Do I’ve to droop disbelief somewhat extra heartily than normal when, on this week’s The Handmaid’s Tale, June winds up in Serena’s rapid orbit on the precise second Mrs. Waterford goes into labor? Sure. Do I thoughts? Not one bit.
Episode 7 primarily is a two-hander for Elisabeth Moss and Yvonne Strahovski, and it touches on so many conversations we’ve been hoping June and Serena would sometime have. (P.S. They’re each wonderful in it. I do know, you’re so stunned.) In addition, the hour affords a peek on the women’ life collectively earlier than the occasions of Season 1; seems, issues had been loads totally different within the Waterford family again within the day.
Read on for the highlights of “No Man’s Land.
GUESS WHO’S IN LABOR? | After final week’s loopy cliffhanger, we choose up within the automotive, the place June is driving whereas Serena and the gun hand around in the backseat. June calls for to know the place they’re headed, however then Serena by accident fires the weapon and a bullet pierces the windshield not removed from June’s head. “F–k this!” June very understandably yells, placing the automobile in park and operating away.
But she returns after she realizes that Serena, who bought behind the wheel, has pushed off the street and is now stopped, moaning and apparently… “Are you in f–king labor?!” June cries in disbelief. “Of course you are.” While Serena pants her approach via a contraction, June assesses the scenario. Serena’s water has damaged. They don’t have any cellphone. The automotive is caught in a ditch. And Serena is vehemently refusing to go to a hospital if they’ll even get to 1, as a result of “they’ll find me.” So June grits her tooth, helps her in-distress former mistress to her toes an dstarts strolling her to a close-by barn. “Maybe they’ll have a manger,” she deadpans.
THE BAD OL’ DAYS | The construction is deserted and dilapidated, however not less than June is there with Serena — a luxurious June was not afforded when she went into labor, alone, with Nichole. She talks about how all she may take into consideration on the time was how if something went fallacious, they’d each die, and nobody would even know to search for them.
She’s clearly contemplating a number of paths of motion as she watches Serena scream and writhe for a minute, however then June decides and begins to educate the laboring mama. When she tries to test Serena’s cervix, nonetheless, Serena shoves her away (I imply, I get it — no one likes that) and accuses June of making an attempt to kill her and her child. And identical to that, June’s out! She tells Serena to do it alone, and leaves.
Outside, June works to dislodge the automotive from the rut it’s in. While she does, she remembers attending a start in Gilead not lengthy after she was posted on the Waterfords’ residence. In the flashback — aw, which options Alma and NuOfglen! — June and Serena trade eyerolls throughout the room over all of the “Breathe! Breathe! Breathe! Push! Push! Push!” nonsense. But any silliness shortly ends when Ofclarence, who’s having the newborn, begins bleeding profusely. The wives shortly exit as physician’s are available to carry out a C-section whereas the handmaids recite a prayer. The child is delivered alive. Ofclarence dies. June is horrified as she appears into the parlor, the place the wives are cooing over the toddler as if every part is completely regular and high-quality. She and Serena trade a loaded look stuffed with silent accord about how tousled the entire scenario is.
In the current, June makes use of a flooring mat and a close-by fencepost to get the automotive again on the street, then she climbs behind the wheel. But the sight of her fingers, that are lined in Serena’s blood, provides her pause. She drops a gloriously annoyed F-bomb, then decides to return to Serena.
MEET NOAH WATERFORD | “You came back,” Serena says dazedly as she sees her former handmaid reenter the birthing barn. I’ll say this for June: When she’s in, she’s IN. She will get proper down into it with Serena as in the event that they’ve been attending Lamaze lessons collectively for weeks. Eventually, they’re forehead-to-forehead, fingers on one another’s shoulders, and June catches Serena’s son when he’s lastly out on the earth. June cries with what I can solely assume are a mixture of feelings as she fingers the newborn over to his mom, who names him Noah.
“Was it worth it?” June asks, trying to harsh the thrill just a few moments later. But that oxytocin is flowing full and free via Serena’s system, and he or she dreamily responds, “Right now I think it was.” And then, as a result of it’s the messy aftermath of a start, and on the messy aftermath of a start you inform the reality, Serena flat-out asks: “June, why didn’t you kill me?” She’s referring to the protest on the Gilead Information Center, once they bumped into one another. “Why Fred, and not me?” June begins crying as she admits, “I didn’t want to,” then she chuckles on the absurdity of what she’s simply mentioned.
Then Serena wonders whether or not Noah will develop as much as be like Fred. June hardens a bit right here, saying it depends upon how he’s raised “and on what you tell him is his to take.” Serena additionally loses a bunch of goodwill factors when she says that the Wheelers are “controlling me… It’s like I’m their handmaid. It’s like I’m YOU.”
June swallows that and as an alternative chooses to stay to info: They don’t have any meals or water, Serena has a fever, and it’s getting chilly. That fever clearly is already making Mrs. Waterford crazy: She means that June take Noah “like what you did with Nichole, with your daughter” and depart her behind. She begins rambling about how June is an angel — albeit perhaps an avenging one — despatched from God, after which she begins to weep as she talks about how perhaps it’s God’s will that Serena carried and delivered Noah, and that’s the one function she’ll play in his life.
Again, we see June tempted MAYBE to take the kiddo and run, however when Serena retains babbling about being a “vessel,” she snaps again to actuality. June angrily remembers how handmaids had been thought of vessels and nothing extra in Gilead. “We mattered. We were, we are people. We have lives,” she says roughly. “And that’s why I’m going to save yours, Serena. Because this isn’t Gilead, and I am not you.” Serena cries that she doesn’t should be saved. “It’s not for you,” June says. “It’s for him… You are his mother, and he belongs with you. THAT is God’s will.” She makes Serena have a look at her; each of their eyes are crammed with tears. “Do you understand me?”
‘JUSTICE’ | June finally will get Serena and Noah to a hospital, the place the newborn is taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and a really nervous Serena is simply barely calmed when June guarantees to stay round. After making a fast name to Moira, June returns to Serena’s bedside to reassure the brand new mother that every part can be high-quality. In maybe one among her most human moments in your entire collection, Serena genuinely thanks June, they usually clasp fingers as June says, “You’re welcome.”
I hate to interrupt all of this therapeutic and such, however I additionally kinda don’t as a result of guess who simply arrived within the hospital’s ready room? KARMA! (Oh, and Tuello and Luke.) First off: Luke is OK! Phew! Second: Stuff is about to go DOWN. Very shortly, we study that Tuello has the USB full of knowledge they’d gone into No Man’s Land to get. And there are Canadian immigration officers there who swiftly chain Serena to her hospital mattress and announce that she crossed the border illegally, so she’s being taken to a detention middle. “What about my baby?” she wonders, panicked, and is instructed that the middle has no toddler care amenities.
Serena screams and cries “Please don’t let them take my baby!,” powerless to cease what’s occurring. In the hallway, Luke whispers “Justice” in a really glad voice, and June appears shellshocked as she realizes that her husband put all of this in movement.
Now it’s your flip. What did you consider the episode? Sound off within the feedback!
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