June and Serena are stuck on a train to nowhere in The Handmaid’s Tale season six opener.
Warning: contains spoilers forThe Handmaids Taleseason 6 episode 1.
And again, hallelujah!
Something unambiguouslygoodhas happened to June Osborne.
Her mom Holly, assumed to have died in the Colonies, came back.
Id add a third hallelujah but this isThe Handmaids Tale, where optimism is rarely rewarded.
This Elisabeth Moss-directed episode did not keep its celebrations to a whisper.
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June was always going to push Serena off that train.
The fact that she did it to save her was the surprise.
Only grace, such as she offered a labouring Serena in a cow shed, can do that.
Thats why June didnt join the baying mob in tearing Serena limb from limb, but stood against them.
Thanks to our familiarity with these well-written and even better-acted characters, that turned out to be plenty.
Their double-act was compelling, and even funny.
Serenas clueless attachment and attempts at fellow-feeling coming up against Junes WTF lady?
boundary setting made for good viewing.
Serenas key character moment in the episode though, was the bitter outburst she made when cornered.
Your children were saved!, God took your country away!
A powerful DC commander responsible for God knows how many atrocities, Wharton came across as surprisingly chill.
No hellfire and brimstone there, at least not on the surface.
Nicks new spying-for-the-US gig will clearly be extra dangerous though, under his eye.
Speaking of danger, we dont know what Holly has gone through to get to that Alaskan outpost.
That picture was proof to June that her mother didnt get to Canada and was now almost certainly dead.
That certainly sounds like Holly an activist and feminist who saw Gilead coming long before June did.
Lets not take a single step into their future right now, filled as it likely is with peril.
Lets do what the episode did and leave them both in that smiling, I-cant-believe-it embrace.
Somethinggoodhappened to June Osborne, finally.
The Handmaids Tale season six episodes one to three are available to stream now onHuluin the US.
Episode four arrives on Tuesday April 15.
The new season will air on Channel 4 in the UK at a later date.
