10 times The Handmaid’s Tale got way too real

THE HANDMAID’S TALE — “Offred” – Episode 101 – Offred, one the few fertile women known as Handmaids in the oppressive Republic of Gilead, struggles to survive as a reproductive surrogate for a powerful Commander and his resentful wife. Offered (Elisabeth Moss), shown. (Photo by: Take Five/Hulu)

Shots of the house

That house is so normal and it bothers me. You just expect dystopias to look … awful, you know? Torn apart, burning, rusted metal and piles of weapons. And those do exist in some scenes. But the house that the Commander and Serena Joy live in is one that any well-off couple might live in, even now.

The well-pruned garden out front, the elegant lacy curtains…I got upset during Episode 5 last night because the light switches looked just like switches I remember a well-off friend of mine having in her kitchen in high school, a dark copper color against a gentle green painted wall.

Literally, anyone could live there, not just a horrible military man and his acquiescing, conniving wife and their miserable staff. Where do all the furnishings come from? Do people still make those somewhere, or will everything gradually start to fade as Gilead languishes until no one in power can get anything nice that they want anymore, and everyone has to make do with brokenness and decay?