NOTE: Before proceeding, please know that the following is about an ongoing TV show (The Handmaid’s Tale) and there are going to be spoilers below.  If you haven’t started or finished this series yet please proceed with caution.  I hate being spoiled myself, so I wanted to give a small heads up.

So …

In anticipation of the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale beginning next week, I’ve been doing a rewatch of the first five seasons.  Thankfully, I had remembered a lot of the major plot points, but I was surprised at how many of the smaller, but still important, things I had forgotten about.

The biggest surprise to me was the amount of casual violence, mostly towards the handmaids and Marthas.  On one hand, I should have remembered this.  After all, Gilead is ruled via fear and the threat of bad things happening.  Not to mention, when a large chunk of your population has been kidnapped and forcibly brought into servitude, you need to keep everyone in line.  On the other, it still took me by surprise.

It starts small, a slap here, a threat there.  But it progresses really quickly to cattle prods, the removal of eyes and tongues, and eventually, forcing the handmaids to participate in the ‘punishment’ – aka outright murder – of the disobedient.

One of the episodes I watched recently had the handmaids tugging on ropes that first pulled the floor of the stage together.  Then, the reverse – pulling the floor out from below the unfaithful and hanging them.  This happened at least twice in the episode, and it was brutal.  While not graphic, the point is made, and it hits you hard.  Stay in line or pay the price.

What I like best about the series though are the flashbacks to life Before.  June meeting her husband, Luke, the birth of their daughter, Hannah, her friendship with Moira, etc.  It gives you a lot of insight into why June refuses to give up and keeps going back, rather than to safety when she has the chance.  She fought so hard and went through so much to be with Luke, to have a healthy child at a time where successful pregnancies and births were becoming rarer and rarer.  It only makes sense to me that she’d do whatever she could to save Hannah and as many others as humanly possible.

The story that surprised me the most was Aunt Lydia’s.  Seeing that she’d been such a kind and empathetic person before Gilead was a bit of a shock.  Her story touches on how rejection and isolation can alter your thoughts and actions, pushing you more to one extreme or the other.  It gave me more empathy for her, even if I still think her character is cruel and awful.

All in all, there has been some great storytelling and interesting character growth over the first five seasons.  I’m excited to see how it all resolves itself.  Mostly, I’m hoping that June gets out, with Hannah, and can live the life she’d always deserved.  I want June, Moira, Emily, and all the rest to be happy and get lots and lots of therapy to heal from all this insanity.  Honestly, I kind of even want Serena to find a bit of happiness, even if she doesn’t deserve it.  But again, she has a lot of trauma in her past and present, so I try not to judge her too harshly – except when she deserves it.

The big question, however, is what do I watch after this is over?