THE HANDMAID'S TALE, Season 6, Episode 6, SURPRISE

THE HANDMAID’S TALE, Season 6, Episode 6, SURPRISE

Written By:

Rich Cross

THE HANDMAID’S TALE, Season 6, Episode 6, SURPRISE

Surprises come thick and fast in Episode Six, as Mayday accelerates plans to assassinate multiple Commanders at the Jezebels club, whilst allies and enemies of New Bethlehem within Gilead stockpile their political capital and plan for their opponents to fail. Aly Monroe’s script for Surprise builds on the intensity of the rescue mission in Janine to focus on how characters either buckle or hold fast in the pressure cooker environments they are trapped in.

With details of Mayday’s assassination plan locked in a safe in Jezebel’s, June and Moira are trapped behind enemy lines in Gilead, having been whisked away from the club in the trunk of Commander Lawrence’s car. The pair are completely at Lawrence’s mercy, but when he frees them from confinement, they discover that they are not at the borderland, as they would have hoped, but in New Bethlehem.

Terse exchanges between June and Lawrence see the pair trade blows – June denounces Lawrence for not reuniting her with her daughter Hannah; Lawrence lambasts June for failing to prevent his wife’s suicide. They also share confidences that give each of them leverage over the other. Lawrence reveals that his Gilead colleagues view him as a heretic who will end up “on the wall”, while June tells him of Mayday’s plan to wipe out Commanders, a blow against Gilead’s authority that will leave Lawrence in a position of unexpected power.

After hiding out in the basement of Lawrence’s home and avoiding discovery by Lawrence’s new wife, June is collected by Commander Nick and transported to his residence. She is forced to stay in the car after Nick spots that his father is waiting for him at home. Frustrated at being abandoned, June makes her way through the rain-sodden nighttime streets of New Bethlehem and arrives at Serena’s luxurious new home. Stunned to see the drenched and desperate June at her door, Serena lets her inside – as the two antagonists meet for the first time since June pushed Serena and her baby out of a moving railway carriage in the season opener, Train.

Every time that Yvonne Strahovski and Elizabeth Moss share scenes together, there’s such electricity between their characters, as the power balance between them continually shifts and twists. In a carriage of angry Gilead escapees, it was June whose authority was decisive. In the depths of New Bethlehem, it’s Serena who holds the cards, and who could hand June over to the authorities without a backward glance. Instead, the pair again trade barbs and recriminations – with June contemptuous about the cynicism of Serena’s decision to accept Commander Wharton’s marriage proposal – before Serena agrees to provide June with sanctuary.

When Commander Nick arrives, his trademark nonchalance crumbles as he senses that time is running out to win June over. In all seriousness, he pitches the suggestion that the pair of them drop everything and run away together. Captivated by the romance of the idea, she agrees – and, for the briefest of moments, the pair giddily contemplate their shared future.

Nick’s actions in Devotion confirm that he is literally prepared to kill to protect her and those she loves, and his willingness to become an intelligence asset for the US government-in-exile shows that his political loyalties can be turned. But the idea that June would abandon her plan to tear down Gilead, reunite with Hannah, and turn her back on Luke, Moira and the Mayday rebels rings hollow. In truth, the moment is a narrative conceit intended to amplify the reverberations of what then follows.

The unconscionable act of betrayal that’s revealed in the jaw-dropping closing moments (the episode’s most impactful “surprise”) is of such consequence that the damage it causes will be irreparable. The way that the fateful overheard conversation plays out ramps up the tension, as neither of the characters listening in from their hiding place can audibly react. While speculation about how the show will end has remained rife, this explosive revelation closes down one of June’s more outlandish potential escape routes.

Just as significant for those planning to take the fight to Gilead, Mayday now faces its own emergency – and it’s painfully clear just who’s responsible for bringing the rebels’ plans to the brink of disaster.