• Sat, Dec 14, 24
  • 2:27:38 pm
Search
Close this search box.

handmaid

02 Jun

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 8 Review: Is June Channelling Aunt Lydia?

New DVD release, , , , ,
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 episode 8: Testimony. With June out of Gilead, the premise of The Handmaid’s Tale has shifted. A drama about resistance and endurance has become a drama about recovery and survivorhood, and those new themes are being treated with characteristic complexity. Over the years, this show could be accused of lacking forward momentum, but never of oversimplifying the messiness of its characters’ emotions. That continues in ‘Testimony’, which complicates the cliché in fiction that surviving trauma either gives a character saintly quietude, or turns them into an instant villain. June and Janine (alive, we learn, but…
Read More
26 May

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 7 Review: the Catharsis We’ve Been Waiting For

New DVD release, , , , ,
Warning: contains The Handmaid’s Tale SEASON 4 EPISODE 7 spoilers. Anybody concerned that June’s arrival on Canadian soil would sap all the drama out of The Handmaid’s Tale can stop worrying. ‘Home’ was dark, emotional, and complex. It proved that this series is not backing out of its responsibilities when it comes to the portrayal of trauma, nor is it unwilling to test the heroism of its lead character. To seriously test her heroism.  The episode closed on a blistering monologue in which June described Serena Waterford as a pathological, sociopathic, toxic, abusive monster driven by hatred and rage, underneath which is nothing but pure…
Read More
19 May

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 6 Review: Guilt, Sacrifice, and a New Chapter for June?

New DVD release, , , , , ,
This The Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers. There’s really no such thing as understatement on this season of The Handmaid’s Tale, is there? This episode, and the ones preceding it, have played out at a deafeningly high emotional volume. Every speech is emphatic, every exchange is urgent and tear-filled, every decision is literally life or death. It’s a good job that Elisabeth Moss, Samira Wiley and the others are able to pull off this level of sustained intensity, because with a lesser cast or less controlled direction, the high drama could easily turn into melodrama.  If not for the judicious use of pre-Gilead…
Read More
18 May

Is Janine Dead in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4? Madeline Brewer Answers

New DVD release, , , , ,
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 Are people better off without June Osborne? In season four episode five ‘Chicago’, a Martha tells Nick that he would be, because everybody who helps June ends up dead. That Martha isn’t wrong. The Econo-Husband in season two, the Mackenzies’ Martha and Eleanor Lawrence in season three, the Guardian at the Keyes farm in season four, Alma, Brianna… all died at least partly because of June’s actions. And by the end of ‘Chicago’, we’re left with the possibility that the choice to stick with June has led to yet another casualty:…
Read More
12 May

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 5 Review: Could a Resistance Grow Inside Gilead’s Top Ranks?

New DVD release, , , , , ,
This The Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers. That ending was earned. Under ordinary circumstances, the un-ironic use of Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ over a slo-mo reunion scene would result in disciplinary action from the mawkishness police, but The Handmaid’s Tale gets away with it. This drama has been feel-bad for so long, it’s saved up enough feel-good pennies to splurge on moments just like this one: June and Moira, reunited. Drink it in.  The moment was staged by director Christina Choe with dialled-up emotion and zero edge. A silhouetted Moira emerged from the battlefield smoke like a wartime sweetheart as the love song soared. It…
Read More
05 May

The Handmaid’s Tale: What Happened to Janine’s Son Caleb?

New DVD release, , ,
Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 episode 4 “It’s been five years since we had our children torn away from us, an eternity. […] We’ve missed everything. The steps. The smiles. The tragedies…” – June Osborne, The Handmaid’s Tale, Season 3, Episode 10 Janine Lindo, played by the excellent Madeline Brewer, is a sweet soul who’s always been like a little sister to June and the others in The Handmaid’s Tale. She’s retained a childlike openness and lack of cynicism despite – or perhaps as a reaction to – the cruel treatment her character has received both in and…
Read More
05 May

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 4 Review: Gilead Doesn’t Have the Monopoly on Abuse

New DVD release, , , , , ,
This The Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers. With all the emphasis on escape in The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s easy to forget that assholes are by no means a Gilead-exclusive. From the fake clinic attempting to scare Janine into keeping an unwanted pregnancy, to the fake rescue by a guerrilla leader who demanded sex in exchange for food, ‘Milk’ reminded us that misogyny and exploitation weren’t invented by the Sons of Jacob. They just ran the most successful marketing campaign. It was a heart-heavy message for another harrowing hour. After last episode’s literal torture, watching a shaking and traumatised June kneel down for yet more abuse…
Read More
29 Apr

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4: What is a Magdalene Colony?

New DVD release, , ,
Warning: spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 episode 3: The Crossing When Commander Lawrence and the other Sons of Jacob were designing the Handmaid system, they failed to take a few key things into account. “Part of the equation we overlooked,” Lawrence told June in season three. “Mental health – obviously. Maternal love – we overlooked that one too. So many regrets.”  It’s little wonder the system was flawed; it wasn’t exactly designed by a brain trust. Viewers witnessed its conception back in season one episode ‘Jezebels’. The great plan wasn’t designed around a conference table, or in a…
Read More
28 Apr

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 3 Review: Elisabeth Moss’ Directorial Debut Pulls No Punches

New DVD release, , , , , ,
This The Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers. If you’re going to direct your first TV episode, why not do it like that. Elisabeth Moss – whose 30-year acting career has given her ample time to figure out what and what not to do behind the camera – did not go small in her debut.  ‘The Crossing’ stood apart from the normal run of things by using almost no existing locations or sets. Largely set in a monumental prison facility where June was subjected to a series of brutal interrogation methods, it was horror through and through. With strobing red lighting, a doom-infused score,…
Read More
28 Apr

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 1 Review: Has the Story Outgrown the Limits of June’s Character?

New DVD release, , , , , ,
This The Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers. “Are you ready?” they asked June, holding a red hot cauteriser over her bleeding gunshot wound. “No,” she said, but they jabbed her anyway. Hard relate. The Handmaid’s Tale has been away for almost two years, and now it’s back, are we ready for the pain? Of course not, but it’s happening. In any other show, episode one’s pain would have been been extreme. Esther’s story of a bloody act of revenge inspired by child sexual abuse would have been a rare depth plumbed, the culmination of a whole-series crime mystery, or a long-held simmering…
Read More
28 Apr

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 2 Review: The Nick Blaine Mystery Deepens

New DVD release, , , , , ,
This The Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers. “A messy bitch who takes the big swings but doesn’t think about the consequences.” You could do worse for a description of June Osborne. In ‘Nightshade’, Moira’s words proved right when June followed her instinct that a brothelful of sitting-duck Commanders was too good an opportunity to miss. One bottle of homemade poison and David Bowie’s Suffragette City later, and Gilead had suffered another blow. That was the big swing. And now for the consequences. One consequence of June sticking around to watch the fireworks at the brothel was leaving the Keyes household…
Read More
27 Apr

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode Release Guide

New DVD release, , , ,
Warning: the Handmaid’s tale season 4 episode synopses below contain plot spoilers The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t the kind of TV show that suits a binge-watch. Its heart-heavy dystopian story about a brutal theocracy that enslaves and rapes fertile women benefits from a little fresh air between episodes. On-screen torture and suffering are best delivered in small doses. It’s good news then, that after its first three episodes are released on Hulu in one batch on Wednesday April 28th, the remaining seven episodes of season four will be released weekly each Wednesday until June 16th, giving US viewers all time to…
Read More
21 Apr

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3 Recap: Baby Nichole, June’s Flight Plan and the Waterfords’ Fall

New DVD release, , , , ,
Warning: contains major spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 1-3. After the misery of season two, which slouched from one cruelty to the next, The Handmaid’s Tale season three owed viewers some victory. Broadly, that’s what it delivered. We saw Fred and Serena’s marriage implode, June make new alliances in the Lawrence house, and cracks begin to appear in Gilead.  First, the regime lost baby Nichole and Emily over the Canadian border, and then it lost the Waterfords – now both under arrest and facing trial for their actions. Finally, Gilead suffered the loss of its most precious asset: children. June and…
Read More

DVD Guide reviews current dvd releases of movies and TV shows. The reviews of these dvd releases are my thoughts and understandings of the movie, dvd releases or TV show and not be taken as fact.

Movie Shop

Categories

Other Blogs