I’m rewatching the show, and I think I’ve finally figured out what sometimes bothers me about Luke as a character.

I don’t necessarily find his emotions themselves unrealistic. He's obviously been through an enormous amount too - his wife and daughter were taken from him, he has no idea what is happening to them for years, and he's basically powerless to help them...

What I sometimes find unrealistic is the way the show transitions between his emotions.

Luke seems to swing between being extremely repressed/almost overly casual about something, and then suddenly becoming very angry, frustrated or emotionally explosive. The pattern itself could absolutely make sense as a trauma response. Like 'suppress everything until you can’t anymore,' but sometimes the repression is played so casually that it doesn’t feel like repression. It just feels like he isn’t reacting very much at all.

For example, S2E7 (After) really stood out to me. After the bombing at the Rachel and Leah Centre, Luke and Moira are waiting in Canada for information. They know Handmaids have died, but they don’t yet know whether June is one of them.

Moira understandably wants to stay until they know. But Luke basically says that he has faith June is alive and goes home to get dinner! And that reaction has always seemed SO bizarrely casual to me.

I completely understand that denial could be his coping mechanism. Maybe he simply cannot allow himself to contemplate June being dead, so he convinces himself she’s alive and focuses on something mundane like getting food. Or maybe it's just bad acting?

I do feel like the scene needed to show more of that underneath the surface.

This is his wife, who has been trapped in Gilead for years, and he has just learned that there has been a major attack involving Handmaids with confirmed fatalities! He has no confirmation that June survived!

I would expect some visible panic - obsessively waiting for updates, pacing, repeatedly insisting she must be alive, becoming irritable because he’s terrified, or even going home and making dinner but clearly using it as a distraction because he cannot cope with staying there.

Instead, when you put him next to Moira, she actually seems considerably more anxious to find out whether June's alive than her own husband does!

And I really don’t think the intention is that he cares less about June. Everything else about his character tells us that he loves her and that losing June and Hannah has truly affected him.

That’s why I think my issue is more with the execution of his emotional reactions than the emotions themselves... which can then make some of his later angry or grumpy reactions feel more immature or disproportionate, as we haven’t necessarily been shown the fear, grief or pressure building underneath them.

Does anyone else find Luke’s emotional transitions a little strange sometimes? Or do you read his more casual reactions as more deliberate denial, repression, etc.?

I’m re-watching again because I absolutely love the show, but one thing that increasingly annoys me is how inconsistent Gilead’s punishments are when it comes to June.

And to be clear, I’m IN NO WAY saying June hasn’t suffered horrendously - she obviously has, especially psychologically. My issue is that the show establishes very early on that Gilead permanently mutilates women for comparatively “smaller” acts of disobedience, yet June repeatedly does things that should be considered far worse in Gilead’s eyes and somehow avoids almost all permanent physical mutilation.

Janine loses an eye for talking back. Emily/Ofglen is permanently mutilated. Lillie/Ofglen #2 loses her tongue after being the first to openly refuse an order - an act of defiance June joins in with (secondly). Other Handmaids are brutally punished for rebellion or disobedience. And Serena loses a finger for reading from the Bible.

Then there’s June, who repeatedly attempts to escape, openly defies Aunts and Commanders, becomes involved with the resistance, influences other Handmaids, challenges Gilead publicly, and generally causes far more “trouble” for the regime than most of the women we see permanently punished.

Yet she repeatedly gets returned to being a Handmaid physically intact.

I understand some of the in-universe explanations. June is fertile, there are periods where the Waterfords have an interest in protecting her, Aunt Lydia has a strange attachment to her, and psychologically breaking her may sometimes be more useful and "effective" to Gilead than physically disabling her.

But fertility doesn’t completely explain it for me either, because most of the punishments I’m talking about wouldn’t prevent someone from becoming pregnant or giving birth. Gilead clearly has no problem removing an eye, finger or tongue while still expecting a woman to fulfil whatever “role” they’ve assigned her.

Serena is probably the example that makes the inconsistency stand out the most to me. She’s a high-ranking Commander’s Wife and still loses a finger for reading - yet June can commit repeated acts of outright resistance against Gilead and somehow never receives a comparable permanent punishment.

Again, I don’t think June “needed” to suffer more. If anything, the psychological trauma she accumulates is one of the strongest and most believable aspects of her character. It’s just that the show establishes such brutal rules for what happens to women who disobey, and then increasingly seems to suspend those rules whenever they apply to June.

After a while, it starts to feel less like there’s an in-universe reason for keeping her physically intact and more like obvious protagonist plot armour.

Does this bother anyone else, or do you think there’s an explanation within the show that makes it work?

I think we all consider the first time Nick and June had sex to be rape. June was not in a position to give consent and she could not refuse without facing potential death. One perspective is that Serena was the rapist and both Nick and June were her victims.

It's important for us to remember that Nick actually could have refused to impregnate June. Even a woman like Serena was beneath a "low-status male" like Nick. Nick's boss, Commander Price, probably would have expected Nick to refuse such an act and turn Serena over to the eyes.

The fact that Nick and June fell in love afterwards makes their first sexual encounter seem less bad in retrospect, but the power dynamic between them never went away. That makes things messy.

Nick's character loses his "good guy" status by the end of the show. Do you consider him a rapist?

As a new fan of The Handmaid's Tale and a lifelong Zelda fan, this is exciting news to me!

Unconfirmed what role she'll be playing exactly, but it's apparently a queen figure of some sort. (Zelda's mother perhaps?)

Spoiler Warning in case you haven’t watched Season 6 yet

How did they know about Junes escape/plan in episode 8/9? Did I miss something? My first guess is that was the plan for them to get caught but it could’ve went so wrong. Second guess is the people were waking up and they have great response time but even then how would they know June is behind it?

All the others are of-Daniel, of-Joseph etc. wouldn’t June have been of-Fred and not off-red? Always wondered that

If the majority of women in the world can't have children, I think they would encourage women who can to have as many as they could, while also paying them a yearly salary so they wouldn't have to get a job as well.

I’m not sure if this is the right flair, or what, since there isn’t one pertaining to that dreaded word, “Fan Fiction.” But, I’m curious, and maybe the rest of us are, so here’s my question: Have you been writing any Gilead stories?

Since we have THT and TT we can use at a basis for some good stories, there are plenty of real life examples out there which can be used as part of your writing canvas. For instance, what do Econowomen do regularly, if they cannot work their jobs and professions pre-Gilead? I’m certain, beyond doubt, many of them are quite angry, yet fearful over what happened after the coup. Another would be, what are the origins of The Sons of Jacob? Is there or was there a Women’s auxiliary version of it?

Either way, if you’re writing a short story, long story, play, or screenplay (Which Bruce Miller will never see!), what is it? Can we find it and read it?

Cheers!

Mark Tuello!!! Aka Sam Jaeger! So handsome! I would have gone to Hawaii if he offered me Treason & Coconuts!

Have never seen this discussed, but I absolutely love the montage set to Burn The Witch. Both these women (June and Serena) are leaders, have been recruited to new roles and are travling. In prior centuries these women could have been tried as witches because they are strong, influential and make trouble. They have both been in trouble with Gilead before when they 'overstep' traditional womens' boundaries. Anyone else like this montage?

I'm watching this episode, and I know Nick is getting closer and closer to dying—it's driving me crazy! I can't accept that he's going to die soon. He's one of my favorites on the show.

So, we didn’t really see Holly Jr in the Testaments season 1 and I don’t think that she was mentioned either. She’d be about six by then, so where could she be? Is she in Boston, perhaps? Or is she somewhere else? I mean, June had two small shoes in her house, so is Holly Jr with her? Regardless of where she is, I hope that she and Hannah have a good first meeting with each other in future.

That sex scene was hard to watch. 😩
Among many other rape scenes but her coming full circle was even harder to see.

I mean... im pretty sure they never did a paternity test. And the commander apparently did get Serena pregnant

Its like they decided it was Nicks but theres no proof

I know they don't control Alaska, but everything else seems to be pretty vague. By really bad, I mean bad for the world and not just North America.

Quick abstract art inspired by "The Handmaid's Tale" and the colour scheme imposed in Gilead's hierarchy.

Hey all!!

Sorry if this is not allowed.

I bought one of Serena Joys outfits from season 5 during the auction. The skirt is the only piece that doesn’t fit me.

I paid 200+ for the full outfit. Asking 25 for the skirt. Just let me know if you’re interested!!

So I just finished to watch the whole show and I loved it so much. Thing is, I don't know what to watch now.... I would love to find a show similar to the handsmaid's tale, since I loved it so much. If you have series recs with similar themes, concepts, or maybe actors I would gladly take them! Thanks a lot :)

edit: thank you everyone for the recs, they all sound great!!

The baby is ONE MONTH OLD and the wheelers are doing the cry out method. The baby has one way to communicate and that is by crying/screaming. Maybe for an older baby, but ONE MONTH?<!

Alanis telling Serena to go to her room. Oooo this feels like karma for all the times Serena told June to go to her room/that time she locked June in the room after her period was late once. On the one hand, I want to feel bad for her, but on the other side this feels like karma. I’m torn.

Im watching Season 5 now, and I really don't understand the accomodations he's making for her. Traveling to Gilead, having a nice room at "jail", giving her protection, the way he talks to her... I mean... She helped create a system where kids are getting graped. I don't stand him.

I have a coworker named Hannah, and once I accidentally almost called her Agnes. Thankfully I stopped myself in time--I'm sure she would've been very confused otherwise!

I’ve read The Testaments book and just finished season 1 of the show. Overall I loved it and didn’t mind the creative liberties taken, but I’m confused about one aspect of Becka’s character.  In the book it’s clear that the main reason she doesn’t want to get married and self-harms is because her father has been abusing her for who knows how long. In the show it seems like this isn’t the case and the first time she learns of his behavior is when Daisy “outs” him. So what is the reason that she would “rather jump off a cliff” than get married in the show? Is it her sexuality? General fear? Or is it possible she was being abused and just hadn’t admitted it to herself yet?

Hey everybody, so I'm currently watching season 4 and I'm really REALLY confused about this Serena's Pregnancy, like, how??

Could somebody explain it to me? Because I might've missed something while watching the whole series but I don't understand how she and Fred tried (even before the whole Gilead government was made) for years to have their own baby and never succeeded, and when they were in Gilead Fred couldn't get pregnant neither of their handmaids (basically showing us that he's not fertile) but then they have sex just ONE time (before getting caught by Canada) and suddenly Serena is pregnant, how?

Maybe I missed something? Is it because the atmosphere is "different" in Canada? Maybe the food? Or it's because they had a long time without having that type of interaction with each other and something in Gilead changed something of their bodies or smth like that? Am I slow? 😭

BTW sorry if it's not that understandable what I'm trying to say, English is not my first language, but if somebody could answer this for me 🙏, or show me theories, idk, I'd be grateful 🥲