handmaids tale season 1

this episode opens up to ofglen, chained, muffled, in a red jumpsuit with guards dragging her down a corridor looking prison type place.

A voice over by offred is playing. She is saying Rita told her some stories about how the marthas have their own networks. black van, feet first, no mercy for members of the resistance. She is talking about ofglen. how she never even knew her name.

offred, excited to greet her friend/shopping partner ofglen but sadly to her dismay and disbelief, ofglen was replaced by a different handmaid taking her place.

She even acted like nothing has changed or even that there was an ofglen before her as they went on their walk. offred just looked at this woman, wondering what happened.

In a voiceover, she talked about how she never noticed what was happening to the world at first. That she was “asleep” before. Even when the terrorist destroyed congress and suspended the constitution, she and many others still didn’t wake up to what was happening.

we are now seeing a scene from the past,

Offred/June and Moira are taking a jog around the block; as they are jogging past a woman who looks at them in disgust. They take a break, stopping at a coffee shop. Moira exclaims June is trying to kill her, jokingly by all the exercise they’re doing to which June says it’s good for you.

Moira says red wine is good for her and June tells her that odette says if she gets any fatter she’s kicking her out. Moira doesn’t believe her and asks to get her a cappuccino.

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Roger, their boss, just told them that all the women are being “let go”. not fired, let go, he has no choice, and they only gave them 5 minutes to get all their stuff and leave. He sounded terrified.

forward to present time,

Offred comes back home to Rita with lunch, ready for her to eat. “a rose is a rose, except here”. Rita says Mrs Waterford picked it out for her as a sign of hopefulness of offred maybe being pregnant.

Mrs Waterford asks if offred would like to go visit the warrens, where baby angela is.

At the warrens they are holding baby angela, to which Mrs Waterford lets offred hold her. One wife asked if they thought that was a good idea, but Mrs Waterford retorts back, “offreds done it before”

Mrs Waterford asks what happened to Mrs warrens hand, and she says Janine had bitten her because she tried taking the baby. She said cannot wait until that “horrid girl” is out of her house when angela’s weaned.

Offred goes to see Janine. Janine asks her if she thinks her baby is beautiful, to which offred says yes, she is. offred asks her if she bit Mrs warren and Janine says “well she is a cunt”.

Janine got pissed because warren would keep grabbing angela before she was done eating. She also says since she had a wonderful baby she can have whatever she wants, like vanilla ice cream, and asks offred if she wants some.

Janine also says her commander is in love with her and wants to run away with her.

June goes to order the coffee and asks the cashier who is a man, “is Claire sick?” he replies: who? June replies the woman who usually works here, and he says extremely rude like: how should I know? Your cards declined, insufficient funds.

“that’s impossible I just deposited my paycheck yesterday, can you run it again?" June asks. The cashier gets ruder by the minute, stating, come back when you have some actual money.”

He responds with “fucking sluts! get the fuck out of here!:” June and Moira both respond in chuckling disbelief, “excuse me? Is this your first day or something?” Moira asks him his name but refuses to say as June says to Moira they should just leave to which Moira retorts that their coffee sucks.

Forward to June at work, trying to call her credit card company to figure out why she has no money even though she has said she has 3000 dollars in her account. She ends up canceling the call because she sees the guardsmen walking past her. She walks out and her work friend says that there boss, roger has called a meeting but neither knows who these guards are.

Offred arrives home seeing a black van in their yard. Nick tells offred to just answer them, whatever they ask you just tell them and cooperate. Offred, confused, asks him what is going to which nick ignores her question.

he says he couldn’t stop them.

flashback to the past,

Moira says she heard that women may not own property anymore and any accounts with an f froze so any money women have are sent to next of kin.

present time,

lydia shocks offred with a cattle prod as the eye commander tells her he needs to ask her a few questions about ofglen.

He asked her what they talked about during their shopping walks, and offred told him about shopping and weather. lydia comments that she is a beautiful girl to which offred said she is. then lydia asks, “in what way?”

Offred says the total package. The eye commander then asked what else they did during their walks, which confused offred, so she asks him what he means. He asks her if she knew ofglen was a gender traitor.

Offred says she knew because ofglen mentioned her wife in passing. Lydia asked her why she didn’t report that to her mistress, and offred said she didn’t really think about it. Lydia then retorts with “but you knew what she was?” offred snaps back, “I knew she was gay.”

lydia didn’t enjoy hearing that word so she shocked her again but rougher until she was on the floor and Mrs Waterford came in screaming at them to stop and get out, offred was pregnant.

now we are in of glens point of view again.

She stares at the exit sign and then puts her hand on the guard’s crotch, trying to seduce him, which doesn’t work. He just throws her against the wall roughly.

They then bring her against a trial jury. She and a Martha were caught together in a relationship way which to them is an abomination. the martha is sent to death while ofglen is being shown mercy since she can still have babies, she will continue being a handmaid.

ofglen and the Martha are put in a van where they hold hands and cry knowing the marthas fate. the doors open and the guards pull out the martha putting a rope around her neck and pulling on the rope strangling her to death while ofglen watches in horror and pain.

offred is on the toilet, says no ice cream for you this month, as it shows a spot of blood on her underwear signaling her period, which means she’s not pregnant.

flashback,

There’s a protest riot going on. The guards attack the protestors so everyone runs away as they shoot at people. Moira and June hide in this vacant little cafe away from the guards shooting at everybody. As June was about to get up a bomb went off nearby.

back to present time,

June goes to tell Mrs Waterford the bad news about her not being pregnant. Mrs -*Waterford thought she was pregnant, so she was being overly nice to her, but once offred told her she wasn’t pregnant, she went irately angry.

she dragged offred to her room aggressively, threw her to the room’s floor and screamed at her insanely telling her “never leave this room, do you understand me??!!” to which offred says “yes Mrs Waterford”.

Ofglen wakes in an overly bright white hospital room, in a lot of pain near her private parts. She has a huge casting gauze over that area.

Aunt lydia walks in the room, says, “the stitching will come out in a few days, I know it’s a shock for you Emily. you can still have children, of course, but things will be much easier for you now. You won’t want what you cannot have.” she took away emilys nerves in her private area.