Handmaids Tale - General Discussion

General discussion and topics about Handmaid's Tale a Hulu original.

Based on the best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood, this series is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in what used to be part of the United States. Gilead is ruled by a fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state, and is faced with environmental disasters and a plummeting birth rate. In a desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world, the few remaining fertile women are forced into sexual servitude. One of these women, Offred, is determined to survive the terrifying world she lives in, and find the daughter that was taken from her.

First episode date: April 26, 2017
Network: Hulu
Author: Margaret Atwood
Production locations: Toronto, Hamilton, Cambridge


How much did you love this show? Did it take you awhile to get into it? Have you re-watched it? Would you have changed anything in the debut season?

Guess who caved and got Hulu

Get on it!!

im on episode 4 and this show is intense. maybe on of the most intense and disturbing shows ive ever watched. 

I really love it and am completely hooked but some of the moments of this show are disturbing. 

I will post more after I complete the season but I have some questions if anyone can answer them

ok I was watching this episode where Ofglen and June were walking and some guy just got scooped up off the street by the police/military…..I was confused because Im not sure I understand how this system works. 

I get about the women - how they are "classified" etc but I dont understand how they determine what the men will do….like obviously the "faithful" are high ranking members of society etc but ….like how does it get decided that someone like Nick can be a driver….or like what do these guys get in trouble for? 

Can someone like nick have a wife if he wanted to? how to the men pick their wives? 

I am still trying to understand the system a little

I wish I knew Nick's rules - seems to have some leeway for sure

Alabama wrote:I wish I knew Nick's rules - seems to have some leeway for sure

I want to read the novel now lol

about to watch the last episode later tonight or tomorrow

read the book in High School so was looking forward to watching! Just started and up to S1 Ep5 so far really liking it, I like the flashbacks that are included, something that I think would be cool in TWD

Just finishing 2-01.  Outstanding start to the 2nd season.  Had me holding my breath.

In the novel, some things are made clear, some things are opaque, and some things are only made (somewhat) clearer in an epilogue that takes place at an academic conference about 150 years after the events.  

IIRC, events here are taking place early in the Republic of Gilead (note how we see flashbacks of Luke watching coverage of the "terrorist" attack on Congress, and, in season 1, flashbacks of a much more joyful -- and sexual -- Serena as a graduate student, enjoying her time writing her dissertation and being quite different in her interactions with Fred; we also see flashbacks of June working as a book editor -- slightly different from the novel).  All to say that these are the early days of Gilead.  The marriages are pretty much pre-exisitng.  Marriages such as June's were voided by the state, at first because they were the product of adulterous relationships, because one or both parties had been married before, and, finally, because the marriage had not been performed before the one and only state-sanctioned church.  Once all of those marriages were invalidated, those children (like June's) became available to be adopted (their parents suddenly deemed immoral and unfit) and the mothers (if still fertile) available for the Handmaid program.

There were other aspects: women were not allowed to read/write.  Nor could they own property or have bank accounts.  They had lost the right to jobs long since.  It had been a slow erosion of women's rights (and other group's rights).

Nick makes everyone a bit nervous: as a chauffeur, he is is presumed to be an Eye (spy), and therefore no one, not the Commander, not Serena, not the household staff, knows where his loyalties lie.  Over time, June comes to suspect Nick may be a member of the Mayday resistance, but she realizes she has to trust him because her options are so limited.

Just finished 2.04 and I have a theory.  Are we free to discuss speculation on this thread or is it not allowed because people might not be caught up?

Am watching "Seeds" .  I can't even with how good this season is if something so bleak can be good. 

I have to say as well, the way silence, music and sound effects are used on this show is incredible.

LastSummersSweetheart wrote:Am watching "Seeds" .  I can't even with how good this season is if something so bleak can be good. 

I have to say as well, the way silence, music and sound effects are used on this show is incredible.

I have to agree that silence, in particular, has been used to great effect this season.

I am also fascinated (and horrified) by Serena.  The frustration and anger that lie just beneath the ice princess surface are enough to scare the shit out of anyone.  But the sadness that is patently obvious when she explains the role of sexuality within marriage to Nick's new young wife was (almost) enough to make me feel sorry for her in that moment.  Serena has these small, maternal instincts beneath her Hitchcockian ice princess exterior -- those moments of small kindness are terrifying to me, for some reason.

I finally brought myself around to trying to finish the season. I am watching E10 and I legit have not stopped crying. The scene with poor June killed me but even another thing I cant stop thinking about is how everyone (reading comments on social media sites - no one on this site) assumed that Eden was going to be some awful person and to me she doesnt seem that way at all. She is just a freaking KID! ok I need to finish the episode now lol

I need to watch this one still.  Getting through Winona Earp atm