![]() When he and Serena and Winslow arrive to "inspect" the Handmaid's (this is when we hear about the slow rollout of veils and rings) Fred walks up to June first, telling her that it's cold up here and much warmer in D.C. He also still has an obsession with June. When Serena finally confronts him about this at the end of the episode, showing him the phone she has from the American agent and telling him that he needs to essentially become a double agent himself, you can see the wheels turning. It's not what Serena wants, but Fred is always more concerned with his own position more than anything else. We know that Winslow would rather use Nichole as political leverage, and Waterford is only too happy to oblige. But by the time things come to a head, June is back to her calm and collected self-thank goodness.Ĭommander Waterford is now, somehow, the rising star of Gilead thanks to his prayer campaign for the return-or, rather, "return"-of baby Nichole. At first, she just seems a bit crazy, like the weeks spent in the hospital have unhinged her. She wants to save as many kids as she can, and by the end of the episode it's looking more likely that she will at least attempt to save quite a few with the help of the Marthas and quite possibly Commander Lawrence. In any case, June has departed the hospital with a new mission and a new slightly mad spark in her eye. Who is the big boss? Or is it some sort of council? Having some answers to our many questions would help us appreciate the story more. But surely now we could get some clear explanation-in the form of some Lawrence-driven exposition even-of how Gilead's power structure works, what territories Gilead controls and so forth. It worked in Season 1, because June herself was ignorant of all these details. Without a sense of the geography or power structure of Gilead, we are left at the writers' mercy, and they can keep changing the stakes and the parameters of this story at will. I feel like much of this was not planned out ahead of time, and that initially we were intentionally led to believe that this area was the center of Gilead, because that's what the show's writers and producers believed, and that now we're getting what can only be described as "retconning" of the details in order to extend the story. ![]() is still the seat of government, and that the Commanders in Cambridge, who we previously thought were the heads of Gilead, aren't, and so forth. I also thought that Gilead was primarily just the eastern (former) United States, and that the rest of the country was either a warzone (Chicago), the bombed out, radioactive "Colonies" area in the midwest, or still outside of Gilead's control (the west coast, Alaska and Hawaii). I thought, up until this season, that the head of the Gileadean government was the man who brought Nick into the Sons of Jacob, and used him as an informant while in Waterford's Household. To be entirely honest, I thought the seat of the Gileadean government was in Massachusetts. So we're left confused about power structures. One day Nick is a driver the next day we learn he was a Gilead war hero so caught up in the violent overthrow of the United States that the Swiss diplomats and Canadians won't even speak to him to gain valuable information about Gilead. Eleanor (Julie Dretzin) is throwing things now! Joseph is actually going to meetings! Clearly, something’s changed.And maybe one reason it seems absurd, and why it's so weird to have Lawrence suddenly powerless and Waterford suddenly so influential, is that we are never given any sense of how power actually works in Gilead. June comes “home” to a change of furniture and a much more tense household. In “Witness,” we learn June was held up in that hospital room long enough for Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) to start imposing more and more of D.C.’s standards on the houses in Boston. We just haven’t had to see June (Elisabeth Moss) go through that particular torture since she’s joined Commander Lawrence’s (Bradley Whitford) house. ![]() But that’s exactly my point-we haven’t forgotten. Sure, you can’t escape the fact that Gilead is literally founded on rape culture, that every time a background Handmaid gets pregnant, that baby is the product of forced sex. You know, one thing I was really enjoying about season 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale was the lack of rape. Spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 3, episode 10, “Witness,” ahead. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |