'The Handmaid's Tale' Explores Serena's Viewpoint
“I thought she could be decent,” June says furiously near the end of "First Blood," after Serena has turns on her yet again. And honestly, same! As Aunt Lydia notes, June and Serena’s relationship is even more fractious than the usual Handmaid/Wife dynamic, but they share such seemingly genuine moments in the wake of June’s almost-miscarriage, I started to wonder if pregnancy-by-proxy really had changed Serena. And while it’s not really clear that it has, this episode does dig deeper into Serena through flashbacks-right before it upends its present-day storyline with a bombshell of an ending.
Below, five talking points from The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 Episode 6, "First Blood."
1) Serena and June’s relationship is now officially the most compelling on the show.
With all due respect to June and Nick and their stellar sex scenes, that is. Seemingly overwhelmed by relief that “her” baby is unharmed, Serena’s being more tender with June than we’ve ever seen before. She’s almost deferential to her, setting up June with a cozy makeshift bed in her own sitting room, promising to get her a pregnancy pillow to help her get comfortable at night. It’s unsettling, because it’s Serena, but there’s also genuine moments of warmth and bonding between the two women. In the hospital, Serena makes a point of removing the barrier in front of June so she can see the ultrasound screen; later, June repays the favor by letting Serena feel the baby move.
We’re even prompted to wonder what kind of relationship June and Serena would have had in the world before. When Serena surprises June by inviting a few Handmaids over for a pleasant, not-at-all-awkward lunch, June makes a reference to her favorite brunch place on Boston’s Boylston Street, which served a “liberated omelette with eclectic potatoes” (I’m not saying this place deserved to be shut down by a fascist government, but…) Serena suddenly chimes in with the name of the place, Magnolia’s, which it turns out was a favorite of hers too: “Who knows-maybe we were there at the same time!”
The sunny spell can’t last, though, and it’s finally broken after Serena shows June the nursery she’s decorated for “her child.” June reminisces about the glow-in-the-dark stars she and Luke used to decorate Hannah’s room, and then begs Serena for the chance to see her daughter. Serena says no, and seems affected by doing so, tearfully dismissing her. What’s not clear is whether Serena actually feels guilty, or just betrayed by June for daring to go off-script. Later, Serena tries to put June back in her place by making her pick up Eden’s dropped knitting needle, but June power plays her right back with “I just felt a cramp. I don’t want to hurt the baby.” And we’re back to their familiar passive-aggressive dynamic.
2) Serena’s speaking appearance on a college campus rings very, very true.
Before Gilead, Serena was a writer and far-right activist, instrumental in building the new order with her husband. As we saw last season, the new government ultimately shut her out, with her book banned alongside all the others. Serena's so deeply repressed and tightly controlled in Gilead that it’s really striking to get another glimpse of her, back in America as a right-wing provocateur determined to get her message out there at all costs. She wants the women of America to embrace their “biological destinies,” aka stay at home and pump out children. And while her beliefs are objectively regressive and abhorrent, it’s also easy to see how she-and countless others-would have slid towards such an extreme, when the birthrate declines by 61 percent in 12 months.
“You want me to stay silent, but that is not going to change what’s happening in our country!” she screams during her appearance on a college campus, where she’s greeted with vicious protests that recall a number of recent real-life responses to right-wing speakers at universities. She tells the students they’re spoiled and living in a bubble-and let’s face it, if this birth decline happened for real, the older generation would absolutely find a way to blame it on millennials and their avocado toast habits.
After being ushered off the stage for security reasons (prompting a furious Fred to declare “This is America!” because he is, of course, a big fan of free speech), Serena is shot outside the college by what appears to be a very carefully aimed bullet to her pelvic area. And though it’s not made explicit, we’re left to wonder if this injury is what made her unable to conceive. Fred is later shown tracking down the shooter and murdering his wife in front of him; an important reminder that he was a thug even before Gilead.
3) Eden and Nick (he, reluctantly) “fulfill their duty” to God.
Elisabeth Moss once joked that the dynamics of the June/Luke/Nick/Fred/Serena drama basically amounted to The Real Housewives of Gilead, and that equation is only getting more complicated. June is put into the singularly weird position of having to A) counsel her lover’s new wife, who’s upset because he won’t sleep with her, and B) pressure her lover into doing the deed, despite his misgivings about the fact that she is, y’know, a child. Eden is 15, we learn, which makes her unyielding determination to do “what’s expected of her” as a fertile new wife really upsetting. The single bright spot in this hellish storyline? Moss’s delivery of June’s line after Eden admits her concern that maybe Nick is gay and can’t perform: “I’m… sure that is not true.”
On the subject of which: when Nick and Eden do finally have sex, in a profoundly unsettling sequence, he lasts for about fifteen seconds. Now, we know from his history with June that this is not the norm. So… does Nick just have a remarkable level of control over his staying power, or lack thereof? Did he make the choice to get it over with as fast as possible? Or did he fake it and assume Eden wouldn’t notice? Am I over-thinking this?
4) Fred is disgusting, and June is playing an ambiguous game with him.
For all the visceral gore this show often delivers, I’m not sure I’ve ever been closer to literally gagging than when Fred told June, “Pregnancy suits you.” But it’s her who seeks him out, not the other way around, and her opening line, “Are you mad at me?” is a strange note. We saw last season how effectively June plays Fred, flattering his ego and feigning real interest in him, but since she and Serena are seemingly making real progress at this stage, it feels unnecessarily risky for her to reach out to Fred. It’s also just extraordinary that he’s still falling for her flattery now, even after her escape. (Does he truly buy into the official line that she was “kidnapped”?) Beneath the rank and status, he’s a truly pathetic man, and Joseph Fiennes plays his petty layers so well that his performance will be a loss to the show if Fred is dead following the final moments of this episode (more on that below).
But on balance, it’ll be worth it if his death means I never have to watch another quote-unquote love scene like the one between Fred and June in her bedroom. He’s back up to his old tricks, bringing June a gift (a recent photograph of Hannah) to make her feel indebted to him, and make himself feel like the benevolent provider before he makes his move. “I’ve missed you,” he says, then “I want you,” and June says she wants him too, but she’s worried about the baby. Her pregnancy, thankfully, is still a powerful enough trump card to ward him off, and after he leaves June looks as nauseous as we all feel.
5) The revolution is finally here.
This episode brought us another piece of the puzzle as far as Gilead’s origin story, while possibly also showing us the beginning of its undoing. The last we heard of the always-mysterious rebel organization Mayday was in Episode 4, when Alma told June it was “done helping Handmaids.” But Ofglen is presumably working with Mayday when she carries out a suicide bombing during the grand opening of a shiny new Handmaid training facility known as the Rachel and Leah Center. Ofglen’s ending comes after a particularly painful scene during the Handmaids’ surprise visit to the Waterford house, where Serena tries to engage Ofglen in small talk, unaware that she has had her tongue cut out.
Reintroducing Ofglen briefly in this way makes the final twist all the more satisfying-as did the way Fred smoothly, smugly tried to dismiss her when she entered the center before the other Handmaids, assuming she’d just made a mistake. But she! Did! Not! If Fred is dead, I will forgive this show for all the torment it has inflicted on my mental state.
You Might Also Like
