I’m surprised that the choice of this song as a lullabye hasn’t merited more discussion. Lou Reed’s lyrics are about self-doubt and even self-hatred undermining our faith in ourselves, and that sometimes we need someone else to reflect the goodness in ourselves that we’ve come to doubt.

This show picks the darnedest songs for lullabies. For those not familiar:

At least there was some continuity from last week’s pivotal event. That’s been lacking (as many have noted). Baby Charlotte / Angela is saved! No follow-up. Nick is shot and hauled away by two Guardians and June gives birth in a deserted house! Nah, he’s back and he’s fine; Serena has the baby, and June is at the Red…

I figured that June wasn’t planning to leave as soon as she folded the photo in half and tucked it into the baby’s wraps. There was no reason to put the photo with Nichole unless she expected them to be parted.
The ‘Nichole’ choice could be at least in part for the same reason Serena chose that name - as a nod to Nick.

Fred certainly has been consistent in his BS.
“You let them do that to her?!”
“There are rules we must observe. Hey, how about you stay on and we try for a boy?”
“Not allowed. There are rules.”
“High-ranking commanders can bend the rules.”
Uggh.
I’d much rather have seen June leave with Emily and Nichole, but as eliza-cat…

She also knows his name. Even if she hadn’t spotted it when searching his study, Fred was bellowing it when he and Serena first entered the house. (I’ll admit that I don’t recall what it was, but Fred did shout it out.)

If anyone could be considered the “wronged party,” it would be Nick, as Eden’s husband. But it appears he had no say whatsoever in her fate. It was all about Fred’s anger that Eden and Isaac had been ungrateful and disgraced his household (and Serena knew immediately that that was how it would play out). The fates of…

Maybe punishments are largely determined by the party seen as wronged. Warren Putnam wouldn’t have lost his hand if his vindictive wife hadn’t advocated for harsh punishment. In this case, Nick was pretty much ignored and Fred was seen as the wronged party. Fred had raged about Eden’s failure to appreciate that he had…

Given that we knew Isaac to be a misogynistic bully, I was half-expecting him to denounce Eden at the last minute. I’m glad the show didn’t go that route. It would have taken away whatever dignity and honor remained for Eden, and it amplified the message that the internalization of Gilead principles led them both to…

(posted in error)

Odette is to “The Handmaid’s Tale” what T-Dawg was to “The Walking Dead.” Nobody much noticed he was there, but after he was gone, other characters talked about how important and influential he had been.

I had expected them to force Eden to watch Isaac’s execution, then send her to the handmaid academy. The wife that was poisoned by Emily in the Colonies was also guilty of infidelity, if I recall correctly, so execution isn’t the only applicable penalty (but she had already been labeled infertile, as her husband had a…

Agreed, re Cmdr. Lawrence. Emily is an intelligent woman but (as portrayed) she couldn’t get a ‘read’ on what his intentions are. We know that he has a personal interest in her, but we don’t know if that’s in the sense of righting a wrong he created, or continuing some twisted sociology experiment on a test subject.

A couple of posters have written that Serena had already told Fred that Nick is the father. I know she told Fred that he is not the father, but I don’t recall her ever ID’ing Nick. Did I miss something? Before this episode, did Serena ever tell Fred straight-out that Nick is the father of June’s baby? If so, in which…

At least June now knows the name of the Commander with whom Hannah was placed (though I don’t recall what that name was). Even if Fred hadn’t shouted out his name, June was searching around his study and almost certainly will have seen it there. So, even if that family never returns to the rural mansion, June has more…

I also found this episode too much spinning-of-wheels (no pun intended). There were some positives: Moss’s expected excellent performance, the Waterford meltdown that June got to hear, and - what I found most important - she denied Serena her fraudulent ‘labor’ and celebration. (Missing that first trimester can’t…

Maybe you and I own different garage doors. Mine lifts from either the inside or the outside. She had tried to lift it from the inside (no key needed) with no luck, then she realized that it was frozen in place, so she went outside to chop at the ice. I don’t think she tried to lift it from the outside; she could see…

I thought that the issue was that the garage door had frozen in its track (literally; that’s why she was hacking away at the ice). It’s happened to me. She pulled the manual release to make it possible to open a garage door without power, and (at least for my garage door) the ‘lock’ from the inside is just a manual…

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

Inducing labor via intercourse is indeed a fairly commonly known old wives’ tale. I wasn’t a big fan of “Friends” and I was familiar with it. It also wasn’t only Fred’s idea. Serena was clearly on the same page when she advocated for “natural means” to induce labor. Did Fred want to rape June? Yes. Did they both want…