Critic’s Score: 4.5 / 5.0
4.5
“Tonight, we’ll use these robes to begin a warfare.”
That line — delivered in a voiceover as blood-red material is dyed, because the handmaids don their veils, as Radiohead’s “The Nationwide Anthem” thrums within the background — isn’t only a declaration. It’s a manifesto. And after the whole lot that’s come earlier than, The Handmaid’s Story lastly unleashes the craze it’s been holding again.
The Handmaid’s Story Season 6 Episode 8 wasn’t simply an exodus. It was a reckoning.
Dipped in Blood, Steeped in Rage
The episode opens with June narrating the absurdity of style — how we as soon as believed garments may outline us, till they had been weaponized to destroy us.
Gilead assigned color-coded identities. Ladies turned wombs, wives, and staff. However those self same robes had been about to be knives at nighttime.
Actually.
Blades are hidden in sleeves. A dropped one virtually ruins the plan. Nonetheless, Serena Pleasure and Gabriel’s wedding ceremony proceeds with hole pomp and ceremonial rot, an completely joyless affair.
Serena walks alone, veiled in denial. Nick — ever the obedient puppet — escorts Rose like he’s proud to be a part of all of it earlier than turning into the grasp of ceremonies. June watches with chilly fury. The handmaids maintain their knives. The cake is served. The countdown begins.
Lydia, who sensed one thing — sufficient to skip Joseph’s rigorously laid plans in Washington — doesn’t see it. Nick doesn’t see it. And I’m wondering, do any of them actually take note of each other? How can they be so blind?
The Pink Cake, the Pink Flag
The marriage reception is grotesque. Gilead, as soon as once more, clothes its cruelty as divinity. Serena makes her pitch to the handmaids. It’s heartfelt in her approach, however she errors her presence for empowerment.
She thanks them, tells them they matter, declares her friendship with June, and needs to take a portrait with their faces revealed. It’s like watching a lady persuade herself that the cage she helped construct is only a well-decorated sanctuary.
However the cake is drugged, and it does its job.
As company return residence to fall into heavy slumber, the handmaids slip away to complete what they began. The visible is putting: ladies in equivalent robes peel off one after the other into the evening, turning into particular person brokers of revolution.
And but, Lydia stays on the reception, happy with her “ladies,” oblivious to what they’ve deliberate. Till the cake crumbs — or somewhat, the shortage of them — give all of it away.
Serena’s Wake-Up Name
I didn’t anticipate to really feel something for Serena Pleasure. And but, I did. Paradoxically, I’m not a lot totally different than she is. She falls for Gabriel; I fall for her — each time.
Gabriel carries her over the brink into her new residence, and she or he looks as if a lady satisfied she’s lastly finished one thing proper. She’s chosen a greater man. She’s lastly being rewarded.
Then she meets her new handmaid and the entire air is sucked out of the room. Gabriel calls her OfGabriel.
And all of the sudden, Serena realizes that the person she trusted, the person she believed was totally different, is strictly what she’s been attempting to dismantle — a monster in soft-spoken sheep’s clothes. She’s been right here earlier than, however she fell for it once more.
He’s not enthusiastic about her beliefs or her protestations. He says he’s bent to her liberal attitudes and compromised; he’s modified.
After which he locks the door.
I do know that second. The second you understand somebody’s been taking part in you whilst you satisfied your self it was love. That pit-of-the-stomach recognition that you simply had been by no means in management. That your intestine was proper, and also you didn’t hear. Serena’s face says all of it. I’ve worn that face.
She tells Christina, the handmaid — no, a human being — to run, by no means to return. She stands as much as Gabriel, gathers her child, and calls for to depart. What’s he going to do? She’s already been by it. She has misplaced a finger and been crushed earlier than. She is going to survive.
Gabriel lays it on thick. He’s not somebody to be survived. He’s man. Waa waa. God. The whining and the lies Gileadean males inform themselves are exhausting. Serena is just not persuaded. As an alternative, she says he can’t be these issues. “You’re a commander.”
Chills. Lastly, she will get it. One final time, I fall for Serena. Possibly this time, I’ll be proper.
The Military in Pink
Whereas Serena flees, the handmaids are executing their plan. It’s violent. Silent. Methodical. One after one other, they eradicate their captors. June, the final to go, comes head to head with Commander Bell.
She stabs him between the eyes, takes his seat, drinks his liquor, and waits.
Janine enters. They alternate greetings. “Hello.” “Thanks.”
It’s quiet. It’s not triumphant. They’re not giddy. They’re exhausted.
As a result of even rigorously deliberate survival isn’t a celebration. And as releasing because the second is, many extra are to return. They need to tempo themselves.
Lydia’s Remaining Stand
Again on the handmaid compound, Lydia discovers the reality. She screams, threatens Phoebe, and calls for solutions. It’s dramatic. She calls on the God of vengeance for his or her punishment.
After which Moira steps out of the shadows. Lydia doesn’t even acknowledge her. However she is aware of June is behind all of it. She’s sure of it.
What follows is without doubt one of the strongest confrontations of the collection. June emerges and eventually lays it out, the whole lot Lydia refuses to confess: the beatings, the rape, the mutilation, the stolen youngsters. She tells Lydia the reality:
They aren’t fallen ladies. They’re rising.
Janine, Lydia’s Achilles Heel, seals it. Lydia was an instrument of torture in Gilead’s palms. She was the vessel that helped destroy their lives.
“You gave us to them,” she says. “If you wish to save us… allow us to go.”
And Lydia breaks. For actual this time.
She lowers Peter’s gun. She sobs into Janine’s arms. She drops to her knees when June walks away, begging God for assist. And perhaps — perhaps — we lastly noticed the lady behind the monster.
Exodus as Transformation
This wasn’t simply an escape. This was a change — a shedding of skins. The very clothes they had been compelled to put on turned their armor, their camouflage, and eventually, their liberation.
As June stated:
The gown turned our uniform. And we turned a military.
Watching that, particularly after a day after I didn’t really feel like myself, after I was misplaced in exhaustion and frustration, I felt one thing stir. These ladies — crushed, tortured, erased — used the system’s personal guidelines to burn it down.
There’s one thing holy in that, one thing gut-wrenching and life-giving all of sudden.
And it made me take into consideration how a lot of our lives, even in freedom, are lived in efficiency. How a lot time we waste attempting to be the model of ourselves that pleases others. How, even outdoors of Gilead, we play dress-up in costumes that outline us.
That is as actual and uncooked because it will get. It’s a declaration. They’re not taking part in anymore. We shouldn’t, both.
Stray Questions and Remaining Sparks
- Can Serena ever be accepted into the resistance? Will she be discovered asleep on the street, child in her arms, and lifted up and into the military?
- Did Christina get a knife too? Did Gabriel eat the cake? Will his guard thwart his slaying?
- Will Nick’s handmaid take him out? Will we see it? Or is seeing him so completely taking part in the Gilead recreation all we wanted to see to strike him out of our lives eternally?
- What concerning the wives who sat by and smiled whereas the world burned? Are they becoming a member of their husbands or proven grace as a result of their recreation, nonetheless merciless, was additionally a type of survival?
- Will this second matter — or will it’s swept away within the subsequent wave of cruelty? Can Boston be let loose, the primary domino to fall?
There are solely two episodes left, and for the primary time shortly, I’m not simply watching. I’m prepared. Watching The Handmaid’s Story is a motion unto itself, and I’m not falling again in line.
You would be studying actually something, however you’re right here.
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