‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Holds Nothing Back in Season Finale (TV REVIEW)

[rating=9.00] “The Resistance”

After a tumultuous season of horrors and a strangely mirrored reality, The Handmaid’s Tale came to an open ended close, leaving the audience with fear, awe, and a hunger for what’s next. Humanity, sanctuary, and hidden desire all played their roles, aptly bringing the final tally of what’s to come endlessly larger than what we already know.

After bringing her sacred package home from the butcher, Offred can’t help herself, and rips it open to find statements and notes from women just like her. It’s devastating, but hopeful. In the midst of her glee, she is quickly brought back down by Serena who has found out about her romp with the Commander in the brothel. Serena understandably lashes out, fearful of losing her husband, her handmaid, and her chance at having her own child to care for in this bleak world. She forces Offred to take a pregnancy test, revealing that she has successfully conceived.

In an effort to protect “her” child, Serena takes Offred out on an excursion where she reveals the whereabouts of Offred’s daughter. The heartbreaking reunion rings loudly throughout the episode. It is in this moment that Serena attempts to break her handmaid, unaware of her ability to bounce back from the gratuitous hardships that have dominated her existence.

As we anticipate the next season, there will be the obvious question of who the father is. However, it’s null and void considering the fact that parentage does not matter in this world; children are commodities. Just like livestock, the breeders are prized for their ability to bring spawn into the world. This does give Offred a certain sense of security as she’s carted away to an unknown punishment for not punishing a fellow handmaid. Nick will feel an obligation to protect her, assuming the child is his. On the other hand, Fred will ensure she makes it to term with the child before she would be punished, ensuring ample time for an escape or rescue.

As Offred faces her fate, driving a cliffhanger through to the next season, Moira has made it to Canada. The small amount of compassion she is shown upon arrival is overwhelming to her. Clothes, money, a place to stay, a telephone, and most importantly, a safe place to exist. Her disbelief is met with another surprise as she is met by Luke.

With the conclusion of the season, and the insane emulation of the Handmaid’s plight showing up consistently in pop-culture, it’s integral for us to pay attention. Yes, it’s easy to make the parallels between our world and theirs; this is why literature, television, and film thrive.  Creatives rely on a certain suspension of disbelief in order to make their stories work. If you see yourself and your life in the characters and stories, then they did their job right. But the bigger issue at hand is looking for ways to get away from this dystopia.

Rambling through a review and complaining about women’s rights is the easy road. We need to do more. By bringing the issue to the forefront of entertainment in a visceral depiction, The Handmaid’s Tale is the first step in amending what has never been corrected. Of course, this translates to a multitude of social injustice matters; the LGBTQ community and POC suffer from the atrocities laid down by clueless white men attempting to conquer their fears by bringing anyone different them onto an uneven playing field. Acknowledgement of the problem before it becomes rampant will get us everywhere. It’s easier to fix something before it breaks down completely.

As we wait for the second season and sit under the tyranny that seeks to oppress us everyday, we must remain active and vigilant. We must make our voices heard. We must learn from our mistakes, and seek out a brighter future. We must stop the truth in this fiction, or under his eye, “blessed” we will be.

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