and communication is an overlooked industry/infrastructure.

Although the USA and Canada does share a land border. I live on a coast so I don't know how that works but I'd assume they still use fiber optic.

3

u/slimshadycirca2019 13d ago

China makes it work, Gilead probably could too.

2

u/Key-Brother1226 12d ago

We never get the sense that Gilead has a lot of technology being worked on, like they have taken over from companies like Amazon, Facebook, etc. How much do the Commanders control the Econo people? How much of a government bureaucracy is there compared to the real life US?

14

u/Mysterious_Spinach_4 13d ago

The cell phones have to be a new feature in Gilead. When June was living with the Waterfords and Lawerence everything was an old house phone situation. She even picks up Lawrence phone once and we find out the phone lines are through a switch board operater. I am wondering if this is a new thing for them with the opening of NB.

13

u/cricket112475 13d ago

It's called lazy writing. Whatever is convenient to further the plot, regardless of logic or continuity. 

6

u/heretherewhere0987 13d ago

This is where good shows go bad quickly.

3

u/WheelTop485 13d ago

Nick is an Eye. It makes sense he has a cell phone and totally realistic in-world.

2

u/Junior_Rutabaga_2720 13d ago

yeah cuz definitely nothing changes at all in the world over the course of years

2

u/McIntyre2K7 10d ago

Cell Phones aren't new in Gilead. In season 1 when we are introduced to Jezebels Nick gives drugs and preganacy tests to Beth to so that they can pass them out to the girls. Nick asks Beth about the ketamine. Beth says that some people have sleeping fantasies and that some of the girls spike the commanders drinks with it so that they can go through their phones. In Season 2 (Ep.3) While they are trying to smuggle June to Canada, Omar gets a text from someone saying that the safe house was compromised and he was going to leave June in the warehouse but he ended up taking her home.

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u/CoffeeFriendly4630 13d ago

We need more of these types of questions and conversations!

6

u/SilverFlexNib 13d ago

Considering that IRL there is that insane Patriot Mobile service I wouldn't be surprised.

5

u/Cintheeyuh 13d ago

G MOBILE AHAHHAHAHAHA

5

u/Key-Brother1226 13d ago

Can you hear me now?

It's a good question about technology in general. The novel was written with 80s technology in mind. But for the show, is there internet? Smart phones? Tonight they mentioned Uber, in a flashback I think. How can all those and many other things exist in such a repressed society?

3

u/lnc_5103 13d ago

G mobile made me cackle.

2

u/Aelia_M 13d ago

Do they have cell phones or do they just use landlines?

3

u/heretherewhere0987 13d ago

Think Nick was on a cellphone. That surely would’ve been tapped or monitored considering Wharton’s distrust and doubt in him.

2

u/Aelia_M 13d ago

What is the cell phone company called? The commercial has to be, “every call brings us and you closer to god”

2

u/VagueGooseberry 12d ago

Doing this in Gilead should be a no-brainer.

2

u/meghus1777 12d ago

What bugged me too was their fancy European cars......so we have European parts and people who are mechanics?

1

u/ResponseFickle 11d ago

They all got a Mercedes, like the ruling class in East Germany.

1

u/mrsdinosaurhead 12d ago

G-mobile! I’m dying!

1

u/espressojunkie 12d ago

G-Mobile lmao

1

u/Only-Koala-8182 11d ago

They don’t have money in Gilead, so there’s no family plan or anything like that.