If there’s one motif that the writers of The Handmaid’s Tale seem to enjoy more than any other, it’s raising characters’ hopes in order to see them crushed. As series five begins its endgame, Gilead’s enemies once again face disappointment and defeat.
At the close of Motherland, US agent Mark Tuello had revealed to June, and Luke plans for an audacious airborne extraction. Using the intelligence the pair had retrieved in Fairytale, Tuello’s agents had tracked the location of the Gilead “wife school” where their daughter Hannah is being held. The American airforce can now carry out the unthinkable, and launch a mission into Gilead’s airspace to rescue the schoolgirls. Invited to watch proceedings from the control centre, Luke and June are filled with excitement. There’s a brashness to the military preparations, with Tuello full of confidence that American firepower and subterfuge will catch Gilead’s protectors unaware and bring the girls home.
It was always possible that the showrunners intended to reunite Hannah with her parents before the end of season five. But it always seemed more probable that the most longed-for reunion would remain a preoccupation of The Handmaid’s Tale’s sixth and final season. Even though there’s no on-screen footage of the raid, the merciless, calculated way that Gilead’s pre-warned air defences eliminate the incoming American planes still hits home. The costs of this failure go beyond the losses of the paratroopers, corroding the confidence of US authorities to deploy any future armed incursions into Gilead. It’s a calamity that closes down yet more options for Luke and for June.
What intensifies the poignancy of the loss is that Eric Tuchman’s script provides the first evidence that young Hannah’s accommodation to her Gilead life is far from total. When she secretly signs an illustration with her birth name, it’s evident that she’s holding something back in her obedience to her Gilead kidnappers and can still remember life with her parents. The last time that June was with Hannah in Gilead, her daughter had been conditioned to be terrified of her. It only adds to the agony of the doomed raid that June is unaware that Hannah has reconnected with suppressed emotions towards her mother and father. It’s an astute plot development that will make the evolution of Hannah’s storyline an even more fraught experience. Unaware of this, Commander Lawrence turns the emotional thumbscrews on June, offering her the promise of a reunion with her daughter in New Bethlehem in return for denouncing the US raid on his territory. It’s an offer he knows she cannot possibly accept.
Horrified by her continuing house arrest, Serena Waterford uses all of her guile to circumvent the controlling Alanis Wheeler and convince Ryan Wheeler to allow her to attend the opening of Gilead’s new fertility centre in Toronto in person. The character of Serena has enjoyed a remarkable transformation during the events of season five. She’s tried to exploit the leverage of her widowhood to establish herself as an independent player and, in the process, she’s experienced knock-backs and face slaps. It’s a testament to Yvonne Strahovski’s talents as an actress that, as she attempts to flee with her baby in her arms, many viewers will find themselves urging on a character they’ve spent five seasons repulsed by.
If there’s one relationship dynamic that the series could be accused of over-using, it’s the one between June and Commander Nick Blaine. Allegiance does feature yet another secret rendezvous between the pair. But what reduces the sense of déjà vu is that their romantic entanglement takes second place to June’s attempt to convince Nick to take up Tuello’s offer that he defect or become an American asset. It’s an effective and believable moment, but if he is to return for the show’s final season, Nick does need to be given a new character journey that’s more than being Commander Lawrence’s brooding, lovelorn side-kick.
When it comes to reflecting America’s current political controversies, such as the status of women’s reproductive rights, the show’s writers have usually kept their commentary oblique. The script for Allegiance embraces the supposedly innate “virtues” of US patriotism directly, whether that’s through the perceived selflessness of the paratroopers or in the potent symbolism of the Pledge of Allegiance and the Stars and Stripes. That feels like an uncomfortable populist pitch in what’s an otherwise impressive Handmaid’s directorial debut by Bradley Whitford (Commander Lawrence). It is though balanced by another echo of contemporary America that’s no less recognisable: a mass shooting in a public place, unleashed by a hate-filled gunman.
New episodes of THE HANDMAID’S TALE – SEASON 5 premiered Sundays in the UK on CHANNEL 4
The season five finale premieres in the UK on CHANNEL 4 on Monday 19 December
Read our previous reviews of THE HANDMAID’S TALE below:
Season 5, Episode 4, DEAR OFFRED
Season 5, Episode 5, FAIRYTALE
