Anna Green
The following recap contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale S6E8, “Exodus” (written by Yahlin Chang and directed by Daina Reid)
I love the jazzy music we have to open our eighth episode of the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale, and this goes on to be my favourite episode of the season so far. Something I have missed a lot this series is June’s narration. I felt it was crucial to the way the story was told. I was pleased to see that this episode brings some of that back. To open the episode, we hear from June:
“They put us in red, the colour of blood, to mark us. They forgot it was also the colour of rage.”
Style aside, I found the most interesting part of this episode to be Serena. There was so much writing on the wall from the moment she agreed to re-marry. Wharton seemed to her like a ‘better’ man, but he speaks of moving to Boston, away from New Bethlehem, where Serena has been enjoying some of her freedoms and her fame, he speaks about more children, and, of course, he is a Commander.
After the wedding, which goes in itself remarkably smoothly, Serena and her new husband return home. They both seem happy as he carries her over the threshold, but this all comes crashing down at once: upon returning home, Serena is presented with her very own new handmaid. This sends her into internal chaos as she remembers how much she hated her jealousy at Fred’s ceremonies with June, how much she wants to believe New Bethlehem will be different, anger about his perceived lack of belief in her ability to conceive again, and ultimately as she realises how trapped she is. Wharton is a very traditional man, who seems to have lied to her in order to claim her as his wife. She sees this all in a flash, and despite who she is, I felt a brief surge of pity for what her life has become.
Of course, many will say this is exactly what she deserves (and they would be right), but to see this play out is heartbreaking. Serena has stitched herself up and will now pay the price. She rejects the handmaid in anger and fear, and confronts Wharton immediately. He does not back down, and he becomes all at once a threatening force to her, where once she saw him as a beacon of a better version of marriage. She is married once more, trapped, and has realised too late what she has allowed.
I find Serena one of the most interesting characters of the show, as her motives and hypocrisy are very clear, but her intentions and her emotions are much more conflicting, and often she herself seems confused by the way she feels and by the playing out of situations she sought to create. Perhaps it is simply the case that her foresight is not as good as she thinks it is. As I touched upon in last week’s discussion, I think that the women married to Commanders have a lot to answer for—after all, they are the women that went along with this plan from the beginning, many of them continuing to do so—and Serena seems to know now (much too late) how much power she gave to the wrong hands.
In her argument with Wharton, she tells him, “I thought you were a better man, but you’re just like the rest of them,” and I am surprised that she genuinely trusted him and believed that he would be different. This is a man she hardly knew until recently, and it seems as though she did not consider that he might have an ulterior motive, only believing that he was truly fascinated and enthralled by her and that she had him trapped in her charm. This illusion shatters for her in a way that I am sure will have devastating consequences. As they stand in the hallway, upset, he patronises her, telling her he “indulged” her ideas, and in this moment, Serena realises just how hard the men she gave power to have let her down. In saying this, he in confirming that she was manipulated and not just the victim of a misunderstanding. She thought she was building a utopia, that she was building a better state to live in… In this moment, she realises that men can never be trusted with the power she wanted them to have. This is her true moment of enlightenment and I wonder if this will be a turning point for good, and if Serena, although perhaps irredeemable, may become a true positive force. Wharton tells her, “I’m a good man and a good husband,” but she says, “you can’t be, you’re a Commander.”
I also want to talk about Nick, and what has happened to his character this season. The betrayal of Mayday cemented a path for him that I didn’t expect, but one that perhaps I should have. Nick, we know, has always been an important figure in Gilead. There are details we don’t know about his past, but it seems that, at least in the beginning, he was involved in its construction and supported the regime. I have wondered for a long time if it is his love for June that makes him act against Gilead, as opposed to a genuine will to defy them. I feel sure now that this is the case. What I don’t understand, however, is why those important in Gilead continue to trust him, knowing what they know about his past relationship to June. For a place that is hot on punishment, Nick always seems to get away with things remarkably lightly.
His treatment of Rita recently also displayed the actions of someone who is not entirely remorseful, and seemed more confused than defiant. I am not sure where we will leave Nick at the end of this story, but I am sure that it will be a very different Nick than the one we met in the beginning. I think this series has reminded us that Nick is, at the very least, complicit in the bad that Gilead does.
I am left wondering at the end of this episode if Nick’s lack of courage in earlier moments will ultimately get him killed.
The end of the episode calls nicely back to the start, with the music ‘My Body Is a Cage,’ and the ending quote from June: “the dress became a uniform and we became an army.” The imagery of the large group of handmaids running free is haunting, and I can’t wait to see what they have planned. I hope we get a strong finish in the final two installments. See you next week!
