The Handmaid's Tale Season 5 Episode 7 Review: No Man's Land

The Handmaid’s Tale is firing on all cylinders.

It’s all the time a notch above when it turns into extra singularly targeted, and The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 Episode 7 was superbly written and acted, with Elisabeth Moss and Yvonne Strahovski reminding us of how June and Serena are deeply intertwined.

This additionally displays on the ability of motherhood, which Gilead has each resurrected and torn asunder.

Keeping the hearth alive between June and Serena has been crucial to the collection, and Moss and Strahovski do a few of their greatest work sharing scenes.

“No Man’s Land” took the 2 girls on a full journey, and for the primary time, Serena started to grasp, if solely just a little, what she had helped perpetuate with Gilead’s madness in terms of motherhood.

Beginning with June’s exasperation that Serena was in labor, “Are you in fucking labor? Of course, you are,” and joking about Serena’s displeasure that she may need to present start in a barn, “Maybe it’ll have a manger,” set the proper tone and allowed June to mellow because the episode progressed.

Woman to lady, June would do something to assist one other give start. Motherhood is at June’s core. Everything she has accomplished as been to guard Hannah and attempt to rescue her.

Just like Serena, we have questioned why June did not kill her when she had the possibility.

It was an extremely sophisticated reply to an much more sophisticated query.

There’s undoubtedly no love between June and Serena, however there’s respect. Still, when egos flare, and issues get angsty, it is laborious to keep up your cool. When Serena lashed out at June, June’s first intuition was to depart her behind.

Instead, when her herculean efforts freed the automotive, as she began to depart, she appeared down at her fingers, coated in blood. June did not need extra blood on her fingers.

Serena: June, why did not you kill me?
June: I do not… you’ve got been the one waving the gun round.
Serena: Not immediately. At the data middle, the protest. You had a gun.
June: Yeah.
Serena: Why did not you kill me? Why Fred and never me?
June: I did not wish to. [She smiles]
Serena: I imagined this second so many instances. I all the time imagined that he could be right here, Fred. He seems like him.
June: They say that they all the time appear to be their dads at first. It’s evolutionary in order that the dads do not kill them, you understand?
Serena: Evolution? Do you suppose he is gonna be like him?
June: Depends.
Serena: On what?
June: On who raises him. And what sort of particular person they need him to develop into. And what you educate him. And on what you inform him is his to take.
Serena: I would like him to have every thing.
June: We all need that for them, Serena.

Throughout the episode, June remembers the primary time she accompanied Serena and her fellow handmaids to a reside start. She and Serena linked a couple of instances, first amused over Aunt Lydia’s theatrics after which painfully after the demise of OfClarence, who died throughout childbirth.

Those weren’t one-off encounters, which is why viewers stay so totally invested of their relationship. Their commonality as girls in a patriarchal society, even when Serena had a hand in creating it, binds them, and we will not perceive why Serena has been unable to acknowledge the hurt she’s accomplished.

What Serena has realized is that she’s damned fortunate to have June Osborne in her life. June’s preliminary reply about why she did not kill Serena was easy. She did not wish to.

But as soon as Serena in contrast June to an angel despatched from heaven to take care of her and her baby, June was extra direct.

Serena: June, I feel God despatched you to me immediately.
June: You got here after me.
Serena: What if he guided my hand to avoid wasting you so to save my child like an angel?
June: Bullshit.
Serena: There are avenging angels that rain down sulfur and hearth from the lord. Rejoice with him, oh heavens, for he’ll avenge the blood of his kids and take righteous vengeance on his adversaries. There are nonetheless angels. Maybe that is what you might be for me.
June: [shakes her head] Is that what you consider me?
Serena: And when she might now not conceal him, she constructed for him an arc of bullrushes and positioned this baby therein. Maybe I’m the arc, June. Maybe I’m the vessel. I carried my child and delivered him, and I held him. Maybe that is all that was meant for me on this life. Maybe it is God’s will. [June takes Noah]
June: God’s will. A vessel. That’s what you thought I used to be. We have been. Who we have been, the place we got here from, what we wished, none of that mattered to you, to any of you.
Serena: I’m so sorry.
June: I do not care that you just’re sorry. We mattered. We have been, we’re individuals. We have lives. And that is why I’m gonna save yours, Serena, as a result of this is not Gilead, and I’m not you.
Serena: I do not need to be saved.
June: It’s not for you. It’s for him. Look at him. Look at your child. You are the one particular person in the entire world that he is aware of. You are the one acquainted scent, you’re the solely voice he acknowledges, you like him, and also you wished him a lot. You’re his mom, and he belongs with you. That is God’s will. Do you perceive me?

It was laborious to not perceive June. In a matter of minutes, she offered an outline of Gilead’s failure and Serena’s half in it.

There isn’t any larger bond than that between a mom and a baby, and when there isn’t a purpose for them to separate, to pressure the problem is a torture in contrast to some other for each the mom and the kid.

Serena is getting her first style of that bond, and June must know that if she’s requested once more, Serena will not see the handmaid system because the world’s salvation.

Pulling kids from a mom perceived as having much less to supply than an prosperous, influential household is not the way in which to go. For the primary time, Serena is a mom, and he or she has lower than her friends, the very individuals she as soon as ensured would have their decide of others’ kids.

By the time they left the barn, it appeared as if that they had come to an understanding that will be useful for June’s struggle and for the handmaids left in Gilead.

And then Luke arrived on the hospital, immigration providers in tow.

At final, she is aware of what it appears like. Justice.

Luke [whispers]

To have come thus far and thru a lot, solely to see it scuttled damage each girls.

June checked out Luke as if he had horns rising out of his head. She merely couldn’t perceive how he may very well be so merciless, however he believed he was getting payback for what Serena and Fred rained down on June.

It’s laborious for Luke as a result of he is not a mom, and he hasn’t gone to the ends of the earth for his daughter, or his spouse, for that matter. There is part of June that also questions how he might have stayed behind and hoped diplomacy would save them.

This story is blowing up because it focuses extra sharply on motherhood and what has gone incorrect with Gilead.

What occurred will certainly have an effect on Serena’s future. She’s bought no allegiance to any nation, and that may work in opposition to her. The synopsis for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 Episode 8 finds Serena determined to search out allies.

That means that June will not be round to lend one other hand.

I count on June to return to her full-time process of reuniting with Hannah. That’s been her driving pressure, and seeing how Luke acted, June will notice that no person apart from her can flip the tides and get Hannah out of Gilead like she will.

Luke could not course of that June was there with Serena and helped her get by way of childbirth. He does not see how she will put apart what Serena did to her to assist in any respect.

But that is the distinction between a father and a mom. A mom won’t ever wish to see one other baby or their mom endure, and it would not shock me if this drives one other wedge between June and Luke.

Frankly, I’m form of perplexed. This was such a strong episode of tv, and the dialogue speaks for itself.

What did you suppose? Let me know within the feedback beneath.