I don't know, I'd recommend actually checking out the show before making those assumptions. The worst I can say about it is that a lot of it is an hyperpigmented exaggeration of the issues— but that's true of a lot of comedy.

What I took away from that scene is that parroting all the "right feminist things" on paper, using consent forms, etc., does not preclude a guy from still being an entitled asshole. Notice that the guy took out the consent forms without ever actually asking Kimmy if she was on the same page as him regarding having sex.

I've seen 3 or so of the MVs that came out of it— Hold Up and Formation are fantastic and Sandcastles is pretty good— but I admit I didn't have the inclination to spend money on the entire thing.

Less opportunities for her as a woman than back when she was a murderous pharaoh, though. That glass ceiling is a bitch!

Maybe it does, eventually. Or maybe the worst of it is over but the infertility that was caused at the time is permanently damaging.

"As it is, it seemed to me like they were admiring or celebrating the entire Handmaid system, ceremonial rape by sterile dudes and all — at best there were hints that they didn't really know what it entailed."

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…