"Train" picks up where last season left off -- June, having left Luke behind and escaped among refugees with “Nicole.” In an astonishing coincidence, Serena and Noah are on the same train. Before long, we hear Serena talking the same garbage my MAGA relatives are now that the fash they supported is driving us off a cliff into oblivion. It’s no surprise that Serena wants to “forget” and “put it all behind you” so “Gilead won’t matter,” even to the point of feigning horror at the idea that June thinks she might steal her children while she slept. Duh, she already has!
This ep is full of humanizing moments where we get glimpses of all the people whose lives were ruined by Gilead. The moms on the train, the doctor, the cop...all the people who lost families and partners and jobs, homes, everything. The Nazi parallels are heavy handed, but not inaccurate. Serena’s infuriating obliviousness to the damage her kind of thinking caused and continues to cause is spectacularly on brand.
Canada is overwhelmed with refugees fleeing Gilead and Mark the diplomat is now cooperating with Mayday. Much of the developed world is willing to do business with Gilead...if they can have plausible deniability regarding its human rights abuses.
Nick is free, though his father-in-law Wharton (Josh Charles, the most romantic member of the Dead Poet’s Society) is hovering over him. Wharton is a higher-ranking commander than Nick, though he doesn’t seem that much older. It’s gross seeing him basically reprimand his son-in-law for cheating on his daughter with a criminal. But that’s money and power for ya. Nick’s poor child-bride has grown into an unhappy tradwife with a baby on the way. Nick, we learn, still only loves June.
I imagine a lot of viewers were confused as to why June stopped the train crowd from killing Serena then and there. But June did partake in the mob execution of Fred Waterford, and now knows it didn’t help her feel any better. Serena escapes to a churchy commune, Canaan, for women and children—and it turns out they knew who she was and took her in anyway. Nobody is surprised when, in "Exile," Serena eventually decides to follow Commander Lawrence and his incredibly annoying new wife back to New Bethlehem to try again to reform themselves into a Christian supremacist utopia.
We are definitely surprised when June makes it to a settlement in Alaska sporting an American flag bearing two stars—and her mom is there alive and well. We’d been led to think she died on the radioactive colonies. Turns out that as a doctor, Holly was rescued much like Janine was. It’s a lovely reunion that winds up interrupted after two months because Moira and Luke are trapped in No Man’s Land and June is taking it upon herself to go pick them up.
These first two episodes are suspenseful and full of dramatic moments, lots of genuine emotion, and some economics and politics that started getting a little boring. With so many parallels to real life, The Handmaid’s Tale is a more difficult watch than ever this season. That said...
The Handmaid’s Tale is also inspiring as hell. In a world where we see cowardice in the media, politicians backing down in the face of dangerous declarations and damaging policy, where violent addicts decimate protections for our most vulnerable—it’s absolutely vital that we see characters like June, Holly, Luke, Moira, and Mark say ‘of course I’m going to fight’, ‘of course we’ll do the dangerous thing,’ ‘absolutely we’re on our way to take the risk, protect our people, say the thing when it matters most.’
In some ways, Holly isn’t wrong when she tells June—“All you can do is survive and protect the people you love.” That’s absolutely valid for a whole bunch of people. But those who can risk, should. Those who can fight, need to. Everyone who can speak out simply cannot stay silent. Which brings us to the third episode, "Devotion."
One of the most memorable and compelling characters was suspiciously absent from the first two eps. But Aunt Lydia is back, and checking on a disturbing rumor about her special girl, Janine. Janine didn’t work out at the home of Commander Lawrence and his true-believing tradwife. Lydia is a true believer in the mission and promise of Gilead. She wholeheartedly accepted those tenets in good faith. Remember in the first season when she objected to Janine being excluded from a fancy diplomat dinner because she was ‘damaged?’ Lydia knew that was wrong and rewarded Janine with ice cream.
Lydia is routinely caught off-guard by Commanders disobeying the rules, promises not being kept. As far as Aunt Lydia believed, everyone who did as they were told would get their just rewards. That’s why she was so brutal and unchangeable. But finding Janine—and three other successful handmaids carted off to a Jezebels (where Mark reminds us, “no one leaves”) will definitely be a turning point for Lydia. Her faith in the promise of Gilead will inspire her to join the rebellion, even if it’s small. Lydia made a wonderful villain because she was so strong and determined—she could just as easily become a hero.
Mayday teaming up with diplomats and Commanders can only mean good things for the rebellion. Because people who rule from fear will only rule for a short time. People always fight back and the rebels always win in the end. This season is off to a blazing start as we watch our favorite characters dig in and fight. It should be fun to see how much of Mayday’s plan to take out top commanders gets, and how well New Bethlehem will take off.
Train: 8/10
Exile: 8/10
Devotion: 9/10