Anna Green
The following recap contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale S6E7, “Shattered” (written by Katherine Collins and directed by Daina Reid)
The Handmaid’s Tale S6E7 opens with the most sobering scene of the series so far. We are thrown into drama and destruction immediately as the women from Jezebels are rounded up and executed, in a manner so brutal that there are no words. It’s devastating to see these women’s lives ended this way, and Janine’s fear is palpable—she barely has a second to register what is happening, and has no idea where she will be taken.
Back with June, who admits to Luke that she told Nick of their plans and that this is how Mayday were rumbled, things are not going very well. Luke is, understandably, incredibly angry with her, and tells her that she has been pining for Nick but should have realised what he is. Ultimately, Luke tells June to stop being in love with a ‘fucking Nazi.’ As a viewer, I am fully on board with Luke’s frustration. Watching June swing between Luke and Nick for several seasons has become a little tedious for me. Whilst I entirely understand how she must feel, I struggle to see how her back and forth is both tolerated by the two men and by herself. I feel bad for Luke especially, who has waited for his wife to return and found that she never really can.
Nick is a little different. While I feel that he believes he loves June, he has been in a position of power for the entirely to their relationship, and has the opportunity to leave Gilead if he wishes. They went through a lot together, much of it traumatic, but Nick knew from the beginning that June was only with him out of necessity. Despite her developing feelings, there was never anything natural about their union, and in any other circumstance I am sure June would not have looked twice at him. We must remember that when June and Nick first met, June thought Luke was dead. Perhaps now, though, she is too bonded to Nick from their shared experiences and the child that she still has.
June had to survive, and she needed Nick in order to do that. But, despite everything between them, the choices he makes when he is pressed into a corner are not good enough for her. Since June found Luke again, she has realised that her marriage is built on something much more solid. There is no necessity, only love and patience and sacrifice and forgiveness. Luke gives her things that Nick never could, and loves her the way she loves him—unconditionally.
Despite the circumstances at play, I feel Luke’s betrayal so deeply. June did what she had to survive, but Luke waited for her and she came back with the child of another man, and not her Commander at that.
Later in the episode, we return to New Bethlehem and find Nick talking to Rita, admitting that June thinks he is a monster. He tells her they were never friends but were afraid of one another and would have crossed each other in a second to survive. Rita is visibly upset by this, and tells him, ”but not now,” and this attacks the part of him that is too cowardly, even now, to stand up for the things he truly believes in. He is in a challenging position, but does nothing to bond or confide with Rita in this moment, and she leaves bitterly disappointed. I believe Nick should leave.
We also spend some more time with Serena in this episode. She visits some other wives to discuss her upcoming wedding, and she is finally woken up as she hears how they speak and realises how she used to speak too. As they talk to her, they talk only in, “my husband says,” until Serena sharply interjects to ask one of them, “and what do you say?”
Before Gilead, Serena wrote and gave speeches and was very passionate about her own voice. While I think she is a fairly two-dimensional character, there are points where her obvious intelligence shines through and, just in glimmers, we see someone deeply frustrated by the system they fought to create.
These women are afraid of how fragile their perceived power is. The only control they have is over the regime’s ‘lesser’ women, and they are frightened to death of losing any power over them. I think these passive, conservative, obedient women are a much bigger part of the issue than we acknowledge.
I wonder what their final fate in Gilead will be.
