The Handmaid's Tale - on Hulu (1 Viewer)

[matuski]

I've tried to get through season 1 3 different times... this one just doesn't keep me in it.

 

[GordonGekko]

Finally watched season 3. Boring overall. I think they need to end it. That being said it definitely got dusty during the airport scene. 

June has plot armor

Serena Joy says the wrong thing in front of the Council and gets fingers cut off. Emily gets literally gutted and has to watch her former girlfriend/wife get hanged. Janine gets her eye taken out.

As much damage as June has caused, she seems invincible. Everyone just leaves her alone and lets her back into a the same household to cause more damage.

Part of the failure of the show is that Joseph Fiennes was painted out as a mustache twirling type villain. There needed to be a level of complexity where Gilead had a point, they were misguided and evil but they were not without some practical reasons. You can't have a society function where practically no one can have children. That's a really fascinating discussion about the human condition. Children Of Men did a great job taking a pretty horribly structured book and turning it into a very thoughtful and compelling film.

Sydney Sweeney as Eden was totally wasted. She would have naturally drawn in young viewers and she's a capable enough actress in that kind of role to have excelled over the long haul.

The big failure point was not fully showing the war/resistance. The natural evolution should be for June to escape, train and learn to fight back. But that would require Elisabeth Moss to actually undergo some massive physical changes to sell that kind of storyline.

The worldbuilding would make much more sense if everyone in power was evil. If Moira escapes to Canada and finds its just as brutal but in different ways. That would resonate with the audience.

This show is Third Wave feminist revenge porn with very high production values. Moss markets herself to the jilted typically ignored white American female audience. The show drips with raw entitlement. You can't have a main character that is immune from the "rules" of the universe that's been created for them. When that happens, there is no real conflict and no real stakes, and without those two things, there is no chance for character development and growth.

The show would have been endlessly fascinating if Moira found out that the Canadian government was going to basically force her to pair up with a strong male genetic candidate to keep procreating. Now that's dystopian. The half of society that robs you of choice, and the other half that only gives the illusion of a choice. And if Emily showed up and is then sent back because the punishment "procedure" made her infertile and she can't have children anymore.

If this show rode the themes of Captive State and Children Of Men, this would be a hands down classic.

Instead we get Moss raging with June Osborne as her personal avatar because she grew up in real life where the Chris Hemsworths of the world didn't even know she existed. Moss' unchecked tone deaf feminism is just a cry for attention that can't be attained through the normal social order.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

Caught up.

Not bad. West wing guy is still my favorite character.  Not really understanding why Luke was so upset at the end with June. I would have poured her a bourbon.