Me..screaming at the TV:

There has only been one prior season of the Handmaid’s Tale. I mean, it feels like it’s been freaking forever, but it hasn’t been. 

Plot points:

As frustrating as it is that June did not do away with the Waterfords in violent fashion, I think that it more shows her humanity than anything else. (Yes, it would have been bad-ass if she’d made her escape in a Z-28 in the winter, but it may have been quite messy had she actually managed to exit the…

This was probably the first episode of the series that I just flat-out disliked. From the moment it started it was obvious the episode would mostly be her lone labor and childbirth, and I found the whole Hannah’s-birth/Holly’s-birth/Charlotte’s-birth montage pretty tedious.

The writers have said that they didn’t want an all white story like the book so at least a few prominent positions have to be men of color, but considering how almost all of the commanders we have seen, even in the large group scenes, are white and we have only seen 2 non-white commander wives and a black guy that’s…

I don’t think it’ll get any traction. Old wives can’t afford HBO.

I highly doubt it works myself, but a quick google will show you crap-tons of mainstream support for this. These writers didn’t make it up and didn’t hear it from some lone crazy.

He does have a wife, he just doesn’t have a handmaid because he and his wife are both fertile so they don’t need one. Which I was wondering about. It would be kind of weird if literally none of the commanders were able to conceive naturally.

This episode was exhausting torture porn. Seems like they’re just treading water, it’s starting to remind me of game of thrones season 5 where they just kept having bad things happen to the good guys for contrived reasons 

Perhaps we could come together and buy the AV Club a computer, so they could run software to automatically throw offensive comments into moderation, and let the others stand unless self-policed by other posters. I hear that’s what other sites do. 

Why must every “prestige” drama contain at least one graphic rape scene per season? 

I felt the same way about the people in the colonies. They are out there dying, they no they are dying, yet they don’t try to tear one of those Aunt’s masks off. You have a shovel...at least smack one in the head with it before you are carted off. What do you have to lose, you are dead anyway. 

I’m supposed to believe Fred and his wife had the wherewithal to be a major part of taking over the USA, but that they are creatures of vindictive impulse at home. Serena and Offred sniping at one another is middle-school-level behavior. Seems more like the writers are bending over backwards to change this into That…

Dude, like, what do you want then? You just want like 2 more seasons of June and the other women being tortured and raped, with no indication that any of them ever got out?

Too close to reality, man.

I know the show has been vague, but nothing about how Gilead functions makes a whole lot of sense. Is there a centralized government? Where is it located? Who leads it? If there is a leader, why does everything seem to revolve around the life of a single commander and his wife?

She’s not dumb, she’s just the victim of terribly inconsistent writing. I don’t know why the show runners didn’t kill her off. Letting her live makes Gilead’s rules seem really inconsistent.

Yes, I agree completely.  There is no way for this to actually happen - the world building isn’t great compared to say GOT.  But the world building in The Hunger Games didn’t make any logical sense either (they have magic technology but they still need coal miners?) it was the story that was compelling.  That’s why…

Yeah, of course they know. This is a diplomatic visit, so they’re trying to respect Gileadean ‘customs,’ even though the Canadians and everyone else thinks that five year old culture is nuts.

By just deciding “this is a show about getting raped” they rendered this series so lacking in subtlety and took away so many ways it could have developed. In the book, Offred explicitly points out the Handmaid ritual is not rape, and of course in the show you could have ended up thinking about some genuinely…