Spoilers The Handmaid's Tale (TV series)

[Skipper]

It's a quite delightful tale
How Hulu and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Revived 2 Careers

On Wednesday, one of the most anticipated television shows of the year, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” had its premiere on the streaming service Hulu. Reviews for the series have been rapturous, and it could provide Hulu with an elusive signature hit.

But none of this would have been possible without Danny and Fran.

Until recently, the production company run by Daniel Wilson, 87, and his business partner, Fran Sears, 70, had more or less been dormant. Work had dried up, and Hollywood had stopped getting in touch many years ago.

Whenever the phone rang, they assumed that people were “trying to find out if we were, in fact, still alive,” Ms. Sears said in a recent interview, laughing.

But Mr. Wilson had something special stowed away: He controlled a big chunk of the TV and movie rights to the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which he had made into an otherwise forgettable 1990 feature. If Hulu wanted to bring the story to television, it would have to deal with Daniel Wilson Productions.

So through a twist of fate, prescient deal-making and an intensely competitive television landscape — where studios seem to be willing to turn over any stone to find a hit — Danny and Fran are back in business.

I chucked at this bit

They marveled at just how much the business had changed. Television executives nowadays? “Much less combative,” Mr. Wilson said. And they have been transformed from cigar-chomping titans to, as Ms. Sears put it, “young hipster types.”

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Well...those first three episodes were depressing as fuck.

I thought Children of Men was cold, dark and brutal, but it's got nothing on The Handmaid's Tale, and that was just the first episode. I've never read the book (but I've been meaning to for years), but I feel like I've stepped into a world that's both sinister and possible. Many of the pieces are on the board right now and a cataclysm is all that is needed to happen for it to come together.

In the second episode, I felt like vomiting. The birthing ceremony, while mundane on the surface, is an emotional travesty. The mistress pretends to give birth directly behind the actual mother, Janine, and then immediately climbs into bed and to receive the child as if she actually gave birth. Poor Janine doesn't even get to hold her own baby immediately after birth. And of course they keep her around for breastfeeding (after all formula milk isn't natural!) but the mistress can't wait to get rid of her. At least Janine gave the baby a secret name, Charlotte, as I highly suspected she would before incidentally telling June.

The whole cast is simply fantastic, especially Elisabeth Moss, Ann Dowd, Alexis Bledel, and Samira Wiley. I'm sorry Moira is supposedly dead in the present and Wiley is regulated to just the flashbacks, but who knows, Janine is a bit crazy, so she could be lying and we'll see more of her.

 

[ALF]

"A world that's both sinister and possible", you say? This sounds excellent. I positively adore alternate history stories and this one sounds like it's been done right. And I'm an E-Moss fan to boot.

 

[Timewalker]

Well...those first three episodes were depressing as fuck.

I thought Children of Men was cold, dark and brutal, but it's got nothing on The Handmaid's Tale, and that was just the first episode. I've never read the book (but I've been meaning to for years), but I feel like I've stepped into a world that's both sinister and possible. Many of the pieces are on the board right now and a cataclysm is all that is needed to happen for it to come together.

In the second episode, I felt like vomiting. The birthing ceremony, while mundane on the surface, is an emotional travesty. The mistress pretends to give birth directly behind the actual mother, Janine, and then immediately climbs into bed and to receive the child as if she actually gave birth. Poor Janine doesn't even get to hold her own baby immediately after birth. And of course they keep her around for breastfeeding (after all formula milk isn't natural!) but the mistress can't wait to get rid of her. At least Janine gave the baby a secret name, Charlotte, as I highly suspected she would before incidentally telling June.

The whole cast is simply fantastic, especially Elisabeth Moss, Ann Dowd, Alexis Bledel, and Samira Wiley. I'm sorry Moira is supposedly dead in the present and Wiley is regulated to just the flashbacks, but who knows, Janine is a bit crazy, so she could be lying and we'll see more of her.

It's supposed to be depressing.

The book is excellent, as long as you can get into the rhythm of Atwood's prose style. Some people don't care for it, but I found that it really helped get into Offred's mind, to know what she's really thinking.

There have been differing interpretations of Moira from novel to movie, and evidently in the TV series (I'm going to see about subscribing to Bravo, as it's being shown here on Sundays). In the novel, Moira and Offred (the novel never explicitly states Offred's real name, and in the movie she says her name is Kate) have been best friends for years, but in the movie they don't meet until they're put on the bus to be taken to the Red Center.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Oh, I know it's suppose to be depressing but that doesn't take away from my shock of how depressing it is and how it never lets up. The aforementioned birthing ceremony, the systematic, cold raping, cutting out Emily's clitoris, scooping out Janine's eye in order to gain her obedience, the treatment of women as uneducated incubators and regulated to status of pets. That's the intention but it's still depressing as fuck.

 

[Timewalker]

Okay, some of that wasn't in the novel...

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

As far as I can remember the novel this seems to be a pretty faithful adaptation so far. Since it's a TV show they tend to flesh a couple of things out though. This becomes particularly apparent in the flashback scenes which depict what happened before and during the power grab of the religious fundamentalists.

Deviations from the source material as far as I have noticed (correct me if I'm mistaken):
- Maybe it's also due to the different medium, but the regime seems to me as even more ruthless than in the novel. The aforementioned Alexis Bledel genital mutilation scene stand out here in particular.
- The regime's original rise to power is depicted as a direct result of the increasing and widespread infertility in women. The infertility crisis gave rise to a Christian fundamentalist movement which eventually took power and justified stripping women of their rights to ensure procreation.
- There is possibly some larger civil war still going on in the country, at least larger than the rebel activity alluded to in the novel. Chicago is described as being "in ruins" due to intense fighting, and a rump U.S. government located in Anchorage, Alaska is mentioned. Washington, D.C. however is definitely Gilead's capital. In essence, the fundamentalists' rise to power didn't take place without resistance or bloodshed.
- There's no racial segregation like in the novel, but the regime is persecuting and killing practicing Catholics.

The end result resembles could perhaps be described as Children of Men meets V for Vendetta meets The Man in the High Castle.

 

[Skipper]

From the Handmaids to the Marthas, How Each Handmaid’s Tale Costume Came Together

The most visually arresting part of The Handmaid’s Tale, Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel, are the uniforms the Handmaids wear: bright-red dresses capped with stark white bonnets. The Handmaid’s Tale does much of the world-building of this near-future dystopia through its costume design. In this new totalitarian theocracy known as Gilead, women are divided into different castes according to their usefulness to the state; the uniforms follow suit. The Handmaids wear long red dresses because they are, quite literally, the reproductive organs of the new country. The costume designer Ane Crabtree calls the color “lifeblood.”

 

[theenglish]

Well...those first three episodes were depressing as fuck.

I thought Children of Men was cold, dark and brutal, but it's got nothing on The Handmaid's Tale, and that was just the first episode. I've never read the book (but I've been meaning to for years), but I feel like I've stepped into a world that's both sinister and possible. Many of the pieces are on the board right now and a cataclysm is all that is needed to happen for it to come together.

In the second episode, I felt like vomiting. The birthing ceremony, while mundane on the surface, is an emotional travesty. The mistress pretends to give birth directly behind the actual mother, Janine, and then immediately climbs into bed and to receive the child as if she actually gave birth. Poor Janine doesn't even get to hold her own baby immediately after birth. And of course they keep her around for breastfeeding (after all formula milk isn't natural!) but the mistress can't wait to get rid of her. At least Janine gave the baby a secret name, Charlotte, as I highly suspected she would before incidentally telling June.

The whole cast is simply fantastic, especially Elisabeth Moss, Ann Dowd, Alexis Bledel, and Samira Wiley. I'm sorry Moira is supposedly dead in the present and Wiley is regulated to just the flashbacks, but who knows, Janine is a bit crazy, so she could be lying and we'll see more of her.

You've got it. It sounds like this series has the tone of the novel to be exactly right. It is a depressing depiction of a plausible world. Atwood is a "literary" writer and her prose is always very dense but rewarding if you put in the effort. It always takes me a long time to get through her novels and I read something light on the side.

The original story was a reaction to the Christian right wing Republicans that gained momentum under the Reagan years and many characters are direct correlations from that period. It is scary to think that we've come so much closer to the world of the Handmaid's Tale than progressed in a more humanitarian direction.

 

[Timewalker]

I remember a quote from Natasha Richardson, who played Offred in the movie: "I never want to wear red again."

Red is more than mere symbolism. It also makes the Handmaids really easy to spot if any of them try to escape.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'd like to know how "normal" the lives of the infertile women stayed?

Are they going to blame the infertility on cellphones?

This is a lot darker than The Lottery.

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[Timewalker]

Going by the novel, the Wives tend to lead pretty boring lives, with the unspoken custom being that they take turns getting attention from the others, and the ultimate status symbol for a Wife is if the Handmaid assigned to her household becomes pregnant and produces a baby - which is promptly taken away from the Handmaid and the Wife is declared the child's real mother.

Does the TV series address Econowives?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Not yet?

There is a taser wielding mother superior walking around, who looks past her child bearing days, but it seems less oppressive for a woman to oppress and break these modern women until they accept their lot as handmaidens.

 

[Marc]

It's been renewed for a second season.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...handmaids-tale-renewed-for-second-season.html

Have to admit I wouldn't have though there was enough material in the book to make a multi-season tv series out of it.

 

[Timewalker]

It's been renewed for a second season.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...handmaids-tale-renewed-for-second-season.html

Have to admit I wouldn't have though there was enough material in the book to make a multi-season tv series out of it.

There isn't. In one of the interviews, they said they plan to explore other facets of Gilead, such as the colonies, and beyond the end of the novel.

I was okay with the novel ending as it did - that we never knew Offred's real name (Atwood herself said that), and didn't know for sure beyond the speculations of the future scholars studying the tapes she left behind.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I'm not sure how much more of the ceremonial raping I can take. Sure, it didn't happen in this episode because Fred couldn't get aroused, but that's not the end of it by any measure. His continuous attempts of "want to play Scrabble after I rape you?" is not going to lessen the sheer awfulness of the situation.

My heart broke for June when Moira was forced to leave her behind on the subway platform. That being said, why didn't Moira go straight back to her after receiving information on the train? Why separate at all? Why didn't June tell the guard that she was being escorted by the Aunt several meters away from her?

Well played by the director during the doctor's appointment. I didn't recognize Kristian Bruun's voice (although I really should have) so I was complete surprised when he finally revealed his face. I know the point of the obscuring was to give the doctor a sinister anonymity, but it worked on another level by initially disguising Bruun from those who would know him.

Any hope for Serena Joy's soul is completely forsaken at this point considering mad and genuine belief that June's lack of pregnancy is something June can control and she needs to be taught to allow it. I suppose there could be a sense of brainwashing going on there, especially considering "sterile" is a forbidden word and they're taught to believe it's always the Handmad's fault, but I seriously doubt Serena Joy is brainwashed.

I'm glad June is finding strength not just in Moira's memory, but also the in the memory of the previous Offred. I was going to say Moira's "This is fucked" is the show's motto, but "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, bitches!" is much better.

 

[BillJ]

Watched the first three episodes so far. Depressing due to the sheer possibility of it all, though I find the show well done and highly entertaining.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

It's been renewed for a second season.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...handmaids-tale-renewed-for-second-season.html

Have to admit I wouldn't have though there was enough material in the book to make a multi-season tv series out of it.

Interesting. So far it seems to be a pretty faithful adaptation, so the first season will probably cover the events of the novel. After that they'll be entering unknown territory. So, will we see June starting to train as a resistance fighter in the mountains in Season 2 then? :P

 

[Skipper]

Interesting. So far it seems to be a pretty faithful adaptation, so the first season will probably cover the events of the novel. After that they'll be entering unknown territory. So, will we see June starting to train as a resistance fighter in the mountains in Season 2 then? :P

The Handmaid's Revenge
The Handmaid's Fury
The Handmaid: This time is war
The Handmaid: The Trump Strikes Back!

 

[Timewalker]

It's a good thing I've read the novel and seen the movie so many times, that spoilers here don't really matter that much, to me at least. Canadian viewers can't see these episodes until 4 days later.

Speaking of heartbreak, there are some excellent fanfics on fanfiction.net.

So, will we see June starting to train as a resistance fighter in the mountains in Season 2 then?

She was never in the mountains in the novel. That's from the movie.