Dystopian ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ is great, terrifying

Insane ideas aren’t scary in and of themselves — they’re just ideas, after all, theoretical notions.

It’s when people begin to support these ideas, to rally behind them, to enact them, that they become truly frightening.

And when they become normal, — “normalize” is surely one of the buzz words of the last four months —they turn absolutely terrifying.

“The Handmaid’s Tale,” a terrific 10part series streaming on Hulu, drives that point home. It’s based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 allegorical novel, currently one of the best-selling novels on Amazon.

Horrors that seem unbelievable emerge slowly, insistently and then suddenly and violently work their way into the social fabric, until the idea of stripping women of their rights and assigning them demeaning roles becomes the way of life.

Elisabeth Moss is fantastic as Offred — not her real name, but the one given to her; it means “of Fred,” the “commander” to whom she is assigned. She is a handmaid, a member of a class of women who, in a polluted and supposedly immoral world in which almost all women are barren, is that most rare thing: fertile. Previously, in a life that seems far away, she had a husband and a daughter. No longer. A religious-minded — make that OldTestament-minded — leadership has overthrown the government, killing the president and Congress, suspending the Constitution and establishing the nation of Gilead.

Offred’s voiceover and flashbacks relate the history. One day her bank card doesn’t work at the coffee shop. The woman who worked there has been replaced by a surprisingly unfriendly man.

Next she and all the women in the publishing office where she works are fired. It’s the law, her meek, male boss explains.