For the first time in a long time – originally four full seasons – an episode of story of the maid I feel hopeful for the fate of June Osborne. In the season four finale, he and his ragtag group of rebels — all refugees from Gilead — band together to kill Fred Waterford, a man so persistently evil that no audience will remember him, not even in the slightest.
In the season five premiere, it seems certain that June is going to get away with a bloodthirsty crime, despite her best and most furious efforts to get the Canadians to prosecute her. June is such a depressing June sometimes.
“Everything Feels Better When Fred Dies”
The episode begins where season four left off, with June (Elizabeth Moss) after realizing his promise to kill Fred. He is in some kind of fugue where nothing and no one but his daughter Nicole is present. She can’t hear her nervous husband Luke (Oti Fagbenle) or frantic best friend Moira (Samira Wiley) yelling at her. She can’t even bring herself to wash Fred’s blood away – proof of how powerful she has become.
She rushes to meet Cabal, the killer of slaves, to eat dinner pancakes to hold court more like a mafia don than a rebel leader. She uses a very moderate amount of syrup. But the rest of the group is not as satisfied with Fred’s death as they are in June. They have their own hit list of enemies; There is even a lead where they can get an arsenal of guns. The rebellion seems inevitable and even worse, June’s lost Emily (Alexis Bledel), her most trusted lieutenant.
In the saddest story “Morning” we learn from Emily’s wife, Sylvia (Clée Duvall), that Emily has decided to return to Gilead. He didn’t even say goodbye to his son. “She went back to fight, I guess. To find Aunt Lydia, if she can.” June insists that she can fix it, but Sylvia learns that Emily is on a suicide mission. What she wants from June, it makes sense that she be left alone.
June cleans itself
Deeply disturbed by this news, June abruptly rinses in a freezing cold lake outside Toronto. A concerned passerby calls the police, who also call Luke to the station. June tells her that Emily felt “Gilead is pulling” and – in some of the most disturbing forebodings to date – June and Luke agree that they feel it too.
It is in this situation that June decides to turn herself into Mounties – partly because she can’t live with the danger that the police might one day pose for her and partly because she is terrified of it. That’s how much she likes killing Fred. Fortunately, Canadians don’t care or even have jurisdiction. Fred was also killed not in Canada, but in a disputed territory. June is fined $88 for putting an “unsafe biological sample” in the Canadian Post (more on this later). I think they are Canadian dollars hence £58. Very generous, even for Canucks.
Elizabeth Moss in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
(Hulu)
“Nolite Te Bastards Carborandorum”
It doesn’t take long for Serena (Yvonne Strahovsky) to point the finger at the killer, especially after June when Fred’s actual severed ring finger—Fred (Joseph Fiennes)—cuts off Serena’s own score for daring to read a book. Former slaves also marked the site of Fred’s death with that nonsense Latin phrase June, discovered inside the closet at Waterford House. “Nolite te bastards carborandorum”, which means “don’t let the bastards crush you”. Jun has got himself a calling card.
Serena broke down a lot about the loss, especially given that he was a terrible husband and even worse, a misogynist. I blame it on pregnancy hormones. Like Emily, she decides to try her luck at Gilead, away from June’s reach. It is perhaps not sad that when she gets there she is expected to be treated like a saint – a woman who never left her husband and was rewarded with a child for her faith.
Max Minghella in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
(Hulu)
on the homefront
We get a brief and unexpected glimpse into the home life of Nick (Max Minghella) with his new wife, who is sympathetic to Gilead’s raging rebellion, if not an activist himself. He clearly trusts her. She learns about June and perhaps even the details of June’s violent vengeance on Fred. This is the only glimpse we get of Gilead in the season opener. Neither Emily nor Lydia. There’s no assurance that June’s eldest daughter, Hannah, is okay.
With June fees back in Toronto, Moira and Luke settle into life with a known murderer in the house. They even gave him bath time with Nicole. And for what it’s worth, Mark (Sam Jagger) — the diplomat who’s handling Serena — gives June’s extra-judicial vendetta his seal of approval. He also gives June something she craves even more: the satisfaction of knowing that she was successful in getting Serena back to Gilead.
Episodes one and two of “The Handmaid’s Tale” are available on Hulu in the US. A UK airdate is yet to be confirmed