I’m so glad the first three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 dropped as a binge-watch. The first two episodes work so well as a back-to-back watch, as they set up the rest of the final season. So many characters realize that their work isn’t over, but they are not all on the same side.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for The Handmaid’s Tale season 6, episode 2.
The episode opens with us finding out what happened to Serena and Noah. Fortunately, both survived being pushed off the train, but they were left in the middle of nowhere, and they certainly weren’t dressed for that. Serena is a mother, though, and she is not going to just lay down and accept her fate. She doesn’t believe that this is her fate.
Off she goes in hunt for some sort of shelter. And yes, she finds that shelter in the form of a church. Only women and children are welcomed in this church, and it reminds me a little of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. These types of places have a need, but I don’t think it’s going to bring the redemption so many are desperate for in Serena.
Holly explains how she escaped in The Handmaid’s Tale season 6, episode 2
Meanwhile, we see that June is catching up on everything that happened to Holly. After all, June and Moira saw that photo of Holly in the Colonies. How did she survive?
It shouldn’t be surprising to learn that she had a purpose there. While the men of Gilead wanted to push women out of the workforce and turn them into breeders and servants, they knew that some of them had their purpose. So, when people in the Colonies needed a doctor, she was the one the Guardians would turn to.
Holly shares that she did what she needed to survive, and I don’t blame her for a second. Like with Nick, survival is necessary, and sometimes, you have to work against your own morals for a chance to gain redemption afterwards. While the wrong things done for the right reasons are still wrong, they’re sometimes necessary.
After six months in the Colony, Holly’s camp was liberated by the Americans, and she was brought to Alaska. She’d been looking for June on lists the whole time, and now the two are reunited. It’s an emotional moment, and just seeing June accept Holly’s hug was everything. June has been through so much, and she finally has the one person she needed to release some of the pain and fear she’s been feeling. There are things only a mom can help with, and we’re reminded of that in this scene.
Catching up on Luke and Commander Lawrence
Before we get too deep into the episode, we also get caught up on two other storylines. In The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 premiere, we learned that Moira and Mark were trying to get Luke freed, and that happens in the new episode. Immediately, he wants to fight. He needs to join May Day and get Hannah back.
Rita is also thinking about her options. She’s considering New Bethlehem, which isn’t that surprising when you consider her storyline in The Handmaid’s Tale season 5. After years of being institutionalized in the way of Gilead, she’s lost who she is and what she can do in the world. She turned to some of her Martha ways while in Toronto, and as the hatred toward the refugees continues to grow, she is considering going back to what she knows. Stockholm Syndrome is a very real thing.
Speaking of New Bethlehem, Lawrence gets a visit from some Commanders who want to see this place succeed. They need Serena back to help sell this place, but there’s a problem that Lawrence isn’t telling them. He has no idea where Serena Waterford is!
Two months later in The Handmaid’s Tale season 6, episode 2
Rather than giving us time to see Serena settle in with the church group and June figure out Alaska, we jump to two months later. This works well, as we’ve already seen how it can be for people integrating with systems that they’re not used to. With just eight episodes left after this, we need to see the story push forward.
In New Bethlehem, there’s actually a humanizing talk between Nick and Commander Warton. Warton brings up the name “Sons of Jacob” and explains how that name was created. It’s because so many of the men had no real fathers, and so Jacob is their father. He is a figure from the Bible that gives them all a look at how they can be good fathers. He points out that as fathers they need to set a good example.
This feels like it’s turning Nick against the fight against Gilead. It’s possible that he could just be worried about turning against Gilead right now but is it also possible that part of him believes in this regime. He was an Eye, after all. He fought to create Gilead into what it was before becoming an Eye. There’s a lot about him that I have never trusted, and I don’t think Mark should trust him either. The only thing that has him fighting against Gilead is his love for June, but how long will that last when he has a child of his own?
After the conversation, Nick makes a choice not to help Mark. Two months earlier, he agreed to give up plans for attacks and sentries, but now he's clearly choosing Gilead as he burns the SIM card.
Serena figures out what she needs to do next
We get a Serena-heavy episode via flashbacks in this episode. If you know The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, you’ll know that Serena-Joy in that was an older woman who used to be a Soprano in a Sunday morning religious program. The movie kept that in, but the TV show changed Serena-Joy considerably. However, the show has decided to keep the religious connection in a different way.
We learn that her dad is a preacher at a church, but it’s clear that he is suffering from a debilitating disease. It looks like Parkinson’s Disease, although it’s not quite confirmed in the episode. What we do get to see is where Serena’s religious views and her love for gardening come from. There’s also an element of guilt, as she left her father’s garden to wilt and die after his illness got him to the point where he was wheelchair-bound because she was so focused on creating Gilead.
Now she’s left Gilead behind. Being in this church, where she gardens again, has made her think about her dad more, and she realizes that she has lost her way. She’s fallen from the path that she was originally on, and when Commander Lawrence and Naomi (no longer Putnam) turn up, Serena finds a path for her again. It didn’t take too long for Lawrence to figure out where Serena was, then.
She stands up to tell Abigail, who did recognize Serena immediately but decided to turn her back on the past, and the rest of the group that she and Noah need to leave. She needs to “heal” the world, and it once again makes it very clear that Serena is beyond redemption. She’s never really been after redemption, though. She’s been trying to survive, and now she needs to continue doing the work she set herself out to do all those years ago when Gilead was first being created.
I do want to note that Serena going to New Bethlehem in red is rather telling. I would have expected her to go in the blue/green color of the Wives to note her place. Why is she wearing the color of the Handmaids? I feel like there’s symbolism that I’m missing in this moment.
June makes a choice to go back kicking off the final fight of The Handmaid’s Tale
Throughout the episode, we get to see June trying to fit in with the rest of the group in Alaska. It’s not easy, though. With no internet and cell phone lines, Alaska is pretty cut off from the rest of the world. I’m really surprised that the Americans haven’t figured out a way to set something up. Wouldn’t they work with neighboring Canadian provinces and territories to at least have some sense of communication? Yes, Gilead would want them cut off, but would the rest of the world? It’s rather telling what the rest of the world have thought about the entire Gilead situation.
June can’t stick to the rules as usual. She goes back each day rather than the weeks that she’s supposed to wait. After initially contacting Luke and Moira, she’s not been able to get back in touch with them again. That’s because they’re with May Day, but June doesn’t know that yet.
It’s only when she decides she needs to call Mark that she learns what’s happened. Luke and Moira went into No Man’s Land, and now they’re missing. Mark needs June. The resistance needs June.
June knows this, but it doesn’t mean that Holly is happy about June going back. However, not everyone got out. June needs to go back for Hannah, but she cannot take Nichole — Holly, as June tells her mom and reminds us — with her.
I’m so glad that we see June leaving her daughter with someone trusted, and now I start to get a sense of how The Testaments by Margaret Atwood could have been created. While we never got full confirmation that Daisy was Baby Nichole, I always got that she was meant to be, and I always wondered why June would give up Nichole and go back. Well, The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 makes it clear why.
We get this powerful moment at the end of the episode as June goes into a room with other members of May Day. They meet in secret locations, under the cover of darkness, but there are far more members of May Day than there once felt like there was. The resistance is growing, and it’s time to fight.
This season is moving fast because it has to, but not too fast. The time jump helped to push this story forward, because we didn’t need to see June struggle to get used to Alaska or Serena spend a couple of months gardening. We know their characters well enough to feel like the end point for their two stories in this episode is natural and believable. Will we end with a showdown of Serena vs. June? I feel like we should after the way this episode ended.
The Handmaid’s Tale airs on Tuesdays on Hulu.