I mentioned this in other comments, but it's fairly clear that the high fertility rate is an accident of geography so that they are able to produce children DESPITE the handmaid system.

if they're that willing to abandon their religious principles (complementarianism, prescribed dress) under pressure they aren't fundamentalists, and if they aren't fundamentalists, none of the story makes sense.

Until this episode we didn't really know what the fertility situation was like in other parts of the world, so I'm not sure what you mean by it not being internally consistent. It's pretty consistent for Gilead to be badly off and other parts of the world to be even worse off, fertility-wise.

Eh, I don't know about best gay couple on TV. They are hilarious and I love Titus, but let's be real, he's a walking stereotype.

Only ever as a greeting to Gilead people though, no? I'd have to rewatch it.

My interpretation is that they were just doing it to be polite and follow customs of their host country, although it's definitely a possibility that Gilead's craziness is going international.

I thought the context and reasoning were fairly clear, but for now let's just agree to disagree since we're clearly getting different interpretations from the episode. Maybe some future dialogue will spell out what is actually going on in other parts of the world.

I think the Gilead handmaid system is so clearly arcane and ridiculous that we're meant to conclude that the Gilead handmaid system's main purpose is oppression and control, not necessarily fertility. Its success as a system to produce children is clearly incidental— Gilead is just *lucky* that they can get away with…

Because I'm arguing that the Mexico deal *does* make good sense (obviously it's morally repugnant, but this is the Handmaid's Tale we're talking about and is beside the point of my argument).

No one is claiming it isn't slavery

"If the other countries are not opposes to fertility treatments, then why do they have no babies and Gilead a roomful of them?"

Having brought myself up-to-date with the whole S.E. Hinton drama, the twitter responses, and the subsequent threads, I feel OLD as hell.

"I didn’t do it to humanize him. I almost did it to minimize him."

After reading through the comments, I think a lot of people are conflating trading handmaids with Gilead exporting the handmaid system itself. If you think of it as a world where pollution-induced infertility is so extreme that Gilead is actually (in terms of fertility) well off, relatively speaking, and if you think…

I think they are at the level where it works "just well enough", i.e. just enough babies are being born plus they can exert crushing religious-themed control over women and have a handmaid system set up as a "privilege" for the elite.

"It really asks us to swallow the notion that there isn't a SINGLE rational nation in this alternate world that tried IVF or incentivized breeding matchups or professional surrogacy programs or any number of things."

Well the commander mentioned that if the trade deal doesn't go through, then their currency will take a nosedive within a year— so that whole charade with Gilead having an agricultural boom is probably *not* true. Remember this was when Offred was in the room and she was still under the impression this was a normal…

Willfully missing the point. Straight out of the trolling handbook!

I can't speak for fantasy or comic books, but I know exclusion and shitty behavior happens in the gaming community ALL. THE. TIME. For example some of my favorite fighting game champs are trans women, and they have spoken about harassment and feeling unsafe. They remain for the love of the game and *despite* the…

All those people wishing for 1D's demise were apparently tricked by their genie— it seems we'll be getting even more albums and songs from all 5 boys separately.