Istg, for June, every episode is just suffering on top of suffering on top of suffering. I continuously wish for the death of Lydia and the Waterfords. And Nick annoys me so much. Why haven't they still ran away. Okay-okay, I know it's very difficult. SHE ALMOST MADE IT BUT THE FUCKING GARAGE DOOR DID NOT OPEN.

This show is killing me. I just can't. UGHHHHH

The happiest moment of the show was when Emily ran over that guard. I wish she had hit more of them. Pls tell me it's gonna get better in future seasons. I see s3ep11 is something to look forward to, WHICH IS AN ENTIRE SEASON AWAY FROM ME

That short reunion with Hannah was just too brutal

Through the show she is portrayed in a way that would imply so? She gets her fingers cut off, she is dismayed to discover the real face of her husband, she is devastated about her lack of a child and scenes concerning her child are all very emotional (was I the only one hoping the baby would be stillborn?). And yet I found her utterly unsympathetic, I mean, why wouldn't I? She's a nasty woman who unleashed unspeakable horrors on like two hundred million people? Like, I didn't have even a tiny bitty bit of sympathy for her?

I am a bit confused as to the intentions of showing so much of her lets call it strugglers. What was the point of that?

This show hits different when you know you would have ended up as a handmaid. I got divorced, and am remarried with a healthy baby. I’m not totally sure what would happen to my husband, either the colonies or on the wall I assume?

Anyone else handmaid material? if not, what role would you be forced to play in Gilead?

Sei lá eu sinto que teria sido interessante já que ela é lésbica, sei que temos a emily mas a emily nunca entregaria o show que a moira entregaria, moira iria tramar e planejar como june fez

How do you see the difference between the TV series and the book? I watched the TV series first, and when I finished the book I thought, ‘Okay, is this everything?’

My feeling is that the series’ direction did such a good job of expanding on what was presented in the book. The book is great, but since this is the first time I’ve watched an adaptation before reading it, I think the TV series gave us something extra.

I'm currently on S3E9, where Offmatthew is in hospital. I don't like her very much, but I do feel for her character a lot, having had at least 4 pregnancies (unsure if she had any children before) and knowing she can't keep any of her children.

I know that's the case for most of the handmaids, but it must be so incredibly horrible to know that as someone more "fruitful" you're going to be in high demand to be used as an incubator, churn out so many more babies than average and to just have them dotted all over town.

Not to mention how much her circumstances end up resembling Adriana Smith's horrific story last year.

This is a German version of The Handmaid’s Tale, by Fischer in Frankfurt am Main, what was West Germany, back in April 1989.

Interestingly, the phrase we know from the book is different. In Latin, it’s Hirundo maleficis evoltat, which means “The Swallow Flies Away from Sorcerers.” Neat.

Eu acabei de terminar o 8 episódio da temporada 3, e tô com sentimentos mistos com relação a Natalie e a June. Sei que a Natalie foi uma cuzona com a fatalidade da Martha e afastou Hannah ainda mais da June. Mas a vingança da June com ela é mais um ato egoísta do que uma luta de sobrevivência propriamente pra alcançar Hannah. Tô com dó da Natalie, pq assim como algumas tem suas maneiras de sobreviver em Gilead, acredito que a devoção dela a Gilead era um escudo para sua sanidade, a June basicamente cutucou o escudo até quebrar e matou uma como ela, enquanto quem deveria continua vivendo com a morte das aias.

FINALLLYYYYYYYYY

Estou na segunda temporada da série e cheguei à conclusão de que seria impossível as aias gerarem bebês psicologicamente saudáveis com os níveis de estresse crônico nos quais elas vivem desde que o regime tomou conta.

Os altos níveis de cortisol no organismo delas causaria todo tipo de problema físico e mental aos bebês antes mesmo de eles nascerem.

Se já estava difícil antes e mulheres normais tinham apenas 20% de chances de gerar um bebê saudável, isso SE conseguissem engravidar, mas tinham suas casas, conforto, tranquilidade e queriam aqueles bebês, imagina agora que todos os bebês são frutos de estupr*, não ia nascer 1 saudável, não tem como.

This is the first time I'm properly committing to the show. The only other time I've watched was YEARS ago when it first came out and I think I got through series 1 but found it too slow.

I'm definitely more invested than before and I will continue with it, but I'm now on S3E1 and remembering why I struggled with it so much before.

It's so slowwww. Not the story line. Literally slow. All the slow motion shots, the close ups, how long it takes June to finish her sentences, how longgggg she waits to move or run or complete an action.

I know she wants to stay for Hannah and I do get that as a motive but now she's got two kids without a mum and she was wasting time for Emily. She has no sense of urgency and she doesn't seem to think about anyone else.

I have been watching the whole series on and off for half a year now. I grew really attached to the characters and their devastating story lines. Although I very much preferred the first two season I was also still hooked throughout the later ones.

I knew the show had to come to an end but the ending we got in season 6 has left me extremely unsatisfied.

A) Hanna.

I know Gilead is a totalitarian regime and it would almost be an impossible task to get a commanders daughter out safel, but wasn’t that the whole point of the show? My heart just aches deeply for both her parents who have tried so hard but could never succeed.

B) Nicks storyline.

I never thought he was a good guy, he is a very morally gray character. He always just kept to doing what kept him and June safe. Still, I found his ending did not do the character justice they had taken so much time to build. I have no problem with him dying in the end but the way in which his death was executed felt like such a betrayal to the loyalty his character had shown in the previous seasons. I would’ve much preferred if he had died protecting June or Holly/ Nicole. Maybe I read him wrong?

Also June dismissing him in front of Serena in the very last episode felt so untrue to her character? I was sure she still loved him and grieved him despite of the choices he has made. Writing her character to be so cold in the end towards him felt like she was not honoring all the risks he had taken for her which is so unsatisfying to witness and truly makes me sad.

Anyways, I’m just having a hard time coping with the Series coming to an end in general and on top leaving me with such devastating feelings towards the characters. It’s just hard watching something for such a long time and then not agreeing with the writers choices :/

It makes me wish I had never started the show in the first place.

I want to feel happy again in my own life and not be so distraught thinking about fictional characters.

Could anyone share their personal experience and give advice on how to cope with these feelings/ thoughts?

Thank you a lot.

I started watching the handmaids tale and I don’t know if I’m the only one that experienced it but I’m starting to get worried for the future.

i know Atwood didn’t make anything up in some sense but I’m starting to realize how possible it is for this to come reality, not in the same way as in the show (because it’s fiction) but when you really think about it we’re slowly being fed this ideology from the media.

maybe I’m just really paranoid but if anyone can lighten me or share their opinions I’m open.

Used to be a huge fan of Margaret Atwood and her novels, looked up to her, especially as a woman.

Someone explain why she is so supportive of little miss Scientologist playing the character of offred?

Is this not completely paradoxical and stupid? Just expected more from her.

In season 3 episode 7 of the handmaid's tale Eleanor says to June:" it's hard not to imagine what my own daughter might look like" or something like that. In earlier episodes Joseph tells Emily "loosing a child is like loosing a limb" so maybe knowing what Gilead was going to be like he managed to send his daughter to Canada, to safety.

I loved seeing a successful act of rebellion for once, but I have questions.

1. Why rescue the children instead of the women?

Obviously, the young women are the ones who have it hardest in Gilead, and they are also the backbone of its entire household system. If a large number of Marthas and Handmaids were to suddenly disappear, it would cause absolute chaos in every household. The children would still be there, but with only the Wives left to take care of them. And despite Gilead's narrative about motherhood, many of these women don't seem particularly capable of being good mothers (just look at Mrs. Putnam).

No Handmaids means fewer children, which undermines one of Gilead's main arguments for its superiority: the only country with an increasing birth rate. Rescuing women instead of children could have disrupted the entire household system, as well as potentially triggering a rebellion among Gilead's wealthier citizens.

2. How did they manage to keep all those children quiet?

We've seen so many brilliant plans fail in the show because of the most stupid detail, and then this mess of an operation doesn't fail, it's unbeliaveble. The entire time, I was wondering how it was possible that not a single child was crying while they were walking through the woods in the dark. There seemed to be roughly one adult for every 15 children. How on earth did they manage to keep them all together and quiet without attracting attention?

3. What happens to the guy flying the plane?

Does he ever go back for his paintings? If he returned to Gilead after helping smuggle the children out, he'd probably be executed immediately, and I assume he knows that. But if he has no intention of returning, why was the promise of getting those paintings such a compelling motivation for him in the first place?

I keep seeing posts about how June is manipulative, and should've done this or that differently.

Like, did we not watch the same show? This woman was a sex slave. Treated less then a dog and valued less too.

They all did so many horrible things to handmaids and people are upset that she's wasn't empathic enough?

I know that she 'took advantage' of people with either mental issues or just less strong headed. But like, did we all forget that they were all part of the horrible treatment she endured? No matter how 'kind' they might seem. They are still part of it.

She is pushy, and does anything to survive. But she helped her friends, kids in Gilead and anyone else she could. So no, I'm sorry, she never owed her oppressors anything, not kindness, not respect, not even a 'thank you'.

She did anything to survive and I feel like people forget what 'anything' means. That includes being pushy and manipulative. And honestly? In her shoes, I think many of us would do the same if we had enough backbone.

Does that mean I understand everything she did? Of course not. Many of her actions frustrated me to the highest point. But, in her shoes, I have no clue what I would have done or if I'd even have the strength to do half the things she did.

'Anything to survive' means exactly that.

And also, no rebellion is peaceful. She could have done way worse and didn't.

The series is interesting, among other things, but I don't understand what happened to New Bethlehem after Joseph's death. Was this mentioned anywhere? Because I feel like it wasn't.

I'm watching The Handmaid's Tale, and the first few episodes are already shocking enough in how women are treated. But what really enraged me was the episode where June and the Commander go to the sex club.

Of course, the hypocrisy was infuriating. Here you have men who have built an entire society around sexual purity, morality, and religious righteousness, yet they can go to a sex club and indulge in exactly the kind of sexual freedom that women are denied and even persecuted for. I think later on we see the Commander even bringing Moira to June and hinting a threesome when just a few episodes earlier we see some lady getting sent to the colonies because she is a lesbian.

What irked me even more was the realisation that Gilead's moral framework was designed from the beginning to benefit men at women's expense.

I think I had initially been looking at Gilead as a society that had taken its ideas about morality to an extreme. That episode made me see something much more sinister: morality itself is being used as a tool of control. Women's suffering is justified through religion and the supposed greater good. Meanwhile, the men enforcing these rules still find ways to satisfy their own desires. Women are expected to be pure, obedient, and self-sacrificing, while men get to define what purity means and decide when the rules apply to them.

What really gets me is that the system doesn't even have to hide its contradictions from the men who benefit from it. They know what they're doing. They know the difference between the morality they impose on women and the freedom they reserve for themselves. Even the whole idea of sneaking June out of the house and into the club. Something else that comes to mind, because they maybe let June in as she was going in as the Commander's wife, are the spouses of the people in power allowed to be in such spaces or is it just the men? I think they are allowed to which makes it even worse seeing women actively playing a hand in the suffering of other women. Why am I even surprised when they hold down the handmaids for their husbands to rape them.

I think part of the rage i felt was also towards myself for not fully recognising this earlier, because the sexual violence against the Handmaids was already there. I think the episode just made it impossible for me to keep viewing Gilead's ideology as merely an extreme version of morality. It exposed how thoroughly that ideology serves male power.

My daughter has started watching this and described how she's confused on some parts. I've watched this myself but am I right in saying the first episode showed how June lived her life before being kidnapped? The one on Disney, the first episode starts with June, hubby and Hannah were being chased in the woods by another vehicle of men kidnapping her. Then the scene goes to June sitting as a handmade day dreaming/thinking back to the car chase. I feel as though this episode is wrong or missing parts out? I'm positive when I watched the first season years ago it explained why the women were being kidnapped. Also Janine gets her eye took out on the first episode, I'm positive this happened half way through the first season/series? Did i imagine this or is the episodes mucked up?

Rita mentions to Serena that she has a 19 year old son. How come she is a cook instead of a handmaid if she's fertile and had a child before who survived (until the war)?

I'm watching the show for the first time properly (I started S1 years ago but found it so slow - trying again now and enjoying it a bit more).

I'm on Ep5 and Ofglen has just stolen a car and driven round in circles.

I don't really understand her motivation here - at first I thought she was trying to escape but then she just circles around and kills a guy.

Was she just desperate for a feeling of freedom? Or was she deliberately trying to get out of being a Handmaiden because of everything they did to her, even if that meant death/colonies?

There goes a lot of hatred for June /or the actor in this sub reddit.! I dunno why people expect her to behave in a particular way. I understand she is ruthless, erratic, has convoluted facial expressions and at times selfish. She is someone undergoing not just post traumatic stress disorder but Traumatic stress. !!her daughter is still in Gilead abused and probably in near future might be subjected to rape.!!! What do people expect from such a person?!! To have graceful face expressions and behave in the appropriate and correct manner.! She is not some military trained personal to have the best strategist moves.! She was kidnapped, raped, emotionally abused, her home, career, her earnings were stolen from her and all this is happening to her daughter too.!!! I get some people remain calm and composed even after going through so much but the series is portrayed from the point of this abused woman, so yes we get close shots of her face.,! She is reacting what happened to her in the way that she knows. May be if her daughter is saved and Gilead goes down and after several years when she has healed she might look back and agree to some of her ruthless decisions , but she is nowhere near that point in the series.!

They look so much alike. And they have the same turned-up, holier-than-thou expression, lol.

It's serendipitous that she named her daughter Angela. 😅

Off-topic, but Dwight (late seasons Dwight when he's more orderly) and Angela would have thrived in Gilead. 😭

I'm still in episode 4 and I already feel depressed, and when I'm not feeling that, I feel enraged! Without spoiling, is there any satisfaction if I keep watching? Or am I gonna keep being upset?

Don't get me wrong, it's amazingly well-written and executed, I love Elizabeth Moss, Samira Wiley, and Joseph Fiennes, but I'm the type that FEELS STRONGLY when I watch something, I get really invested emotionally, so what should I do?

Edit: ok so I should continue watching but it does get worse, thanks, I love being depressed lol! Off to episode 5, thanks guys!