I reread the book recently and have absolutely no recollection of that! Was this definitively stated, or just something that Offred assumed? Can you cite the exact quote? I'm really having trouble remembering it!

I assume that girls like Hannah — June's daughter — were squirreled away somewhere until they start menstruating, so they probably have another generation's worth of Handmaidens ready to deploy. It's after that generation that they will start to reap the consequences of their short sightedness.

You know, I was thinking about that. Possibly by letting the bell resonate for the dash — like using a sustain pedal on the piano, or playing legato notes — and damping the sound with a finger for dots — like playing staccato notes.

100% co-sign this.

And let's not forget June's absolutely perfect answer to him about why she wanted to go to the bar: "I like the way people treat you there; you're so important." Even though he already thought he knew her real reason for wanting to return to Jezebel's — which wasn't far off the mark; she *did* want to meet with…

Huh, I thought she was a Martha, but that makes much more sense. Good catch!

I got the exact opposite from her "You stupid girl!" I got that she was absolutely bereft at the loss of one of her girls, deep sorrow that Janine was in such pain that it drove her to try and kill herself. That was a loving admonishment, of a sort. Ann Dowd is playing Lydia so much more sympathetically than she's…

He needs to learn Morse code for that bell!

You really think that after a stroke, you'd be absolutely, 100% certain that in your flailing around mid-stroke, you didn't knock your jacket off the chair, spilling the pocket's contents out?

"A con" or "it really happened" aren't the only options, and I reject the notion that Matt wouldn't have agreed to honor her wishes to keep her secret, if Nora had asked him. I also reject the notion that her dropping off the grid required her to have a "mental break." People do that sort of thing every day without…

DEFINITELY, that is one of the reasons 2% world is like Hell!! :-D

Yes, that's been established and I have already conceded.

Why are you so sure that Matt was convinced that she vanished? We didn't even *see* Matt after the scene of Nora going into the truck. We have absolutely no idea of what Matt thought between then and when he died, just as we have absolutely no *real* idea of what happened to Nora after that point. This is drama; there…

Everything Nacho did at the table was blocked by his own body and Hector's. The pill toss happened between his body and Hector's chair. The cook was behind him. So, no.

I think that when Hector has his stroke, in the confusion when the paramedics and ambulance arrive, Nacho will remove the pill bottle from the jacket. He can then switch the pills and return them at his leisure. At that point they don't even have to go back in the jacket; they could be left on the floor someplace,…

I don't really think that's what happened; I'm just saying that we don't have definitive proof that everyone who Nora couldn't find actually went through into 2% world. There are certainly other reasons why people fall off the face of the earth. Not finding them is not proof of where they went.

Really? We were *told* by the physicists that they went through to Departed-land. And we were told that Nora looked for them, and found no trace of any of them. That doesn't, imho, preclude the possibility that people changed their names and disappeared from their previous lives. People do that. And ftr, I am not…

Fair point!

Matt promised Nora that he would tell everyone at home whatever she wanted him to tell them. That leaves the door open, imho.

Hey I wasn't arguing whether or not they should have showed it (I did argue that, but in another thread); all I'm doing here is disputing the comment by banzaimike that they saved money on the production budget by not showing any of Departure-land.