The Handmaid's Tale: Season 2 Finale

So I usually don’t blog about TV, movies, and books but I’m not sure why.  Going to the movies has always been one of my favorite things to do (though I do it far less often post-kids than pre) and the golden age of premium TV followed by Netflix has been a godsend for our post-kids life.  I don’t read as many books as I used to but when I do, I love talking to other people about them.  So with that in mind, I’m going to start blogging about this kind of stuff and see where it goes… I would love it if anyone wants to join the conversation with comments too!

I’m a little late but I finished Season Two of The Handmaid’s Tale last night.  After a really solid 1^st Season, Season Two was more up and down for me.  I enjoyed the 1^st three episodes but was totally enraged when (spoiler alert… for this entire post), June’s escape plane is shot down on takeoff and she is dragged back to Gilead.  It felt like such a setback, not just for June but for the show.  How do those first three episodes even matter or advance the plot forward in any way if she just ends up in the same exact spot afterward?  It also felt a little desperate, as if the Hulu execs, showrunners, producers & writers sat in a room together and said "Guys, let's figure out how to ride this gravy train all the way to a 10th season." It feels wasteful to have spend another season in Gilead before actually advancing the plot to where we can all see it going – revolt & revolution with a little assist from our neighbors to the North.

I even skipped a few episodes this season – namely episode 4 (Other Woman), when June first gets back to Gilead (again), episode 10 (The Last Ceremony), when June is raped (again) as a way to induce labor, and episode 11 (Holly) when June sort of escapes (again) and gives birth to her 2^nd daughter.  Basically, after episode 3 I started first reading the NY Times recaps and then deciding whether I wanted to endure an entire hour of what was detailed.

I share the same complaint as many others about this show – that there’s a line between depicting violence as a part of effective storytelling and torture porn, and I’m not sure The Handmaid’s Tale always stays on the right side of that line.  It was hard enough to handle last season with an infant in my arms but being pregnant makes it near impossible to get through an episode without crying at the thought of someone forcing me to procreate with my rapist and then stealing my baby from me afterward.

Still, I’m glad I stuck with it because despite the somewhat weak writing at times, and the soul-sucking nature of watching my worst fears come to life, it’s visually stunning, beautifully acted, and overall a good, meaningful show.

As most of you know, I am extremely pro-choice.  I believe that reproductive freedom is one of our must fundamental human rights and that the ability for women to choose whether, when and how to have a family is essential for an equal, civil society.  I believe this to my core more than I believe almost anything else.  It’s why I have struggled with being Catholic ever since I was 13 and learned what abortion was and knew that the propaganda being thrown at us in religious education was a desperate, non-fact based, utterly patriarchal attempt to keep us under the thumb of misogynistic men… wow, it felt good to type that!

So given my extreme pro-choicedness, I appreciate that this show takes the consequences of an anti-choice society to an extreme.  Is it realistic?  Of course not!  Do I really think that Donald Trump and his insane Supreme Court choices will have me wearing a red cape overnight?  Of course not!  Do I worry that Donald Trump and his insane Supreme Court choices are the start of a threatening back-slide for women and our bodies.  Hell, yes!  I worry that if we succumb to ambivalence about our rights (not just reproductive but any of them) we are leaving a vacuum for extremists to slowly move us in their direction.

But I digress...  

Anyway, my hope is that by taking us through another slog in Gilead, the show is preparing us for a bigger view in Season Three.  We saw Luke and Moira in Canada at the beginning and middle of the season, but based on the last few episodes, you would think they didn’t exist at all.  Given that, I don’t see the point of focusing on them so much at the beginning unless it’s to set us up for a more involved Season Three, which would be awesome.  We see the way that Gilead oppresses and traumatizes the women left behind there but Luke & Moira are really our only window into the trauma of those who had everything taken from them but got out alive.  They're also our only window into the outside world.  To be honest, I think the show is deliberate about that because it's pretty unrealistic to think that the rest of the world would just stand by while this happened.  By keeping that window mostly closed, the show doesn't have to answer any of the logistical questions about how Gilead came to be and how it continues to function.

Lastly, I, like everyone else, really didn’t understand or agree with June’s decision to stay in Gilead at the end of Season Two.  I get that she loves her first daughter, Hannah, who is stuck in Gilead with a new family, but if her goal is to get Hannah back, it makes no sense to stay.  If she had gone with Emily to Canada, June could have found Luke and Moira, shared her story with the world, and effectuated true change.   

Earlier in the season, we saw that letters from the handmaids had a profound effect on Gilead and the Cannucks sent the dilettante diplomats the Waterfords packing back to Gilead with their tails between their legs.  Imagine what June’s first-person live account would do?!  It would almost certainly lead to some sort of government intervention which may get Hannah back.  And yet June decides to stay… 

I’m not sure why she thinks she’ll be able to retrieve Hannah and make their way to Canada undetected on her own but I guess we’ll find out in ~12 months.  And I have to say, even though I don’t think her choice is a logical one, Elizabeth Moss’ look of pure determination as the credits start to roll had me feeling it.  As with Season Two of True Detective, I'm willing to forgive a lot if I'm digging the mood, style, and visuals... not sure what that says about me as a person that I'm so willing to go with style over substance.  ;)

I highly recommend watching Seasons 1 & 2 if you haven’t yet.  Hulu offers a free trial so you can binge and quit before you’re charged anything!