“a system that is allegedly supposed to run on the idea of one person = one vote”

That is not true. The system was never supposed to be only that. That leads to tyranny of the majority, and the Founders very carefully designed systems to prevent that. The system is working as intended. If a representative republic is…

“But why wouldn’t he just have Nick taken away or executed, as I’m sure he would have the authority?” Is that not what we just saw happen?

Nick’s total lack of interest in Eden is indeed notable for its weirdness. They cast a bit of a looker in Sydney Sweeney for that to be entirely plausible, although she does a very good job seeming underage-y on the show. But when Nick declined to even comfort Eden, whose tears were genuinely affecting to see and…

I’m supposed to believe Fred and his wife had the wherewithal to be a major part of taking over the USA, but that they are creatures of vindictive impulse at home. Serena and Offred sniping at one another is middle-school-level behavior. Seems more like the writers are bending over backwards to change this into That…

So what, someone carried all those host corpses to the water where they are found later? Or if they are fixed so easily, why milk a dramatic scene out of one shooting itself?

There’s really nothing interesting or dramatic about watching

“She adds that she “let him sexually assault me. Regularly. I was expected to be ready for him when he came home from work.”

By just deciding “this is a show about getting raped” they rendered this series so lacking in subtlety and took away so many ways it could have developed. In the book, Offred explicitly points out the Handmaid ritual is not rape, and of course in the show you could have ended up thinking about some genuinely…

“Janine was raped by Mr. Putnam, and Mrs. Putnam was a literal “hold her down” accomplice to it.”

Janine was in a relationship with the guy and didn’t need to be held down. She thought he loved her and they were going to run away and be together.

^ The divorce leading to it would have been on record, and was retroactively nullified by the new government in the book. Though it is not realistic that they could catch all such “wonton women” that way, it is not so implausible the former wife would have testified against her at some point; however, I got the…

They made the Commander into a phony who doesn’t believe in any of the actions he’s taken and doesn’t even know the Bible very well. I don’t think this is very similar to the version of him in the book, who seemed reasonably convinced that the society needed to become what it had, warts and all—but still sought…

The family will be reunited in some form after the Cold War has ended. That thought gave me a little comfort during the ending of this series, one of the most searing depictions of the human cost of Communism to ever be created. Sometimes it was even hard to watch, but I will miss it anyway.

“Or if the show was just better structured narratively, so that so much of it didn’t just seem like people (or hosts) bopping about and running into each other over and over until it’s finally time for something to actually happen.”

The “bopping about” is to enable grotesque violence and uses of the word “fuck.” All…

I suspected they’d run out of gas after adapting book material, even loosely, but wow—a mere half a season after she gets in the van, Handmaids are now unsupervised by Guardians and acting as suicide commandos. SUICIDE COMMANDOS! Perhaps, by the end of the season, the kick-ass Riot Grrl Handmaid Squad will master…

“White supremacists suddenly think it’s OK to protest in public”

All Americans have the right to protest in public. Civil rights aren’t just for people you think are cool, you know.

I’m not sure this series isn’t just high-budget violence porn connected by a thin “mystery” thread (not really a mystery—just an excuse for violence, but explained *slowly*).

I really wish this could have been done without shitting on Talbot. He was made into a cartoonish mustache-twirler at ludicrous speed—or he was, at *best*, Hydra’s last victim. I rather wish Daisy’s speech had gotten through to him; I wondered if maybe she’d get through to him, but their previous super-powered shots…

I am hoping it was just a clue that she was putting it aside for Fitz, and NOT some kind of suggestion that Deke and all the other stuff had never existed...or whatever.

Why did they show the empty room with just the one tool if not trying to imply he had faded away? I hate that idea and it makes little sense, but then what was that shot? If they find the frozen Fitz will Deke reappear?! I mean, come on.

Man, I miss Roy Rogers’s limited-time Nacho Cheese Chicken Sandwich with peppers and onions.