I finished “Dear Offred†with the urge to give everyone on this show — except Commander Lawrence — a hug and a high five. June restrained herself from shooting Serena in the face; Luke proved the power of local bureaucracy; Janine gave Aunt Lydia the business straight up, and Aunt Lydia actually listened and maybe even learned a little bit. Because I’m feeling generous and because I enjoyed this character-driven episode, I’m even going to award Serena a kudo for having the force of will and/or willful blindness to make the best of her new gig in Toronto after the mortifying experience of being rejected and kicked out of Gilead.
While still jumping between June & Co., Serena, and Janine and Aunt Lydia, this episode seemed far more focused than the previous three. Finally, I feel like I understand where each character is coming from and where they’re headed next, except for Commander Lawrence, who remains a mystery I’m praying this show decides to resolve one day. The A-plot in particular — which puts Luke’s faith in local government against June’s bloodlust to fight the creeping influx of cultural Gilead in Toronto — tidily mirrors the greater themes of the show. The patriarchy part, yes, but also the relative power and limitations of political institutions versus political violence. Gilead has taught June that when the system fails you, as it always will, the only way forward is through violence. But Luke, having spent the past several years protected by asylum in Canada, wants to wield the system itself as a weapon.
Luke’s bureaucracy offensive wins in this round, managing to shut down Gilead’s pseudo-embassy, a so-called “cultural center†that is also Serena’s only home, via building code violations. But that’s in Canada (which, in this universe, is a nation of prison abolitionists who also hold minor construction codes sacrosanct). Serena and Aunt Lydia believe in the system; their system. It’s a system they helped build and have devoted their lives to uphold, after all. But they are very, very slowly learning that the Gilead system is a cage of their own making whose only escape is through brutality or death. In a way, Luke and June are both right. Luke can temporarily defang Serena through the use of city ordinances, but the only way to stop Gilead for good may be, as June says, to put them all in the “fucking ground.â€
Hands down, my favorite part of this episode was watching Janine, a perfect character who could easily draw me in for ten more seasons if she were leading this show, lay this dichotomy out to Aunt Lydia in just so many words. Having awoken from her poison-induced coma, Janine is being hand-held through physical therapy by Aunt Lydia amid a stream of unrelenting Bible verses and trite aphorisms. But this time, for whatever reason, Janine has abandoned her usual meek demeanor for real talk. “Please stop talking about the Bible. My legs don’t work,†she barks at Lydia, and I’m cackling.
Aunt Lydia not only doesn’t blink at the back talk when Janine reads her the riot act for her attitude toward Esther, she actually shuts up and listens. “She is a child! Who was hurt and abused! I told you that! I warned you about her,†Janine says. Lydia starts in on the life of service and grace, and Janine cuts her off with, “Or else! Right? Live a life of service and grace, or else you would let her rot in the colonies.â€
And then I am whooping like it’s a Real Housewives fight when Janine says, “Why don’t you just pluck her eye out,†and “I know what you do to those girls, your precious girls. I see you. I see what you really are. I’ve still got one good eye, remember. You gonna take that one too?†For me, a Janine stan until the bitter end, this was a more satisfying setdown than anything June has ever screamed at Serena, mainly because it actually seems to work. I’ve often felt that Ann Dowd, by the power of her sheer Ann Dowd-ness, imbued Lydia with more depth than the cartoonishly evil woman written on the page. But this time it feels as if Dowd has something to do with that pathos, as Lydia appears to actually evolve.
Moved as she is by Janine’s takedown, however, there’s only so much Aunt Lydia can actually do. She should have known that her plan to reform the Handmaid system would be immediately dismissed, but she takes it to Lawrence anyway. She wants the girls to stay with her in the Red Center full time and have the Commanders visit once a month to perform the ceremony there. It’s still government-sanctioned rape, obviously, but it would at least protect the Handmaids from Commanders like Putnam. When Lydia brings her plan, Lawrence just sort of blinks at her and asks, “What are you smoking,†because Josh from The West Wing still lives within him. Lydia’s plan won’t work, Lawrence explains, because Commanders need Handmaids around to get their rocks off, as Lydia well knows. She says she doesn’t know anything of the kind. Lawrence says, “Don’t you.â€
And suddenly, Lydia is more personally allied to her Handmaids than to the Commanders. I think. I hope. Well, we’ll see. She asks Janine to help her take care of the girls, and she seems sincere.
Serena, who has gotten a lot of credit for intelligence that she doesn’t seem to be living up to at this point, is making herself busy in exile by sucking up to the system with all the energy she’s got. She’s been let out of prison because she’s needed to advance the plot and is now swinging her teeny-tiny dick around in the only way she knows how: by barking at underlings about petty details. Examining stationery: “They were out of the ecru?†Posing for her official portrait: “Was there no option for natural light?†She is determined to be the best little Gilead mascot she can be, even if the panel of male commanders back home keeps thwarting her efforts and encouraging her to focus on colors for the nursery. I’m sorry, Serena, but no amount of lovely gift baskets sent to Germany or afternoon teas with Venezuelan political wives will give you the respect or control you’re after.
Her nastiest, but ultimately toothless, attack is against June, of course. Serena sends her a note announcing the grand opening of the Gilead cultural center, addressed to “Offred.†Later, after Serena is sent scurrying away thanks to Luke’s building codes and June’s gunshot outside the building, June burns the note. Serena is hustled into a car and driven to a safe house — one that so resembles the old Waterford house in Gilead that I, at first, wondered how they road tripped there so quickly. But no, it’s just a house belonging to people who are clearly from Gilead and allies of someone back home. Either way, it’s not like anybody gave Serena a choice of where to go.
By burning the Offred envelope at the end of the episode, June appears to have exorcized some of the violent energy she’d been struggling to keep in check for the bulk of the episode. First, June is triggered when she and Nichole are recognized by a woman at the park, going from antsy to menacing as soon as it becomes clear the woman is a Gilead supporter, signaling to June (and us) that Gilead’s influence outside of the country is growing. The lady calls June a whore, and June, quite rightly, in my opinion, grabs the lady by the lapels and shoves her against the jungle gym.
In therapy (at last!!!!), for which Luke is also present for some reason, June asks how she can go about quelling these violent urges, which have started to freak her out. To be honest, the therapist seems like kind of a terrible therapist and says, “that sounds like it would be very difficult,†which June does not find helpful. Also not helpful: Officer Good Guy! Tuello appears at Casa June to tell the crew that (1) He saw Hannah and she looked healthy; (2) There was nothing he could do to get her out; and (3) Oh yeah, Serena is free. After telling June that her expectations of him are too high, Tuello skips off, and thus June’s obsessive compulsion to kill Serena dead is set in motion.
That night she unburies her gun from the backyard and drives straight to the Gilead cultural center/group home where Serena is currently living. Luckily, the gun jams so June can’t shoot her, but she does spot Serena in the window, gazing down at the crowd of candle-wielding supporters milling around in the cold like she’s a rape-happy Virgin Mary. June may have scared the shit out of Serena, but perhaps even more haunting than the appearance of your former abuse victim standing outside your bedroom window is the image Serena is projecting to June. The possibility that Serena really is a good Gilead mascot. That Serena, smiling beatifically at her little cluster of fertility-challenged followers, could spread the disease of Gilead far and wide by her mere presence.
The episode wraps up following a violent altercation between dueling protesters outside the center. One Canadian Oathkeeper type punches Moira straight in the face during an argument, prompting June, who is still armed and stalking the center, to pull the gun on the dude and fire into the air. Chaos erupts, and Luke, who is also at the cultural center after waving a stack of building code violations in Serena’s face as a threat, appears out of nowhere and gets June away from the crowd. They round the building just in time to see Serena about to get in her getaway car. If June was going to kill her, now would be the moment. But she doesn’t.
Other Observations
• I’m really loving the June and Luke relationship coming together. Not only does he accompany her to therapy, but she also doesn’t hide anything about her violent urges or her midnight excursions from him. Instead, she lets him in and lets him help her through it. This seems incredibly healthy and a much-appreciated departure from a secret-keeping-spouse narrative I was expecting.
• Speaking of June and Luke, that is a sex scene! I’m still hot and bothered!
• I kind of feel that this episode was greatly helped by the absence of Nick. Can I say I’m tired of Nick? I’m tired of Nick.
• Mrs. Wheeler, Serena’s new host, seems incredibly sinister.