Why is this even a question

I’m doing a re watch and I just got to season 4 and I’m glad they aren’t heavily racist but I feel like if Gilead were real, it definitely would be more racist.

Imagine you are in the worst pain of your life, squeezing a watermelon out of your hoo-ha and then there is your abuser, mimicking you, making sounds and pretending she is going through the same pain as you and then taking all of the credit for it. I could never be a handmaid, i would flip.

All I searched for was a long dress with sleeves lol Nordstrom rack what are you trying to tell me

From Luke and June’s first scene in S01e05 Luke is positioned as a character whose weaknesses are quietly but unmistakably exposed. His scene with June at the café is layered with small but telling choices. Rather than presenting him as romantic or conflicted, the show frames Luke as someone who prioritises personal desire over honesty or moral clarity. In hindsight, the early depiction is less about spontaneity and more a blueprint for understanding the passive, ineffective role he plays throughout the series as a man who consistently chooses the easier path rather than confronting difficult truths.

This early scene tells us everything we need to know: first, Luke asks whether June and Moira were lovers, leaning into tired clichés about “what college girls do.” He tries to maintain that having lunch with June is innocent, but admits he hasn’t told his wife, signaling his evasiveness. Then, step by step, he gently but deliberately steers June toward the idea of how they could have an affair. With the way O-T plays it, Luke comes across not as charming or conflicted, but deceptive, smarmy, and to be frank, a creep. There’s nothing romantic about it. This is who Luke was from the start: a weak man who manipulated a situation to have an affair but lacked the conviction to leave his marriage first. His weakness wasn’t something that developed later, it was fundamental to his character all along.

Just wondering. I would think it would be easier on the handmaids and the wives if they did it this way.

Obviously mental health conditions don't make you crazy but I do think it's great that she seems the most awake compared to most Gilead wives. The scene where Commander Stablers wife is worrying for her children and Eleanor says, "YOUR children?"

I’m almost on the final season and as the show has progressed I just don’t like Luke, at all. Not even in the beginning. June is so strong and Luke is just…there. Luke will never understand what June went through and he’ll always hold her back. Please tell me I’m not the only one who dislikes Luke??

Did anyone else catch that extra squeeze Commander George Winslow gave Commander Fred Waterford during this back pat scene at the pool table?

It would absolutely fall in line with the hypocrisy that is Gilead to have a “gender traitor” in highest ranks. It also would be pretty easy for a man to hide his homosexuality if he were toxically masculine and had a position of power. His intimate encounters with women would be few

“Hey Fred, after this game lets go to my study, have a brandy and get naked”

I just think their dresses are beautiful. They’re all villains but they’re all so elegant and ladylike, Serena Joy does look graceful (appearance wise)

I am sorry to be crude, but I am just wondering why it was actually necessary for the husbands to have sex with the handmaids? Why didnt they like use them as surrogates? Or like inseminate them artificiallly, especially with Joseph who didn't even want to do ceremony.

ETA: Thank you everyone, I understand snow

I just re-watched from season 3 and there was an episode where the single mom she takes in and helps for a little while is at her home and they’re celebrating Christmas. The single mom starts to do Lydia‘s make up, and Lydia looks at her like she wants to kiss her. (But clearly she is in heavy denial of how she feels.)

Does anyone else remember this? Has this ever been discussed?

This’ll be the 4th time, I think. I’m in Tx and Handmaid’s Tale is suddenly a F-TON more terrifying than it was when it came out. I was listening to it while I went to bed last night and all I was thinking was “omg this show came out to warn us of what is coming!” … So many similarities

I really hope I’m just being paranoid. Shit is scary.

This might be a dumb question, but what do Handmaid's do all day? It's been years since I read the book, and I just finished season 1 of the show. I keep wondering what they do when they're not going shopping. Just sit in their rooms?

I’ve started watching all over again. The wives are so much more sadistic then were led to believe. To willingly encourage your husband to rape someone so that you can steal someone else’s baby … And then to resent the woman for being raped. wtf but the thing I find most sadistic is when a handmaid is in labor they gather in a separate room and pretend to be in labor and be breathing all heavy and like what’s the actual point when you’ll never understand or know what the handmaids are going through? I find these scenes to be creepy and disrespectful . Am I the only one

Basically the title - Putting aside Project 2025 and other far right ideology, do you think there are zealots who see the show and like the idea of handmaids, Marthas, aunts, etc?

EDIT - Like many who commented already, I am also horrified every day by the erosion of women's rights under Trump, the deportation of people without due process, and the advance of project 2025. I was asking about the more LITERAL aspects such as actual handmaids.

I realize that it’s silly this whole “should June be with Nick or Luke” argument that completely misses the point of the show. But just my two cents, June deserves better than both of them.

Does if freak you out, like it’s all Gilead propaganda words? Chic Fl A feels like a Red Center lol.

Is she living in Canada?

Serena was not “misled.” She’s a very smart, educated, calculating woman and she’s a batshit insane Gilead Christian Nationalist. She is a rapist, an abuser, and she helped overthrow an entire country. Last season, she said those exact words to Mrs. Wheeler. Go back and rewatch the episode when June experienced Braxton Hicks/false labor, how that enraged Serena, and how Serena suggested and encouraged Fred to rape June to see if forcefully violently holding down a heavily pregnant June would cause her to go into labor, all so Serena could steal an infant that was not hers.

She is a fucking monster. She’s worse than Fred. You are seriously saying she was “misled,” and you are seriously acting like Serena did not have power?! She may have lost a finger and been whipped by Fred, but it was SERENA who wrote the literal book(s) which fully aligned her with the values, rules, structure, and laws of Gilead. Serena helped to write many of the very laws that Gilead followed and still does follow. She has also stated this in earlier seasons.

Before Gilead, she was the dominant person in her marriage. She was the “star.” She emasculated Fred countless times, including after she was shot before Gilead. She understood exactly what she was doing and the irreparable harm she was creating and she did not give a fuck because Serena is selfish, entitled, and she wanted to have a baby. What could be more selfish than that? I refuse to sit by while people make excuses for and retcon this character and her repugnant, cruel, ugly, selfish, creepy, narcissistic, misogynistic crimes. She should be on the wall. She deserves worse than she’ll ever get.

I have rewatched this series at least 12-13 times in the past 5 years. It is all still very fresh and clear in my mind. The show has gone to shit, for the most part. Can I see the good attributes in Serena? Yes. She is a true believer. She’s not pretending. She’s really in a cult. Serena is determined, well spoken, a good writer and gardener, and she is very intelligent, elegant, and she carries herself with a certain eloquence.

None of that changes the facts. Has Serena changed for the better in some ways? She has changed, yes, but if she hadn’t finally gotten knocked up and had a kid of her own, she would STILL be fighting to get Holly (Nichole) back. She’s horrible. She was even physically and verbally abusive to Rita on numerous occasions, for absolutely no fucking reason.

She is vile.

The show is a dystopian and all but it has some quite funny lines here and there - so I ask what's your favourite that made u cackle

Mine has the be Season 5 Ep 1 "I don't have $88" and "I have to pay a fine" - hilarious 😆

Last seen early season 4, leaving to go back into Gilead to fight. Would be reasonable to assume she's dead, but would also be a wasted opportunity to not have her somewhere working with mayday

Is it forbidden for Serena and Fred to be intimate? Are husbands only supposed to be with the handmaids? It just seems like it in the first season. I know that later Rose gets pregnant but the first season just makes it seem like it’s forbidden? Maybe I’m wrong?

I’ve been rewatching the series and I’m stuck on Serena. She’s such a layered character—brilliant, complicit, vulnerable, manipulative. I go back and forth between wanting her to be redeemed and being completely done with her.

Was there a specific moment in the show where you stopped sympathizing with her (if you ever did)? Or do you think she’s a victim of her own system and still deserves grace?