Coconuts & Treason 🥥☠️

If anyone wants to see O-T play a one-off role completely different from Luke, highly recommend the latest episode of Loot on Apple TV. There is a very cute scene and I was absolutely smitten for a second. I love seeing these incredible actors in all sorts of roles!

I’m doing a rewatch and I’m very curious on how he landed a high position within Gilead. Specifically because he doesn’t seem very smart and is very susceptible to manipulation. It is strikingly odd to me. The only thing I can think of is using Serena Joy’s unseen labor he propped himself up and now that women have no further role than in the home it’s all coming to a light. Can someone remind me if he was a nepo baby or otherwise?

I know it’s a long shot, but it would be perfect, and I would be here for it.

Edit: Okay it wasn’t Yvonne Strahovski, but as someone else mentioned, Scarlett Johansson was fucking perfect!

Does anyone else get so into shows that they start to have dreams about them? It finally happened with THT. It was terrifying, I can't believe that these events have happened throughout history, I would've died of terror. It's so crazy how strong and resilient humans are.

Also, obviously excited for season 6.

I will not have any more recalcitrance.

(Serena Joy is the most unserious wife there is.)

Even if it isn't canon. Even if it fucks up timeline/overall Testaments plots.

I'm post-op on some pretty serious tooth surgery, re-watching S5 on a double binge (I like to catch little details) and I'm caught on 'Motherland', all the optimism at the end of the episode genuinely just feels.. touching? Nice. Welcome. Deserved?

We live in such crappy fucking times; war, disease, political uncertainty, I would not, at this stage, be fussed if they gave us a more glossy ending. Fuck it.

PS: Hello coconutsandtreason! Off season is so harsh and quiet. Hope all is well. Blessed be.

Serena appears and presents herself as the smarter, better one for lack of a better word, but on my rewatch, I’m playing closer attention to them both. Naomi looks horrified as Eden and Nick get married in that group wedding while Serena is crying happy tears at child brides and pdf-filia. Naomi is WAY nicer to Janine even tho she bit her, she allowed her to hold and see Charlotte/Angela, got her man’s arm chopped off for that gross Putnam perv stuff (mostly his cheating but i still see it as some sort of revenge AND justice for Janine.) There’s waaay more— Naomi is just generally kinder and grateful to Janine for that kid and shows it on many occasions. I still think both Serena and Naomi are horrible people but i think NP is mostly just surviving— much like Janine, and SJ is vindictive and resentful, much like June. The difference is their obvious statuses as handmaids means they SHOULD feel angry etc. so that’s not a negative thing abt June. Serena could never be as kind as Naomi and i find that these 4 characters serve as each other’s foils, respectively. Idk just some thoughts.

Finally got to watching season 5 and I'm confused about something and just wondering if I just don't remember something from Season 4. In Season 5 episode 4: Why was Serena just let go from the detention centre? Wasn't she still charged with imprisonment of June? Why did the American government just let her go?

For that matter, why the heck was she allowed back to Gilead to bury Fred? Inmates don't just get to travel to other countries to bury loved ones regardless of whether they're convicted or still waiting trial. Heck, the vast vast majority don't even get a compassionate release day pass to see a loved one buried in the same city, never mind same country.

Sorry. I know I'm very late to the party on this and this has already likely been discussed- but reddit's search function is abysmal at the best of times never mind threads almost a year old!

Does anyone know if they have started writing again for season six now that the strike is over?

So I would love if we got to see more of Gilead and here is some points of view I think would be great to see:

A Martha who was a fairly high end hair stylist. The aunts usually rotate her for cuts and styles so we see more of the different homes but she is sent to DC for a ball and mayday of course has an interest.

Econo wife trying to make a birthday party work within whatever rations she gets. Trying to be friends even when you might get hung for a joke.

Guardian training camp and first few tours. How they brainwashed all those young kids given the tech of today.

Basically I've been thinking a lot about the world of Gilead waiting for S6. There is no way to really quantify this question I suppose but its really got me thinking...

It's a horrible situation to be in, all these poor women made to have babies for the wives... But I was thinking, what would be harder?

On one hand being a handmaid in a more traditional sense who conceives to a Commander (a rapists child).

Or

A situation like June's (which I'm sure happens a bit!) where the baby is conceived from two people who care about each other and are involved throughout the pregnancy in secret, a love child.

Both are unimaginable, just wanted a discussion I guess. To have to go through pregnancy and birth, to have your baby taken, to have a rapists child, to have a mother AND a father grieve thier baby.... It's complex for sure.

Sorry if it is a dumb question

So, could women in Gilead play solitaire? I suppose the letters (and maybe the numbers, too[?]) would have to be removed.

June: baby it's okay to be mad at me

.......................Moms IRL: listen here, you little sh--

The only THT actor nominated is Elizabeth Moss for Best Actress in a Drama Series. I love Lizzy but IMO Yvonne Strahovski was the better actress in season 5.

I assume Yvonne was submitted in the category of Best Supporting Actress which was a very crowded field.

Yvonne had so much screen time in season 5 that I wonder why she wasn't submitted in the Best Actress category.

I was thinking today about an alternative history of THT - one where Luke was either red-pilled in the waning days of America, or simply scared into compliance, and got caught up in simply surviving and existing within Gilead. Clearly he's not cut out for a leadership position, or being an Eye - but he might have become a minor functionary within the organization (my only evidence for him potentially being OK with this is June's observation in the book that he was OK with her money being his, and him taking over the managing of her life).

My real rumination is on June - I think she would ultimately have been fine being a Wife, so long as she was allowed to keep Hannah. If it had been her in the teal robes - she might have undermined structures from within (perhaps) but I don't see her being destroyed by the experience of living within Gilead the way it destroyed Mrs. Lawrence. I think she is an amoral character in a lot of ways. She's willing to do bad things to achieve what she believes are good ends - and isn't that the definition of Gilead's modus operandi? The same with Serena. If she and Fred had been relegated to a lowly position with Gilead, she would have bounced at the first opportunity.

All June really wanted was Hannah and some semblance of personal autonomy and selfhood - so long as she was allowed to keep her children she would have found a way to survive within Gilead.

First let me say I’m a huge fan of the show. I’d wait until midnight to watch it instead if sleeping for work lol.

But man the show god sloppy and it’s so disappointing.

The ending of season 2 was so so good and the fact that it lost all that momentum immediately in season 3 is such a bummer.

The first half of season 4 was really good imo but it lost me at the last half. Season 5 I really did not like. Maybe I need to do a binge and I’ll like it more but it felt like (bad) fan fiction. It’s not that I dislike June’s storyline but I wish they had built up the world more. I wouldn’t even mind if it was June starring in that world building.

I thought Serena’s redemption arc should’ve started when she let Nicole go. I really hated the decision in season 3 to reneg that. Not saying she should’ve been a saint or something but I just didn’t like that writing decision.

Season 1 and 2 had such a great way in story building but the latter half of the series felt so flimsy. Like the writers were burnt out or something

Anyways. Thank you for letting me rant 😂

Was anyone else disappointed with the way the testaments was written. I wish they would have given us more at the end with June and the girls.

So keening is an ancient Irish practice of singing a mournful song at a funeral. It was always done by a woman, often whose sole job was to do this, and she would compose a new song for each funeral, usually praising the dead's good deeds and expressing grief on behalf of all in attendance. It is sung without any accompaniment.

I was listening to some old recordings of keening and when it got to this one sung from the POV of a mother who has lost her baby which reminded me so much of the vocals played over Janine's birth as her baby was given over to Mrs. Putnam. I feel like we hear it in other scenes also, but I can't recall. I don't even think it's in the same key but it was similar enough in the quality of it that when I heard it my mind went right to Handmaids Tale.

Really, Adam Taylor never ceases to amaze me with the depth and symbolism in his music.

If Gilead happened in real life, according to the books, I would've been 11 years old. I'm a female, so I imagine that given my older age and my gender, lots of Commanders would pass me over for a younger child. Would I be given to an Eye, or maybe a doctor or lawyer's family that doesn't care about my gender and age? Would I be made a Wife, as I'm only a little bit younger than Esther? Or would I be salvaged? Because my family isn't super wealthy, but we have connections to some very liberal politicians. Not to mention, my mom is a very outspoken feminist. My mom and dad also had my siblings and I while they were unmarried. Would my mom be made a handmaid, even though she'd be in her late 30s when Gilead took over? Or maybe my family and I would be econopeople because despite all the things I mentioned about my family, we didn't do anything "bad" for Gilead?

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