Exceeding or even simply maintaining the standard of a hugely acclaimed US TV genre show in its sophomore year can be a hugely challenging endeavour – all the more so when the events of the second series free the drama entirely from the moorings of its original source material. After near universal praise for the first series of Westworld – to take a recent example – season two of the “killer robots – but with complications” drama sharply divided critics. Reaction to the second series of dystopian childbearing chiller The Handmaid’s Tale was no less torn, with some reviewers insisting that this televisual adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s imagined future America, in which only a tiny proportion of women are able to conceive, and who are enslaved in order to provide society’s children, had failed to reproduce the Emmy award-winning quality of its first run.
In truth, re-watching the 13 episodes of series two, it’s immediately apparent how carefully crafted its parallel story arcs are, and how well the show’s producers deliver a set of unpredictable shifts and turning points in an imaginative plotline which refuses simply to replay the beats and motifs of series one.
The first series made an asset of its claustrophobic focus on Gilead, and on the Commander’s household especially. There were occasional flashbacks and glimpses of a freer life for refugees who had escaped its confines. But for the most part, the conformity, cruelty and oppression that imbues every aspect of life in Gilead was reinforced by the sense of isolation that came from viewers sharing the same enclosed field of vision that the indentured characters endure.
It was a bold narrative device which served the show well, but the second series wisely adopts a far wider vista – showing the brutality of life in one of the Colony’s environmental clean-up gulags; offering peeks into the world of labouring “Econopeople” families and revealing new sides of the lives of refugees north of the Canadian border. There are more extensive flashbacks too, offering fascinating new revelations about the degeneration of US society into the dystopian nightmare that has overwhelmed it.
From the jaw-dropping mock execution which opens episode one to the night time scenes of arson and subterfuge which shape the season finale, The Handmaid’s Tale is fit to burst with some superbly staged set pieces, including two extraordinarily tense escape bids, numerous stunning visual tableaux, and some stomach-churning moments of violence and horror.
Elisabeth Moss continues to deliver an extraordinarily assured and intelligent performance in the series’ lead role as June / Offred, but the show’s ensemble cast is full of first-rate acting talent. Yvonne Strahovski’s portrayal of the cruel but conflicted Serena Joy Waterford remains pitch perfect, Ann Dowd is outstanding as the unconscionable Aunt Lydia, and Alexis Bledel shines as the resilient and explosive Emily.
Some critics baulked at June’s decision not to take the opportunity to flee Gilead in the series finale. But her unwillingness to leave her other child behind makes perfect narrative sense. With the show renewed for a third season, her continued incarceration and separation from her loved ones needs to remain the central focus of future stories. As this second run concludes, rebellion is stirring, seen in the actions of an underground network of dissidents and in unprecedented challenges to male authority from amongst Gilead’s privileged women. With cracks in the enclave’s monotheistic order likely to widen, season three has the potential to be very different from either of its predecessors.
Special features in this set include a study of the divergence between the book and second series’ scripts, and a short exploration of the show’s emblematic costume design. But this is a groundbreaking series, pregnant with meaning and metaphor which reveal the politics of gender, power and reproduction in a country governed by patriarchy and religious absolutism. It surely merits a more generous set of insightful extras.
THE HANDMAID’S TALE SEASON TWO / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MIKE BARKER, JEREMY PODESWA, DAINA REID / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: ELISABETH MOSS, JOSEPH FIENNES, YVONNE STRAHOVSKI, ALEXIS BLEDEL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
