The Handmaid's Tale Recap: A Modest Proposal
This week's Handmaid's Tale proves that there's nothing to which love, ambition or a heady mixture of the two can blind us.
Or, more simply? Serena's back on her BS, everybody.
Hey, maybe she's right. Maybe this time, the civil rights-destroying, patriarchal theocracy she helped craft will shine a benevolent light on her, blessed among women, cue the cherubic seraphim yadda yadda. But you know? Based on what Lawrence overhears at Jezebel's, I really doubt it.
Speaking of the accursed brothel, June and Moira infiltrate it and mend their friendship in the process. Unfortunately, they also kill a guardian and mess up their extraction in the process. Thank goodness for a certain commander's impeccable timing!
Read on for the highlights of "Janine."
ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH | Joy Division's "Atmosphere" plays in the background as June, Luke, Moira and the Mayday operatives who'll go into Gilead prepare for their mission. Moira's still mad at June for going behind her back about the Jezebel's run, but June and Luke are in a good place; they share a long, passionate kiss (hands on each other's face, we love to see it) before he closes her into the false back of the truck he'll drive.
Once they get there, June and Moira cover their faces — as Jezebel's Marthas do now — and everything goes smoothly... for a while. While searching for Janine they learn that she's up in the penthouse and a bunch of commanders, including the extremely punchable Bell, are on their way there at that moment — which is news to Moira and June. They hustle upstairs and find her there with some of the place's other residents; when Janine recognizes June, she hurries over and wonders if they're martha's now. "Mayday," June whispers, and MY HEART, the look of elation on Janine's face as she asks if they're getting her and the other women out.
They're interrupted by the arrival of the commanders, a group that includes Lawrence. Janine slips June a keycard and tells her to meet her there later, then scurries off to stroke stupid Bell's stupid ego.
LAWRENCE LEARNS A SECRET| As the men drink and fondle (ew), Lawrence talks about how successful New Bethlehem has been in normalizing Gilead's foreign relations, and how it'll do even better if they open other, similar settlements. The other commanders show interest in supporting his ideas, then Lawrence and Bell get into an argument over who'll take Janine into a private room. Lawrence wins. "No one here likes you. No one. And no one respects you," he tells the younger commander as he leaves the penthouse. "Watch yourself."
When they're alone, Janine makes sure that Lawrence knows "you're not a good guy, but just compared to them, you are." She leaves him in the room for a minute, but not before showing him a peephole the girls use sometimes to see into the penthouse. And that's how Lawrence learns that none of the other commanders actually agree with him about New Bethlehem's merits; they're only using it as bait to bring people back to Gilead so they can zhush the population before they close the borders and "reinstitute tradition." Bell wants Lawrence on the wall, and the other commanders are easily swayed to his side. "He's done," Commander Reynolds says, while the subject of their conversation has an "oh s—t" moment just a wall away.
MOIRA HAS ENOUGH | Janine makes her way to June and Moira, where they brief her on Mayday's plan. She gives them the intel they need — security, entrances and exits — and draws them a map, then hands them a pack of letters the other women who are trapped at the brothel have written to their families. June promises they'll get everyone out, and Janine is about to head back so no one suspects anything weird is going on, when June blurts out that Janine should come with them RIGHT NOW.
Moira thinks it's a bad idea, and Janine says she can't leave because she's got to prep her friends. When she leaves, Moira is angry. "If we had taken Janine today, there would've been security all over this place, and our Mayday plan would've been screwed," she correctly points out. They get into one of those arguments you can only have with someone with whom you've been friends for a really, really long time: The cuts are deep, and everyone ends up in tears. "Your guilt, your feelings, your friends, your trauma, you, you, you," Moira explodes. "Do you have any idea how f—king sick of you I am?"
She goes on to posit that being a handmaid was a lot easier and better than being a jezebel, where the nonconsensual sex happened every night instead of once a month. After June recovers from her shock, she agrees. And somehow — mainly through the talent of Samira Wiley and Elisabeth Moss — the scene comes around to where they're both weeping and agreeing that neither of them should have had to endure a minute of any of it.
"And I think if we start comparing our suffering, then those f—kers will have won," June says. Moira admits that there are times she hated June, but "I love you all the time. Even if I don't feel like it." GUYS, THIS IS KILLING ME. ALSO: YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF THERE.
LAWRENCE TO THE RESCUE AGAIN! | My worries are realized when a guardian enters and tells them to take their mask off so he can "see your pretty faces." He grabs the letters and map and puts them in the room's safe, then it's not long before he's shoving Moira down on the bed so he can assault her. June jumps him from behind, and then the two women work together to end him: As June kicks him in the soft parts, Moira strangles him with a telephone cord.
They smuggle him out of the room in a laundry cart and bring him to the incinerator; the unexpected task, as well as the ensuing lockdown when the guardian's absence is noticed, causes them to miss their rendezvous with Luke and the supply truck that's supposed to get them out. The only available exit needs a commander's keycard to open it, and it looks like they're screwed... until Commander Lawrence approaches the exit in his car. "Oh, hell no," he mutters. (Ha!) June half begs, half instructs him to get them out of there, and even though he doesn't want to, he does.
NICK MAKES ANOTHER CHOICE | High Commander Wharton drops some unwelcome news on an already on-his-guard Nick: The guardian he shot who didn't die "has shown remarkable signs of improvement. Call it divine providence." Wharton either knows, or highly suspects, that his son-in-law was involved in the incident — why else would he point out that the slowly recovering guardian "could identify whoever did this brazen act"?
Nick visits the guardian at the hospital, where the young man's mother hovers over his bed. She unwittingly lays it on thick about how much her son looks up to "brave men of honor, like you, Commander." She makes him promise he'll find out who shot him. ALREADY ON IT, LADY.
After she leaves, the guardian wakes up a little. "Do you know me, Toby?" Nick asks. Toby asks about his dog, and Nick assures him the pup is fine as he walks away. But before he leaves the room, Nick has a change of heart. He locks the door from the inside, pulls the blinds and turns back toward the bed.
SERENA'S SUITOR | Aunt Lydia swings by Serena's to enlist her help in advocating for former handmaids. "I was promised they would become respected members of society," Lydia says, incensed. "And you believed it?" Serena asks pointedly. "You believed many things about Gilead before your recent travels," the older woman volleys back. A couple thoughts here. First, anyone going to Serena with an idea that doesn't directly benefit Serena is on a fool's errand. Second, the mental gymnastics Lydia must have to do DAILY to differentiate her role in the handmaids' violation from that of people like the Waterfords! (Serena basically says as much, citing how Aunt Lydia's "girls" suffered in both of their houses.)
Still, Serena Joy sees an opening. If the handmaids retire to New Bethlehem, she posits, they could become attendants at the new fertility center. Aunt Lydia's eyes light up. "That's a divine calling," she says. Then they're interrupted by a delivery of flowers from Wharton, who would like to see Serena again before he takes Rose to Washington, D.C. "High Commander Wharton is exactly the kind of political support we need," Lydia remarks. "He also is a single man, with a good fortune, in want of a wife." Serena scoffs at the aunt's quoting of Jane Austen, but her face indicates that she's had similar thoughts.
That evening, Serena meets Wharton for their date and finds him at a library: "I've built a safe place for the children of New Bethlehem to come to read, the boys and the girls," he says. I'm equally annoyed by how pleased he is with himself and how taken she is by the gesture. Then he ramps it up: He shows her a mockup of the sign that says "The Serena Joy and Gabriel Wharton Library," indicating his plans for them. "I didn't come back here to be a wife," she says. "Fred tried to erase the best parts of you, and I'd never do that," he promises. "I want all of you." She says she can't move to D.C. or Boston, and he quickly suggests that they split their time between New Bethlehem and the city in "a house that you choose."
She's teary as her defenses begin to fall, but still, she shrewdly tries to cover all her bases. "I will never stop writing," she says, and he draws closer as he replies he won't ask her to. She still wants to change the country; he says they'll do it together. She wonders if he'll be able to raise another man's child, and he vows that it won't be a problem. "Don't you think Noah deserves a little brother or sister in the largest, most loving family that we can manage?" he wonders. She's on board. So he drops to one knee, presents her a ring and formally proposes. She happily accepts, then they kiss.
Now it's your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!