Dex seems to be based off Ted Bundy as well. Bundy had worked in a suicide hotline, which is where crime writer Ann Rule met him.

Last episode also heavily implied the dad was sleeping with (or raping) Marin. She says she can’t be his friend anymore when leaving for Mosswood. I think that also explains his dismissiveness with heather. He doesn’t want her digging around about Marin.

They killed them together. They would lure the girls out under the pretence of being their friends.

The dad juat reminds of of Rothbart from the Sean Princess movie.

Jon Barinholtz, not Ike, plays Marcus in Superstore. 

I’m assumed it’s because she knew she was going into labour and they said hers would be high-risk because of the previous hemorrhaging so she was trying to draw attention to herself to get help.

I think the dating show footage is also a reference to the dating game murderer.

Handmaids are assigned to high powered people, so all the commanders etc. They are fertile but they also have to have committed some kind of transgression in the eye of Gilead. In June’s case she’s an adulteress.

The parcast podcast Cults does a great series of episodes on Waco, well worth a listen.

Movementarianism is also heavily based off the rajneeshies cult and the people’s temple. The scene with the leader driving past the people working in the field is what the rajneeshies leader did all the time, they helped him anass the largest collection of rolls royces in the world.