Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching The Handmaid’s Tale on Channel 4 in the UK. Please do not add spoilers from later episodes.
I know some of you found the idealised scenes of domestic contentment a bit twee last week. Not me; I’m made of marshmallows and kitten-receptors. But for those who did, I hope you enjoyed this week’s antidote: the debauched scenes set in Jezebels, the members club for sexually incontinent commanders and the special stash of contraband prostitutes they’re keeping from whoever it is that really runs this regime.
Everybody rebels, even those who appear to be in charge, because the set of rules held up by the republic are impossible to live by.
Back in Nick’s bedroom Offred tells us, flatly, “I’m here because it feels good and because I don’t want to be alone”. We guessed that, didn’t we? This is just the first in a run of dialogue ball-drops during an episode where characters spell out their motives, breaking with the subtlety of the rest of the series. Perhaps the change of writer heralds a shift in tone. So far, I don’t like it.
Nick and June’s relationship has warmth and genuine affection now, making Offred’s assignations with the Commander all the more chilling. Joseph Fiennes notches his performance up to creep-factor 10 as Fred paws his handmaid in the slutty gold dress he’s picked out for her.
And as with recent episodes, we glimpse another backstory here, this time Nick’s. He’s the son of a drunk, broke father who has to keep the money coming in. I suppose that’s better than no backstory.
The older man from the labour exchange who takes him for coffee tells him about a “group” (the Sons of Jacob) who want to “clean up” the world and make it a better place. Nick is effectively fished when he’s down on his luck – a common cult recruitment technique. But how much is he colluding with them, and how much is he dependent on them? This week, he seems to suggest he is kept in his place by fear of ending up on the wall. He’s a guardian, but perhaps not a willing one.
While Mrs Waterford tends to her mother, the Commander sees his chance for some alone time with his handmaid. The scene where he shaves Offred’s legs has me almost physically hugging myself with discomfort. “He’s good at this. He’s done it before,” thinks Offred. I shudder.
“You look stunning,” he says as she awkwardly walks down the stairs in the tony gold dress and he reaches for her hair, letting it down in a “Why Miss Offred, you’re gorgeous” moment of cliche that is equally cringe-worthy.
Nick’s flashbacks also include a back-of-car scene between Fred and other unnamed Commanders as they casually come up with the mechanics and name for the Ceremony. This also felt madly clunky and nowhere near as seamless as exposition in previous episodes.
Back at Jezebels, to the sound of White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane, Offred descends into the rabbit-hole with Fred, finding at the bottom a bordello with half-naked girls draped over suited men on velvet banquettes. It is louche but smart, a gentlemen’s club with heavy tumblers of whisky and furtive-looking old buffers following half-dressed women to who knows where.
Offred looks entirely uncomfortable, but when in Rome … she orders a Manhattan. If she has to endure this, it should be drunk and on good liquor.
Her reunion with Moira is joyful and then disappointing, as she finds her former cheerleader – the one she refers to when she feels like giving up (what would Moira do?) – has become resigned to her fate.
“Fix your face, girl. You’re a mess,” Moira tells her like a woman who knows when the game is up. June is visibly crestfallen.
Poor Nick is forced to watch as his – what are we calling June? His girlfriend? – is marched off to the elevator with Fred, knowing there are only hotel rooms above. He even gently rejects the advances of the Martha in the kitchen who, presumably, used to pay for the drugs he brings her with a bit of light sexual relief behind the butcher’s block. Nick’s got it bad.
Having endured Fred’s creepy seduction and her disappointment at Moira’s defeat, Offred is taken back to the Waterford home by a despondent Nick. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you home before you turn into a pumpkin,” says Fred as he shepherds her back to the car. He finds himself so charming and amusing doesn’t he?
On the next sunlit morning, Serena returns from her mother’s, all piety and beatific smiles, little knowing the Sodom and Gomorrah that Nick, Offred and Fred have returned from. Or maybe she does. She turns a blind eye to so much, why not that?
Nick and June’s showdown in the kitchen is charged with tension, and he breaks it with a blunted statement about not doing this any more. One minute he’s kissing her where anyone might see, the next he’s throwing a tantrum because she’s obeyed their Commander and betrayed him. Nick is one confused young man.
The present of Serena’s childhood music box is the tin lid on it for me this week. “The perfect gift,” says Offred bitterly to herself. “A girl trapped in a box.”
“I will not be that girl in the box,” she says defiantly. Clunk bang wallop. This is not the adaptation I know and love, and this has been my least favourite episode of the series. I hope it regains its original tone next week.
Blessed be the fruit. May the Lord open.
Under his eye
• When Fred suggests to Offred that they do “something different” she replies with a hopeful but not entirely unsarcastic “Monopoly?” She wishes.
• “Tonight, you aren’t you,” Fred tells Offred as they reach the Boston border with an irony that seems to completely escape him.
• When we see the fate of the previous Offred, the ambulance comes to take her watched by Serena and Fred. She hisses in his ear, “What did you think was going to happen?” But she went along with this lunacy! She can’t blame it all on the men.
• Our Offred’s boldness is increasing as she scrapes You Are Not Alone into the woodwork under the Latin phrase scratched by her predecessor.
• After last week’s revelation that June and Luke now know of each other’s continued existence, I’m surprised she doesn’t mention him once this week.
