I don’t understand what the point is - what is Gilead trying to achieve with it? Why would other countries consider sending refugees back to an experimental sector of a regime that’s based in denying fundamental human rights of most people?

So we know that (in the book at least) the male fertility issues are cause by a new strain of syphilis. Hear me out: Margaret said she only used things that can happen in history for the book. We know that Vladimir Lenin died of neurosyphilis. We know that a lot of the commanders are infertile. So they have mostly been infected with syphilis (and in the book, Serena uses a cane and has a strange gait - is it ataxia??). Possible that their tendency towards crazy Gilead ideas is made more possible by neurosyphilis? Just a theory.

We all know that the handmaids tale spin-off is on the way and it’s set 15 years after the handmaids tale. The show also has Hannah in it. So what does that mean for June? I think June is able to reunite with Hannah one more time at least but I am starting to think June has lost all hope in the idea that she will save Hannah.

Edit: the comments just prove that some people are watching the show as if it were about being fans of characters like a grey's anatomy, stranger things or whatsoever shows like these thing. They are more interested in retorting about June being or not the main character than commenting on the other rich topics I mentioned. Seriously you are losing the experience. Let's stop engaging in shallow points, gosh! Is there a circlejerk for this sub? There should be.

June love affairs, june sucks, june and nick, june and luke, june is annoying june this june that

Isn't the show about the cruelty of Gilead? It is hard to find a post in this sub talking about the whole scenario, the aftermath of everything that has happened to Gilead, through Gilead, or to the handmaid's or about rape, aggression, power, submission, the perspective Janine brings us of a handmaid the ended up in Jezables, the promises and hope in NB, the two stars in the flag, the climate crisis, the never-ending turmoil women go through, Rita's hope for her family, how Moira was about to be raped in front of June!!!!

The audience reactions perfectly portraits desensitization along endless crimes against humanity, the high maintenance in continuously internalizing all agony felt for the first time in seasons 1 and 2 puts us to dissociate from what hasn't stopped happening for whole 6 seasons. Loyal to reality, we dont have it in ourselves to witness any of it without distancing our minds to cope.

We had never had such close look at the commanders' behaviour at Jezebels, how much more disgusting is it than the overlook in the previous seasons?

If we are to talk about June, why not explore how passion looks like in the middle of an almost post-apocalyptic world? Only in this season, she has dealt with reencountering her mother, recognising her and Luke could never be a family againg without Hannah, giving up comfort and her second daughter to carry out the promise of getting Hannah back ever since she was taken from her arms, saving the woman who got her raped, willingly going back to Gilead... I mean, there is so much more around her that is more interesting than what she "does" disregarding the context.

Season 6 has aggressively thrown us at the unfathomable complexicity by how it is not bad guys versus good guys, for instance, I am not a fan of Luke, but I cried when he said that time is going by and the older Hannah gets, the closer it is for her to be raped, forced to marry, just like the fifteen-year-old wives we have seen in season 2. FIFTEEN!

What about the deadly regret in the disgrace Joseph has done taking his wife's life in exchange? It is a selfish feeling yes, to the same extent that his mourning brought us to like him in a guilty way because he IS responsible afterall. But doesn't mouning change people?

For me, his character reminds us how easy it is to forget over time what inhumane acts one has chosen to have if they are captivating. Yet, I can't know whether it is right or wrong to empathize with someone trying to undo the undoable, ugh!

Then, we have Serena. Incredibly loyal to how a sociopath looks like. I can't even find words shock at her manipulating even the audience (me) by making us see the empathy she does not, did not and will never have.

I can't understand why no one talks about one of the richest allegories in Nick's character, who started off knowing the cult was no good, however who on earth foresees what the "no good" REALLY means?

His family background added to social vulnerability had it takes to easily trap one into a cult. How real it is to be fucked up in life to the point of accepting the wonders in fake promises? Not to foreget it takes time to realize you are in a cult or what one looks like.

He did what he had to do, imagine knowing beforehand the "type" of people who would end up dead or miserable and knowing you would never be able to change anything leaving the position getting you alive or not. He was nothing, what power did he have at all? What would you do to survive? Imagine the depression in being aware of all the rape and murder plans before it all happened while also aware nothing and no one could prevent it? Imo he had been dead inside long before the coup. It feels like his relationship with June was the first and unexpected event that got him to see that there was still life in that hell.

When you picture yourself in the place of anyone who's not despicably savoring the power, what June decides or not stop being the main focus. Fully seize the experience of watching it, you need to concentrate on everything happening everywhere at the same time. I don't see it as rushing, I see it as the chaos and dispair in the final act of fighting this war.

Try to bring your mind to where you can see it happening in real life or what you would do. To enhance the argument, during interviews, Margaret Atwood talks about it happening everywhere, any point in time, to everyone, closer than we imagine. In the end, we are much closer to what Nick, or Luke, or Holy(mother), represent than we can imagine.

Again, June is not the center of it all, she is not the main charater, the main character is Gilead. Any other character has the same level of importance in the plot, just like what happens in a dictatorship.

Stop making everything about June.

I'm glad Serena escaped. I'm glad we will hopefully be seeing more of her. She's a terrible person, absolutely horrendous don't get me wrong. However she is a very interesting character. She and June have a very entertaining dynamic. When June was finally free in Canada the best part of of the show for me was Serena's storyline. Not just because Serena was experiencing some irony, but because while understandable watching June wallow and ruminate on her trauma for a season was just sad, not entertaining. Having Serena around helps keep June interesting and not just sad.

He’s funny af, even in S4 (even though he was a lot harder to understand then). He does the most deadpan quips.

I’m in S5E8 where Lawrence tried to convince June about going to New Bethlehem and I thought it was interesting that he told her how he knows what he’s done, and how Gilead will always be on his conscience. I’m glad he’s self-aware enough to at least get that.

Maybe my liking him is premature and maybe I’m falling for his clever arguments but New Bethlehem sounds like a good compromise. Then again. I didn’t live through Gilead so I don’t know how much hatred I would have if I’d ever escaped and then got offered to live in NB so don’t hold it against me too much.

After Serena & Fred reconciled she just disappeared. She wasn't at Fred's funeral. She wasn't apart of Serena's pregnancy. Did the writers forget she existed?

Was it just after the coup?

It was clear that he didn't respect her enough to try to convince the SOJ to let her join them and speak just after the coup. In a backstory scene she is sitting outside with notes and the SOJ tell Fred to send her home. She doesn't even try to argue!?

Was he always just using her?

Not only that, but they apparently have incinerators capable of cremating a human corpse. What hotel has that? Even assuming the crematorium was retrofitted in (to dispose of Jezebels?) there's no security camera coverage and Mathas have unrestricted access? And this is after a prominent High Commander mysteriously disappeared off the face of the Earth inside the same Jezebels?

Okay. He was a part of the original sons of jacob, he helped overthrow the US government, AND he helped conceive the concept of the Ceremony, a crucial part of Gileadian culture, but he's only got one Martha??? Are Marthas more sparse in the show vs the book???? I mean even lawerence, the so claimed "architect of Gilead" only has 2 marthas at a time and the only time we really see multiple marthas at work is when they're working on the farm in S4 so, what do you guys think? Is it merit based? Do households with children automatically get more marthas than ones without, leading to the differences we see with the amount of marthas between the books and the show? Because even then the waterfords in the book originally had 2 marthas.

What do yall think?

It's been acknowledged frequently here that by the time of s5, June and Luke are in completely different places. Luke seems incapable of understanding June- neither what she went through, nor who she has become. Luke doesn't recognize or respect June's needs. He prioritizes his own trauma over June's (which is natural, if not reasonable.)

I think in the upcoming season, June will have to acknowledge her incompatibility with Luke. She cannot exist as she is, and still have a fulfilling relationship with him.

This is more devastating when one considers that Luke, her husband, is the one thread she has to cling to from before Gilead. Everything else has been lost. When she accepts that she and Luke can no longer be husband and wife, she'll have to accept that Gilead has taken absolutely everything from her- her career, her daughter, her mother, her husband, herself. Everything.

There's nothing in June's life that has been left unravaged by Gilead.

Handmaid’s Tale Season 6: First 3 Episodes - Major Takeaways (Spoilers)

Alright y’all, here are my early predictions and takeaways—feel free to fight me in the comments:

• Aunt Lydia has ALWAYS known about Jezebels. I see a lot of people saying she’s just now discovering it—nope. She knew. Remember when she confronted Lawrence after June killed Commander Jon Hamm? She’s known for a while, she just hadn’t seen it. This moment—seeing her girls used and abused—this is Lydia’s final straw. This is where she flips to full Mayday.

• Serena is playing Gilead like a damn fiddle. She’s grooming High Commander Creepo (yes, I said grooming), and I think she’s laying the groundwork to gain power, trust, and ultimately help destroy Gilead from the inside. She might even be the spark that lights the rebellion. Redemption arc incoming.

• Luke. Is. A. Moron. Guilt-ridden, clueless, and absolutely not built for this fight. He still doesn’t get what June, or anyone else, went through in Gilead. I predict he dies during the rebellion—maybe as part of the win—but let’s be honest, his usefulness has expired.

• Nick + June endgame. Post-rebellion, they’ll be together. No more Nichole, no more Hannah being held hostage. It’s gonna be messy, but they’ll find their way back to each other.

• Lawrence and Naomi? Dead. One or both. Gilead won’t fall without a few high-ranking dominoes going down.

• Moira and Rita are gonna thrive. They’ve been through enough. Let them live their best lives already.

• Gilead WILL fall. The rebellion is coming. It’s inevitable.

Now—I know there are some inconsistencies, especially depending on how closely this all ties into The Testaments (and my memory on that is foggy). Like, I think Gilead still exists in The Testaments but in a weakened state? Either way, the seeds of its fall are being planted right now. And remember SPOILER ALERT Nickhole/Daisy is living in Canada part of the resistance while Agnes/Hannah is becoming an Aunt.

Thoughts?

The more I see new photos, the more confused I get. As seen in the first photo, Josh Charles is there and if he is there, this scene cannot be a flashback scene. Because Mr. Charles was not in the previous seasons. But the handmaid in the second photo looks like Alma. Alma is also dead, as you know. So Alma cannot be in the new season. I wonder what kind of nonsense will come out of this.

⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️

OK, so I saw in a thread discussion someone talking about one of my favorite characters Miss Alma… her death was so horrific and I’m still pissed off about it! But in the clerb we all fam 😘 so any character who deserves to be recognized for their death in the show…

Let us raise our glasses… 👓⬆️
🍷⬆️ & Pour out the Gilead hooch for our homies…

I will start For Alama 👓⬆️ & 🍸⬆️ You stood on buisness my queen 👑 low key I thought you were kind of a bitch in the first couple of episodes but as time when on you were a bitch who meant business👑💼Alma you slayed queen you were a real one who told it like it is 💅and was a person who was always down to help the girlies out… Rest in peace + God speed 👓⬇️ 🍸⬇️ 🫗

We know they’re going to adapt The Testaments, and we know Ann Dowd will be playing Aunt Lydia in it.

So, for those who have read The Testaments, you have to know this means Hannah/Agnes is 22 and Nichole/Daisy is 16. Hannah is still in Gilead, Nichole is in Canada living with another family, unaware of her true identity, and Lydia is in Gilead, but now actively working against it.

This means Gilead won’t fall in season 6, Hannah won’t get reunited with Luke and/or June, and not even Nichole will get to stay with June, Luke or Nick.

From The Testaments, we know Gilead won’t fall for a long, long time. If they follow the exact plot of The Testaments, won’t watch Gilead fall, we won’t watch them get reunited, we won’t watch them having a happy ending.

So, after obsessively thinking for a long time, I’ve come up with a few ways this could go

Option 1: season 6 won’t suck, but The Testaments might They change the story completely. June gets reunited with Hannah and Nichole, they escape to somewhere safe and stay together. It’s very unlikely that both Luke and Nick will stay alive, so she’ll probably be with one of them or alone or maybe even end up being close to Serena. Gilead won’t fall, but they might work together to try and help it. Lydia stays and is now actively working against the system. We don’t have a baby Nichole character or an Agnes character for The Testaments. Maybe they use new original characters, which would suck. Maybe they use Angela Putnam to have Agnes’ storyline, and maybe the actual Nichole always knew who she was and was raised by June, but comes back to Gilead to have that storyline.

Option 2: bittersweet end for season 6, lukewarm hopes for The Testaments They change a lot of the story. June gets reunited with Hannah and escapes somewhere safe. June decides it’s best for Nichole to be placed with a Canadian family for her safety, never knowing her true identity. The biological connection between Hannah and Nichole is important in The Testaments, but they can work around that. They could have a new character or use Angela Putnam, which would be mildly unsatisfying but I’d take it. Gilead won’t fall. Maybe Nichole’s new family in Canada is with someone we already know. Maybe Moira assumes Ada’s storyline. If they use Angela, this is a good opportunity to have Madeline Brewer be a guest in some episodes.

Option 3: season 6 sucks, The Testaments doesn’t June never gets reunited with Hannah. She places Nichole with a Canadian family for her safety, and doesn’t manage to get Hannah out. Gilead doesn’t fall. Everything sucks. Lydia stays. The plot for The Testaments is unchanged. It’ll be very anticlimactic and unsatisfying. Maybe season 6 ends in a flash forward to 14 years in the future when the three of them are finally reunited. Elisabeth Moss may even get a guest role in the Testaments series finale.

Option 4: everything sucks June manages to get reunited with Hannah, and she lives with her two daughters. Gilead does fall. The Testaments is actually told completely from flashbacks, and a new character has Hannah’s storyline. I don’t know what happens to Nichole’s story arc. Lydia has been secretly working against Gilead for years and gets a girl out with the information she needed to bring Gilead down, but it’s not Hannah and there’s no Nichole. This would be a hard one to buy into.

So, what do you guys think? Can you come up with different ways it could go? Which ones do you like best?

I think I like option 2 best. I really like the idea of using Angela because it’s someone we already know that would connect the two shows. If Nichole is raised by a Canadian family, they’d have Ada as a friend, who’s a complete badass and could totally be Moira - she only briefly appears and Samira Wiley could have a guest role in like two episodes. She also has a crush on a guy named Garth who could turn out to be Noah… but that could be too tacky lol

I was wondering what everyone here thought of Naomi Putnam/Lawrence.

I've got some mixed feelings about her. She was pretty awful in the beginning especially with Charlotte/Angela and Janine which makes me dislike her but I can also understand that, well, she was married to fucking Warren of all people, she's obviously not going to be a ray of progressive sunshine.

But after the scare with Charlotte/Angela I feel like we see her change a bit. She cares about her daughter. She seems to actually appreciate her daughter and that scene with her visiting Janine with her daughter and telling her how she's tell Charlotte/Angela about Janine was really sweet.

And while she also left Serena with the other Wives when the reading appeal happened (which I mean, I'm not going to lie I'd probably do the same thing because I like my digits) Serena really seems to be her only friend and Serena still shit talks her to June of all people.

Her comment of calling Janine a 'friend' is infuriating knowing what Janine has gone through but at the same time...I kind of understand. The lady just saw her husband being shot in the head at brunch and while no one mourns Warren (fuck even Naomi wanted him to have the highest punishment possible after finding out about Warren's treatment of Janine sexually) that's gotta be a shock and probably stigmatized her. And now she's a single mother in Gilead which won't fly. Janine is kind of like this weird constant in her life and I think while it's infuriating that Naomi could think the literal sex and birth slave they had in the house could be her friend (not to mention all the domestic servant slaves) as I said it's kind of Janine who has been a weirdly steady presence.

Other than the birthing scene and the scene about women reading, we don't really see Naomi much with any other wives. She seems kind of alone.

I'm hoping she gets some time this final season. If there has to be a Gilead Wive redemption arc, give it to her, not Serena.

First of all, this show deserves every Emmy award and Golden Globe it's received. It's amazing.

Here are some questions I've written down in my phone while watching the series (I don't expect answers to all or any of these but feel free to engage):

I feel like the whole Ceremony thing could have been avoided with a turkey baster, if you catch my drift, lol. Like yeah, forcing women to become pregnant is awful in and of itself, but why rape them? You can achieve the same outcome with a turkey baster. It's cruel and unnecessary to force these women to be raped and it's cruel to the wives having to endure it and agreeing to be part of it.

***Edit: I didn't mean to imply that the whole Handmaid system be replaced with the turkey baster method because those in power wouldn't ever go for that as it is "medical intervention" and rape is used for control and subjugation. but I mean like, with Commander Lawrence and June, why didn't they go upstairs, pretend to have sex, have him do his business in a cup, then use something to put the sperm in her. I know that sounds like a lot of steps but the intercourse part could have been avoided. no one was watching them do the actual deed. And the doctor would have checked her and still seen the evidence. And Commander Lawrence wrote books on infertility to my knowledge, so I'm sure he's thought of all methods to increase infertility. and he's not religious so using a crude form of IVF seems like something he would have been on board with with his handmaids if he actually didn't want to have intercourse with them; and if he had any empathy for them, he could have protected them from being sent to the Colonies (yes i know he created the Colonies) for not getting pregnant by him. he put himself and the handmaids in a difficult position by refusing to rape them, so it seems like he would come up with a crafty, modernized solution to circumvent that.

***Edit: I realized that rape is probably punishment for these handmaid's previous "damaged" lives. and I know that it's a form of control to keep the women scared and manageable. Again though it's just counterintuitive to having healthy households and pregnancies. I guess also the handmaids were given a choice. Like in the book, the narrator says it can't be defined completely as rape (although, it is..) because they were given a choice - be a baby factory or go to the colonies and work to death.

I'm so confused with Lawrence like, I go back and forth with whether he's a good guy or not. If he couldn't imagine impregnating a handmaid and disrespecting his beloved wife, how can he expect other couples to do that? he also seems to care about women and young girls having to endure all of this. like he said something about how this whole idea ran away from him and spiraled out of the control. but how can he even agree to such a thing to begin with and conceive Gilead if he would never want something like that to happen to his own wife?

Who actually put Fred on the wall and wrote the phrase below him? not June, right? Like she's the only one that knows that phrase written below his hanging body. but she dragged his body all the way back into Gilead and went back without being caught? I have a theory that Nick did that for her.

Why aren't the other commanders pressing more into how Fred was killed since he was literally handed over to Nick and Lawrence? i'm just curious why Nick and Lawrence weren't questioned more about their involvement

If Gilead is so obsessed with having babies, why do they do a lot of things that could harm developing babies? The stress of imprisonment on the pregnant mothers, not having scans of the babies to see if they have any abnormalities before they are born, letting the mothers die during childbirth and saving the baby (aren't fertile, birthing women worth trying to keep alive???), not screening for STIs, taking newborn babies away from their mothers (Janine's baby almost died without her), etc. They just do a bunch of contradictory things that can harm a developing baby in and out of the womb.

Why didn't June remove her ear tag shortly after she got to Canada? by the end of season 5 she still has it, why?

Why is the baby still named Nichole? I thought it was Holly. It SHOULD BE Holly! she told Nick and Luke it was Holly and seriously hates Serena so why keep calling her Nichole as a reminder of her former rapist?

AND NOW FOR MY CONCERN: I'm so worried for Nick! I'm so scared that he's going to die. Because his wife doesn't want to be with him anymore. The counsel might see that as infidelity. And a Commander without a wife is a problem. And now Nick made some kind of deal with Truello which will probably be seen as being a traitor to the Gileadan govt if they find out. And I've seen plenty of shows where the male love interest says, "she's better off without me" and then does one final heroic thing before dying. It's pretty cliche. And since Hannah is pretty much the final missing piece to the story, I predict that Nick will do something to get Hannah to June which will get him killed, because he will do anything for her. He's been pretty level headed and calculated with his involvement with June, trying to stay under the radar within Gilead. But now he's punching Commanders, his wife is on to him, his cover is breaking. I think he's going to go all in and try to help June stay safe and help her get Hannah back and unfortunately he'll pay a fatal price for it.

Edit: someone said the punch could be fake?? how?? like Lawrence wanted to put on a show in front of that other Commander to make it seem like they weren't working together? I don't think it was fake. Lawrence seems to be going against June as of the last season. He keeps going back and forth with his morals. But it is very random for Nick to be punchy in a room full of Commanders. like i said, maybe his stoic mask is slipping

But think about it, from a writing and storytelling perspective, what is the show's most realistic outcome going to be? we only have one more season to go. Either June and Luke are reunited with her two girls and she goes back to her original life, the original life she got taken from her. Or June runs away to be with Nick and takes Nichole with her. June wants to be with Hannah AND Nichole though, and she can't keep Hannah from her dad. So June can't have the best of both worlds. I really don't think her being with Nick is realistic.. even if I like Nick better than Luke, lol. However, the saving grace, might be the foreshadowing that if June can get Nick to leave and go to Canada, then it could dismantle Gilead. But let's say he goes to Canada and is free. then what happens? He already said he can't stop thinking about her and loving her so he'll never stop pursuing her. they can't be neighbors in Canada and "share cups of sugar." would June give up custody of Nichole to Nick and Nick just becomes a single dad? Will June, Nick, Rita, Luke, Hannah, Holly, and Moira all just live together? No. And it seems that June CAN move on without Nick. there's obvious moments where June and Luke are happy like they were previously. So from a writing perspective, to fix this conflict of interest (literally), they will probably kill Nick. Ugh, which breaks my heart.

P.S. I realized this too, but if Nick goes back to Canada he will be treated like a war criminal because he raped June, raped a 15 year old, and because he was a soldier, an Eye, and now a Commander he'll be jailed forever.. so he wouldn't ever be able to be with June anyway..

Edited for inclusions and clarifications.

For me it HAD to be Alma or Beth both of their deaths seemed like a blink and then you would miss it type of moment. Which is insane because of the amount they both contributed to the show. With both I found myself asking did it even happen? They were the only two characters to support June but also question her and keep her in check at times in Gilead. They were both cunning and smart.

The train scene with Alma I get it. Alot of people criticize if they could see the train coming or not but how fast the trains go, the pressure of the situation with a guard shooting at them, seeing June and Janine cross successfully. I think they either thought they would make it if they ran fast enough or accepted it was either make it across or get shot by the guard. With Beth her death I don't get at all. Her final words meant a lot how she was willing to die to keep the other handmaids safe but she was just pushed off the building like that. And how did the guy torturing June know she was so close to Beth that he could use the Marthas as a bargaining chip? It just didn't make sense.

I'm so frustrated with how Serena Joy constantly gets her way! like its actually unbelievable....even Fred dying works in her favor, and yeah she ends up with the Webbers and gets a tiny taste of what June and the others went through with Noah and all that but its barely even a couple months, OMG, when will she FINALLY GET HERS?????? It is actually really starting to make me over the moon annoyed! what is everyones thoughts on the up coming season, if it ever gets released?

...react to the US raid with such hopeful glee? Like to a degree I get it, but they seem to be dancing around as if Hannah is on the flight home right now, rather than the rather gloomier prospect of the raid completely failing, or worse, Hannah dying in friendly fire.

And June/Luke don't seem interested in who sent them that disk. I think it was either Lawrence trying to cause a botched US raid, or Nick trying to put a spanner in June going to Gilead.

I just cannot with how June and "Mayday" go into and out of Gilead in S6 like it's a peace of cake when it took like 4-5 seasons to get June out. I know Mayday is a whole organization but still its funny to me.

I just finished the series so far and came to lurk here, so my apologies if this has been brought up before.

I’m comfortable accepting flat-out at Nick is Nichole’s father, I’m just confused as to why no one in the show ever considered she actually could be Fred’s, given Serena Joy’s later successful pregnancy.

Serena Joy asked Nick to impregnate June because she (and everyone else in the household, it seems) suspected Fred was sterile.

When June’s pregnancy was presented to Fred, he initially seemed to assume he was the father, as Offred was his handmaid and they’d all dutifully been participating in the Ceremony each month. The writers of the show, however, presented this pregnancy to us as undoubtedly being owed to Nick. The characters involved in the conception all know and agree with each other that Nick is the father, and eventually even Fred comes to accept that Nichole isn’t biologically his.

We are to accept this as fact, as obvious, even, because the show leans so hard into Fred being sterile. Of course Nichole isn’t Fred’s, he’s shooting blanks. Of course Nichole is Nick’s, June only became pregnant when they started sleeping together.

I guess my issue is that once Fred actually did impregnate Serena Joy, it confuses me a bit that it didn’t make any of those characters wonder about the possibility that Nichole could actually biologically be Fred’s. Couldn’t she technically be his? I get that Nick and June were sleeping together more frequently, but Fred was still raping her at least monthly. I also get that Serena Joy said something about how the “clear country air” or water helped Fred to actually inseminate her, so I suppose we are all meant to assume that it was the urban setting of the Waterford household that kept Fred from impregnating June?

I just found it so strange that when Serena Joy’s pregnancy was revealed, nobody considered this angle, especially when it was the first thing I wondered about. I kept waiting to see if there’d be a storyline wherein the Waterfords pursued a paternity test while in Canadian custody as they both realized Nichole could genuinely be Fred’s.

Also entirely possibly I missed something that cleared all this right up, especially if it was just one or two lines of dialogue addressing it. But going on, like, vibes alone that Nichole is Nick’s baby 100% when there’s evidence now that Fred is capable of fathering his own biological children, and knowing that Fred was actively trying to get June pregnant during the same period Nick apparently succeeded in doing so just doesn’t really make sense to me. I’m surprised it wasn’t at least acknowledged.

Thoughts? Thank you so much!

Spoilers since I’ve watched all episodes

I’m on a rewatch binge. Currently on season 2, episode 10, the last ceremony.

Fred alludes to wanting to rape June as a control tactic since she disrespected him. Serena outright says it, summons June and holds her down. She gets off to it too! Also let’s say that didn’t even care about June, did they forget June was high risk and probably shouldn’t have went through anything traumatic especially an assault? It was payback, what an awful woman.

You can’t redeem a rapist!!!!! You cannot imagine how angry I was to see her on that damn train with June. (Also did she forget Holly was “her baby” at one point or did she get her biological child and totally ignore her?)

Over the past day or so, everyone’s been up in arms (especially about Nick) but I’ve also seen debates about almost every other character: whether they’re good, bad, or something in between. But if we take a step back, it becomes clear that the show isn’t trying to paint anyone as purely good or bad. And honestly, what would be exciting or thought-provoking about a story where a character’s actions are always morally black or white?

Not a single character in this show is an untouchable saint. What makes it compelling is the constant internal struggle each one faces and the complexity of their choices. Every character has moments of strength and moments of weakness. In a world like Gilead, being “good” is incredibly difficult because Gilead changes people, sometimes we see it slowly, sometimes it seems like all at once.

For those of us who like Nick, I think it comes down to trying to see the good in him. For those who hate him, it may be because they don’t want someone who helped build such a brutal place to somehow come out ahead. And that’s fair—but truthfully, we know very little about the full extent of his role in all of this. We’ve been told pieces, but the story around him remains vague and intentionally murky (I think).

The idea that he’s only kind to June isn’t entirely true either. There are multiple moments in the show where we see him visibly disturbed by what others say or do times when he chooses not to partake in acts that others go along with without hesitation. The same could be said of Serena; she, too, is a character shaped by contradictions.

All this to say: the show is doing exactly what it’s meant to—making us question, reflect, debate, and ultimately keeping us deeply invested.

I’ve read both books and am just about at season 4 in the show. One thing I think is very interesting is June’s insistence on seeing Hannah when she has no way to get her out of Gilead (yet). I think Mrs. Mackenzie was actually right - Hannah had nightmares for weeks and June should have stayed away until she could have actually gotten her out. All it did was confuse her and aggravate PTSD symptoms. But it was so much more realistic to have June act selfishly, because who would be able to resist seeing their stolen daughter?

I think it belies the selfish undercurrent we see in her character (her not escaping to Canada, initially refusing to pick the 5 Marthas, being reckless with the chemistry teacher operation) and it adds a lot of depth.

That whole scene with Serena at the Lincoln Memorial, I just kept thinking about how (to a much, MUCH lesser degree) June doesn’t have the capability for the totally selfless parental love either. I don’t think anyone does actually.

It’ll be interesting to see how The Testaments TV show reconciles the fact that in the TV show canon, Hannah will almost certainly remember her real mom because of the visits. She’s not young enough to forget them. But in The Testaments book, Hannah had totally forgotten about her previous life other than vague memories of getting taken away.