Yeah, especially in the show she has something of a tragic-villain quality — she’s clearly smarter and more capable than her dumbfuck husband and yet she actively helped to destroy not only her own potential but that of all other women instead of actually doing something constructive with it, and the result is that…

Hey, at least you’ll be prepared if/when the idiots in charge start blowing shit up.

Based on their son’s apparent age, I thought that Omar and his wife (Heather?) were probably already married before Gilead. June mentions in voiceovers that she’d have ended up as an Econowife if her marriage weren’t considered adulterous, which implies that existing heterosexual marriages between non-divorced couples…

I thought that was more because of their marriage falling apart than because it’s not actually allowed — the lust thing is less of an issue than his resentment of Serena. (After all, he was fine dragging June to Jezebel’s!) 

Given June’s despondence during this episode and the end of the previous, I thought she saw miscarriage/death as the best possible outcome: she blames herself for everything that happened to the other Handmaids and to Omar and his family, and feels like she deserves to die, but also like it couldn’t be worse than what…

I think the wives probably just have a wider range of what they’re allowed to wear, as long as it’s in the right general color/style — Handmaids and Marthas (and, I guess, Aunts) have uniforms because they’re servants, while the wives are technically free women. IIRC the Econowives from a couple of weeks ago had minor…

Yeah, I think the show wanted us to think Hannah was going to be among the daughters being married off, and it worked because I felt my stomach drop out of my body as soon as we got that lingering closeup on Nick’s veiled bride, especially after Serena Joy’s “doesn’t he look handsome” comment to June, since we know…

I was born in 1979 so a lot of these shows predate either my existence or my interest in non-cartoon programming, so what startled me is how many of them I’ve heard of by way of references on the Simpsons and how short-lived those shows actually were. I mean, I did get that generally they were referenced in jokes…

They were saving it for sweeps!

That scene made my skin crawl right off of my body — and I realize that this is a result of my “not technically a medievalist but play one in the classroom” perspective but what really got me is the Julian of Norwich quote (“All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well”). Julian is such…

Is she supposed to look like Sex Robot Ivanka, or is that just a side effect of being a generic Fox News-type blonde?

If people want to slather their lips and assholes with tomato puree, who are we to judge?

The Missouri thing is true, though, I live here and we do interviews in towels all the time.

Mmmmm, Whitey Whackers...

That Othello was magnificent (and also one of the only ones I’ve seen that really gets Iago right). Also curiously on-topic: Lester is clearly taking some cues from Barack Obama in the early parts of the play, particularly in the senate scene.

The bakery is the only good part of Whole Foods!

I’m a public school teacher and I have a lot of colleagues who are unhappy that they’re not allowed to teach evangelical Christianity in class. They can take comfort in that, because I sure as hell don’t.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

Any advice for the seafood-allergic on negotiating dim sum?

You’d think so, but...