Ferguson, Baltimore, Standing Rock. You can argue the "peaceful," I suppose (that's a whole 'nother argument, and not one I'm going to have), but also, that's your word, not mine. (Not that the protest in the show was 100% "peaceful" either; protesters were throwing things and punching the police/soldiers.)

Oh yeah, by group rape I meant when they sentenced her to "redemption," that was one of my thoughts of what that could mean. Once it went to the hospital it was obvious it hadn't.

One review I read mentioned that they had changed the Wives' color from blue to green. On my screen the Wives are a dark teal (sometimes with seafoamish accents) but definitely more on the green side than the blue side. The Marthas' colors look dustier to me, like a light greenish-gray (sage?) color.

I guess there's a difference between nobody thinking you're suspicious enough to stop you in the first place and nobody finding it suspicious that you refuse to produce ID once asked. I imagine the Aunts probably have more sway in the actual Red Center ("Where are you taking that Handmaid?" "Open the door." "OK.")…

Re: the last paragraph, I dunno, I thought the FGM was kind of oddly done. I assumed that had to be what happened (before that scene I was alternating between "Redemption" being FGM or a stylized ritual group rape or something, to fit in with the idea that you can rape someone straight), but then Aunt Lydia's talk…

I love that book. I don't know if this is your emotion, but a lot of mine was the dissonance of how beautiful everything was and how awful everything was all at the same time. Never Let Me Go had a very dreamlike, hazy, and even idyllic quality that leaves you feeling wistful and sad and somehow nostalgic rather than…

I mean, I think part of the issue is that it's hard to see any one single thing as the "Nope, getting out of here" thing. If the hollowing-out of the government and subsequent martial law wasn't it, so why would losing your job and money be so clearly more it? They presumably didn't know that structural rape and…

She did also live in Cambridge at some point, so part of it is just that people tend to set books somewhere they know enough about the physical setting to make it plausible. But the "it can't happen here" in Cambridge specifically thing is very definitely a large part of it. I went to a reading of hers once (for one…