Season 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale was billed as a revolution and resistance season, with the trapped “citizens” of Gilead finding their will, finding their voice, finding their strength, and finding their way to break free of this quite insane and repressive regime. However, for a while there, it seemed like nothing was happening to that end at all.
As the season neared its close, we realized that was the furthest thing from the truth. Every resistance starts quietly and builds. It needs layers. It needs intelligence — both on the cognitive end and the information end.
And, it needs humanity and that’s the one thing Gilead forgot it would have when it built its foundations. It would have human beings and human beings are unique. As Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) said, the two things they didn’t count on were mental health (which he learned the hard way when his bipolar wife took her life) and a mother’s love.
After all, it was a mother’s love that prompted June (Elisabeth Moss) to stay in Gilead at the end of season 2 when she had the means to escape. And, it’s a mother’s love that prompted her and so many others to get way more than 52 children out of this hellscape in Season 3, episode 13 titled Mayday.
But, a lot had to happen between June handing Holly to Emily to get the baby to Canada (telling her to call the little girl Nichole) as last season closed and get all those other oppressed, frightened, and stolen children to our neighbor to the north as this season came to an end.
That had to start with Emily (Alexis Bledel) actually making it to Canada (although her story fell short, but with only 13 episodes a season, how much can you tell that is not central to life in Gilead?) and June figuring out both whom she could trust — and whom she could use — to get what she wanted.
With Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) always as a wild card, Aunt Lydia (Anne Dowd) always lurking, and the laws of Gilead sparing nobody, June’s task wasn’t easy. When she was thrown off by a trip to DC showing her how other handmaids have it worse (is there any way to ever get the sight of the Winslows’ handmaid bound and torn lips out of your mind?), as well as her self-righteous and pregnant walking partner, we weren’t sure what to eventually expect, but what we got was SO worth it.
It started with …continue reading on the next page —>
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