The Handmaids Tale Season 2 Episode 10 Review
This is the kind of Handmaid's Tale episode that's hard to evaluate — 1 that'south undeniably, dreadfully effective at conveying a special kind of horror, that's so agonizing and wrenching it can exist a real challenge to sentry in a single sitting. That "The Last Ceremony" also ended with some pretty shockingly straight parallels to an bodily, ongoing national crunch — that of the forced separation between parents and children — may have been why, for this recapper anyway, the episode was at times a little likewise much to take.
The episode begins, forebodingly, on the image of Emily as she prepares for her own household's "anniversary." It plays out in cruelly routine fashion, with June narrating Emily's experience of disassociation, right through to her commander's orgasm. Merely the scene so takes a turn: He passes out, and dies there on the spot. In one case the wife finally leaves the room, Emily gets upwardly to allow the human know what she idea of him: She kicks his unconscious body, hard. Subsequently, in the market, the handmaids are gossiping well-nigh what happened to the man, exactly; the rumors are comically off, but Emily tin can barely bother to listen. She's still so defeated. "What the f— is wrong with yous?" June asks her, later gushing that Moira made it to Canada. Emily barely musters a response. Merely the interaction is cut brusk: June begins feeling contractions, meaning it seems that the infant is on the fashion. "Praise be. It'south fourth dimension."
Nick tenderly walks her from the ambulance into the Waterford home, with Eden looking on suspiciously, noticing the intimacy between the two. June's left in the chief sleeping accommodation once more lone, and quips to herself, "At least this is the last fourth dimension I'll have to arrive that f—ing bed." She rubs her stomach lovingly, just as Aunt Lydia leads the commune's many handmaids in "single-file," to prepare for the birthing ritual. Indeed everyone, in this moment, is even more segmented than usual: Fred smoking cigars with men in his written report; the Marthas preparing nutrient and decorations; the wives crowding Serena Joy as she prepares; and of course the handmaids, left to support June. All of a sudden, withal, Lydia calls Serena into the bedroom — and informs her it's a false labor. June can only smirk upon the sight of Serena, satisfied by her thwarting: "I'm sorry, Mrs. Waterford."
If only it were actually a win for June. In reality, the false alarm bolsters Serena's burning desire to have the infant in her artillery and June out of her life. She all but demands that the baby be induced immediately, merely the medico informs her and Lydia that the baby isn't coming someday shortly — and that inducing would need to wait a week or two. Serena accepts the news, at least temporarily, with one added caveat: When June has the baby, she not merely must leave the house, but the unabridged district. June, still smile, says it's for the all-time. And she views information technology as potentially advantageous: She goes down to encounter Fred later in the nighttime, to beg him to help her move into the district where Hannah lives. Fred is outraged and banishes her. June gets one line in in that location that stings: "I shouldn't accept expected you to understand," she tells him on her way out. "You have no idea what it is similar to accept a kid of your ain flesh and blood. And you never will."
It's fascinating the way both Serena and Fred lash out nearly viciously when June asks for their decency, for a good deed — to exist treated as human. It's what always sets them off, particularly when it comes to requests near Hannah. Here, though, they accept it further than they ever have before — across monstrous, closer to evil. (Notation: When the screener of this episode was sent to the press, it included a content warning, probable because of the following scene.) The couple that's been barely communicating hatches a truly grotesque plan to rape June in order to accelerate the pregnancy. They call information technology "the about natural way." In reality, it requires Serena forcibly property June down every bit she squirms and screams, echoes of "no" and stop" turning overwhelming as Fred initiates. In a testify full of them, it'south ane of the most uncomfortable and brutal scenes to date. June's monologue from the episode's opener, about disassociating during the anniversary, creeps back in, and past the end of the scene, nosotros run into her most out of her body, expressionless on the bed lonely. The photographic camera stays on her for well-nigh a minute, in the agonizing stillness. (Recap continues on Page 2)
Elisabeth Moss hasn't had quite as much to do every bit she did in Handmaid's season 1, merely this episode is a bout-de-force for her. Her work through June's assault is sensitive but unyielding, and the way the voiceover matches her facial expressions is a sight to behold. And even that doesn't marking her finest work in "The Last Ceremony." That'd come up adjacent, when Fred offers her a "advantage" for what he just put her through: a take chances to see Hannah.
Fred orders Nick to drive her to a remote land estate, undetected, and when they go far they see Hannah with a Martha. June had been completely silent on the bulldoze over, grappling with the immediate trauma, simply she's brought dorsum to life past the moment she's been waiting for since the series began. Hannah, at first, is disarmed by June's amore; she remembers her clearly, just can't encompass what'southward going on exactly — why her mother is hither after all this fourth dimension. Slowly they discover their way back to one some other. Hannah asks almost what happened when they were forcibly separated — a scene from the pilot that, again, takes on a whole new resonance in our electric current political context — and and so asks whether she tried to notice her. June assures her girl how hard she fought; Hannah lets a little of her anger out, saying quietly, "Yous should accept tried harder." She says, "I take new parents at present," merely June handles their reunion beautifully: You lot feel the intense beloved between them healing, question by question, answer past respond. And by the time i of the guards says "fourth dimension to go," Hannah is left to relive the trauma of losing her female parent all once more.
I'grand not certain it's even a compliment to say that this very long scene is handled superbly — not i of Hannah's reactions, nor the way her interaction with her female parent evolves, rings a faux note. It is devastatingly human, and Moss is just stunningly raw. Just the elongated sequence of Hannah crying as she's taken away from her female parent, just for June to hug her one more time, is almost too much to have — for anyone who'south viewed the pictures, listened to the recordings, seen the numbers, it hits very close to home, even equally the situations are distinct. Of course, this episode was produced months ago; that kind of touch on is out of the production squad'south easily. But goodness is it difficult to sit through.
In any example: We're left with a different kind of horror to shut things out. Earlier in the episode, Nick had caught Eden cheating with Isaac, the guard who temporarily watched over the Waterford home last episode, via a buss, and absolutely bankrupt her heart when he couldn't bother to even feign business. (She's also aware, implicitly, of his feelings for June.) And as the episode closes, June and Nick alone in this secluded habitation, he'south taken abroad by the Eye — told past guards no i was supposed to be at this home, that he's trespassing. He's thrown into a truck and driven off. The episode's final shot is thus a close-upwards of June, quivering, alone in a snowstorm at a identify she apparently shouldn't be — on the verge of giving birth, reeling from an assault, and having just seen her daughter again, just to take her taken away again. There are lots of intriguing plot threads left dangling by the fourth dimension we cut to black. But all I could think was: Can this show get any darker?
June
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Source: https://ew.com/recap/the-handmaids-tale-season-2-epsiode-10/
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