What! No! Not June and Luke! Not again! Can’t this show just let us have one good thing without wrenching it away and throwing it into the back of a black armored truck in the dead of night? Okay, that’s not quite fair. I did enjoy the lip-smackingly delicious satisfaction of watching Serena squirm under the oppression of a Gilead pregnancy. Actually, for an episode that contained zero Janine, “Fairytale†was pretty banging all around. (You’ll note this is the second episode in a row with no Nick.)
Like many of the earlier episodes, “Fairytale†draws a link between June and Serena’s parallel universes, in this case how real life punctures a fantasy for them both. June’s fairytale is a brief, unexpected respite from her life-and-death to-do list when she and Luke are temporarily stranded in the liminal space between Gilead and Canada — in an abandoned bowling alley, of all places. For Serena, it is finally achieving her ideal of Peak Womanhood — 32 weeks’ gestation — and losing every ounce of freedom and self-determination in exchange. Of course, we end on a cliffhanger, because this is The Handmaid’s Tale. All in all, I found this to be a darn-near-perfect episode of this particular show.
We open with Hannah at the aquarium, and then there is a jarring transition to the present as June wakes up from her dream to the sound of a buzzing phone. It’s Mayday, and they have something for her. As June and Luke and Moira are driving through crowds of anti-immigration protests and meeting up with Lily in the woods to follow up on this lead, I have to admit I was mentally preparing myself to be bored. I found the last Mayday plot to be a big, expository disappointment, so I was pleasantly surprised when Lily’s plan went awry, compelling Luke and June to heroically march into No Man’s Land themselves. How predictable, in the sense that it is completely believable for their characters, that Luke would be so haunted by Serena’s taunt that he immediately volunteers to head into the danger zone himself and that June would immediately insist on going with.
They look completely, terrifyingly exposed as they traipse across the wide-open field into No Man’s Land — for a reason, as it turns out. But for now, they reach the meetup spot by morning, as Lily promised, where the awaiting “Friendly†jumps out from behind the tree and shouts “Raspberry!†June responds with the corresponding password, “Beret.†Get it? “Raspberry Beret.†I chuckled, anyway. It’s too dangerous to stand around talking out in the daylight, so, against their better judgment, June and Luke follow Raspberry Beret to a run-down building that turns out to be a bowling alley from the Before Times that’s still mostly operational.
Once RB has given them the information they were after — Hannah is a “Plum,†meaning she’s been sent to Wife School with the other daughters of High Commanders, and also here is a USB drive with all the information he has on Wife Schools where she might be — he informs June and Luke that to leave before dark would be dangerous. Looks like they’re stuck with this guy for the rest of the day. I’m not always on June’s side, but in this case I think she’s totally right to be extremely anxious about trusting this complete stranger from Gilead in an abandoned building for an entire day. Like, when has that ever gone well?
Except for once, the other shoe doesn’t drop. They just … go bowling. Nobody seems to care if they make any noise, and Raspberry Beret (real name Jaden, it turns out) even has beer in the fridge. June is stressed about how Jaden got the beer, but Luke is just having the time of his life right now. He decides they need music, so he finds a keyboard (handy!) and starts playing “Let’s Stay Together,†because not only is Luke an above-average bowler, he also has a lovely singing voice. His voice gets extra soft when he sings, “whether times are good or bad, happy or sad,†to maximize the lyric’s heart-melting potential. They slow-dance and Jaden spotlights them with colored lights, so the whole moment comes together like a precious, perfect little dream. Ah, true love.
Meanwhile, Serena is realizing the limits of her own dream life the hard way. I mean, it could absolutely be harder, but sometimes it’s about the minor daily indignities — like when your host hands you a bottle of prenatal vitamins and stares until you take them. But at first everything is exactly as Serena always wanted it to be. Here she is, massively pregnant, surrounded by a crowd of fawning fellow tradwives who all want to grab at her belly to feel the baby kick. Little Miss Mother Earth over here. Yes, she thinks, God did bless me because I really am better than all of these sad, barren bitches. God’s chosen motherfucking vessel.
Like all good horror stories, it takes a little time for Serena’s nightmare to settle in. Her perfect serenity lasts about until her afternoon call with Commander Lawrence and Putnam. Mrs. Wheeler declines Serena’s invitation to listen in because “Wives shouldn’t concern themselves with business matters.†Putnam is obviously on the same page as Mrs. Wheeler and cuts Serena off in the middle of her actually very brilliant pitch to rebrand the new Gilead center as a fertility clinic, slamming the phone just as she’s pronouncing the word strategy. Next, Serena wants to “commune with†a woman holding flowers on the other side of the driveway’s gate, but her driver/jailer/bodyguard says it’s unsafe and she has to stay on the property at all times. And then Mr. Wheeler finally appears — first as an ominous suit-shaped shadow in Serena’s bedroom doorway. She’s delighted to hear that the commanders have decided to go with her “fertility clinic†proposal, then crestfallen to learn that she will not be allowed to work on it. For the good of the baby.
“We can’t have you running around the city,†Wheeler scoffs. “Your baby comes before any ambitions.†He makes her take her vitamins and reminds her to take them every day. Can she at least have a cell phone, she asks? Nope. For your own safety. What’s that phrase? “Whatever a man soweth, that he shall also reap� Isn’t that from the Bible?
What makes Serena’s current patriarchy jail especially poignant is that it is interspersed with flashbacks of Mrs. Waterford swanning through early Gilead. Before anyone is tempted to pity Serena, first watch this scene of her and Mrs. Putnam walking through a hallway of small children who have been stolen from their parents and are now on offer like a Christian puppy mill. Mrs. Putnam and Serena both agree that anything would be better than a Handmaid, until, as we know, they both get Handmaids.
As Serena is contemplating her increasingly grim future, night has fallen, so June and Luke can safely head back to Canada. Well, not exactly safe. Jaden — poor, sweet, Jaden — steps on a landmine, and his leg is promptly blown off. June and Luke try to help him at first, but they see the flashlights and know Gilead is after them. They take off running and get to that ominous, wide-open field on the border between both countries. They narrowly skirt an incoming Gilead vehicle and, running as fast as they can, they are so close to making it back into Canada. Damn it! One guy grabs June and one guy grabs Luke and they are wrenched apart while shouting and reaching for each other’s hands.
Jesus, folks. This episode made me feel so many things in just 45 minutes. Like my favorite episodes of this neverending television program, “Fairytale†left me in pain, but in a good way. I am both thrilled and terrified for episode six, but if they kill off Luke, I swear to God … (I mean, obviously I’ll keep watching because Vulture pays me for this, but I’ll be upset about it.)
Other Gileadditions:
• Our one scene with Lawrence and Putnam this episode seems to be setting up a rivalry between them. Putnam wants hardline, pig-headed, isolationist chauvinism at any cost, and Lawrence is trying to build a thing he calls “New Bethlehem.†They do not get along.
• I chuckled during Serena’s Handmaid-selection flashback. Aunt Lydia says, “That one caught the eye of Commander Waterford also!†Serena shuts the folder.
• Jaden tells June and Luke that his memories of life before Gilead are all kind of “foggy,†which implies that Hannah probably doesn’t remember anything other than Gilead either. Also, it lets Luke say “yes†when Jaden asks if he wrote “Let’s Stay Together†himself.
• There’s an odd, semi-flirtatious moment with Moira and Lily in the Mayday cabin while they wait for June and Luke. Lily makes fun of Detroit (Moira and I are both offended on behalf of our shared hometown), and they drink brown liquors. I feel like the show is that straight friend who sets up every two gay people they know when all they have in common is gayness.