NO BALM IN GILEAD
‘Handmaid’s Tale’ has more horrors to reveal
How the world has changed in the year since “The Handmaid's Tale” premiered. Harvey Weinstein's sins were revealed and he, along with half of Hollywood it seems, was toppled. The #MeToo movement arose, empowering women across the country to talk about their experiences and to fight for workplaces free from harassment.
The first season, an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel and featuring a nightmarish future in which women are enslaved to bear children, seemed to be the series for the moment and delivered so much more than pop entertainment.
It cleaned up just about every major awards show, and became the first streaming service show to win the Emmy for best drama, along with awards for best actress Elisabeth Moss, supporting actress Ann Dowd and guest actress Alexis Bledel.
But now moving past Atwood's material, is there anything left for “The Handmaid's Tale” to tell?
Hell yes.
In its sophomore season, the series creeps deeper and serves up countless harrowing, haunting moments.
“The Handmaid's Tale” is set (though not filmed) in Boston, and you'll never be able to forget it.
The image of Fenway Park, decrepit, overrun with weeds, turned into a killing field, is the stuff of nightmares. At Logan Airport, a married lesbian couple are ripped apart. At an unnamed Boston university, a “gender traitor” — a gay man — is hanged. Those who attained any form of higher education are considered criminals.
“Handmaid's Tale” takes one of the most overused devices in television — the
flashback — to not only flesh out its players in startling, moving vignettes, but to fill in the shadows of this dark world, to demonstrate how A Very Bad Thing — an attack on the nation's capital — led to several, smaller horrible things, a gradual erosion of civil liberties under the pretext of protecting the greater good.
“We get so comfortable with laws. It doesn't even take that long,” one handmaid says.
June/Offred (Moss) is pregnant and determined to save herself, her unborn child and the daughter, Hannah, stolen from her. Her battle to escape the repressive regime of Gilead faces tremendous obstacles and setbacks. Moss continues to be one of the most expressive actresses in the medium, conveying so much with a minimum of dialogue (and the occasional snarky voiceover).
Aunt Lydia (a terrifying Dowd) has never seemed more sadistic. Just when you think Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) might harbor a working heart, she reminds you how much of a monster she really is.
Emily/Ofglen (Bledel, now a series regular and doing the best work of her career) vies for survival in the hardscrabble colonies, tries to take care of those around her but still finds a way to mete out some bit of vengeance.
In Canada — which has remained a free land — Moira (Samira Wiley) struggles with traumas she suffered as a handmaid and wonders about those she left behind.
The Resistance is alive and strikes in new, terrifying ways. But will any of it make a difference?
“The Handmaid's Tale” has so much more to say.