I remember thinking that they took on new "Aunt" names, like becoming a nun. But I'm pretty sure that was just in my imagination.

Aunts are classifications. But they get to have first names.

I think what fascinates me is that my read on Nick's advice was that he assumes (knows?) Emily has Resistance connections and thinks that Emily will give up Offred if Offred doesn't give her up first. So even in his altruistic (patronizing?) impulse to "protect" Offred, he is being clueless to the realities of the…

Oh man. That is … awful upon awful.

I'm in a discussion about it on yesterday's review right now. He wants the thrill of flirting without giving the women any agency to make the interaction be anything but coerced.

The jarring and loud music clip is a Hulu thing. It drives me crazy, but they do it for all shows.

Despite all the horror, I absolutely loved that both Offred and Emily proved Nick wrong in that neither one betrayed the resistance. The Eyes didn't even suspect Emily of being involved with it. They are so consumed with their imaginary fear of women's sexuality that they can't see actual risks in front of their…

His voice was incredibly familiar, but I couldn't place it.

The genital mutilation isn't in the book, so why it isn't used widely is not discussed. However, I would speculate that it is for the same reason that the commander wants to plays Scrabble with Offred and pretend that they are genuinely flirting. Because the men want to fool themselves into thinking that these women…

The danger of complacency is one of the elements of the book that has always hit me the hardest. And the show really has me missing Offred's mother.

It's a tough dilemma. On the one hand, yeah, that sounds like an incredibly powerful image. But in a show that is going to go on week after week after free week, not just last for two hours, you're going to move into strictly all-white territory very quickly. Unless you want to really, really expand the world and full…

I was a tad apprehensive going into this episode, because I'd seen comments indicating that this was where we started to get major departures from the book. But it was all so perfectly handled. It fit the world of Gilead as we understand it, but fleshed out its horrors beyond Offred's peripheral vision.

Oh boo fucking hoo for him. What a hardship to be totally in charge of everything and subjugating half the population and still feel ennui. Let me play the world's tiniest violin for that fuckface.

Lifetime pass for Repo Man.

I don't hate his other films so much as find them forgettable, but it is kind of amazing that the same person made the magnificent Amadeus, which is one of my favorites, too.

It's also just so revealing of how little he understands the very concept of agency or consent. He built this world where she doesn't get to have or give either and then wants to play act that they are in the before times, where she could chat or flirt or play a game with him of her own volition. But it isn't the…

No.

Well goodie for you. Do you want a cookie for being more prescient than a fictional character?

People don't generally want to become refugees and will often take a wait and see approach, hoping things will stabilize or improve, sometimes sadly until it is too late.

Even at the Red Center, Moira said it was all temporary and just to go along and get along until it was over and they could find Hannah. People will put up with an awful lot of shit out of disbelief that it is really, actually, permanently happening.