The Handmaid's Tale: Safe (5x10)

This season happened so fast!

Cons:

I'm a little confused about Nick and Tuello. Basically, Nick agrees to turn spy for the Americans, because he knows that Gilead is trying to punish/kill June? But basically he connects with Tuello in exchange for a promise that Tuello will do everything he can to keep June safe... but like... wasn't that already a guaranteed outcome from the Americans? They weren't about to let Gilead kill June if they could help it, so what is Nick actually getting out of this? Is he planning on eventually getting the hell out of there, and joining June? I get it, that learning that June is in danger would frighten him, but it seems he's changing his mind and doing this crazy risky thing, all for a very nebulous return.

I was a little annoyed with Luke and June and Nichole fleeing and Moira not coming with them. We have so little insight into what Moira's life is these days, other than as a co-parent to Nichole, a real part of their nuclear family. So, especially since Luke was planning on turning himself in so his family could get away... why not send Moira along too? What is the point of her staying there in Canada, when she too is an American refugee that the Canadian people don't want anymore? And then there's just the unnecessary trickery and drama of Luke not communicating with his wife about staying behind. That kind of sucked.

In fact, just to tie a neat little bow on the Luke and June situation this season... they tried so hard to make me feel it. To get me wrapped up in the true love romance of these two spouses who had been unjustly separated and then reunited and worked through their issues to form a united front. And I... just can't get there! It's not that I think they have negative chemistry or that I see nothing compelling about June and Luke as a romantic pairing. It just doesn't click for me the way I can tell they want it to. Luke killing a man to protect June is, I think, supposed to be this sign that he's willing to join her in the intensity of her experience, that he "gets it" now in a way he didn't before. To me, it felt tacked on and insufficient. I just don't love watching the two of them together. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either.

Pros:

Janine getting to tell Mrs. Putnam - now Mrs. Lawrence - that she hates her was honestly enormously satisfying. It's a nice echo to the way June spoke to Serena. There can be kindness, there can be compromise, there can be moments of strained affinity, but at the end of the day, the Commanders and their Wives are rapists, they abuse and control the women who are forced to live in their homes and bear children and then have those children taken from them. It's always nice when a character gets to stand up and say that nice and loud and proud, lest we be fooled into thinking there's any real friendship going on here. We don't know Janine's fate yet, we see her being driven off, at Commander Lawrence's insistence, and against Aunt Lydia's protests.

I loved the moment where Janine found out about June being hurt. You could see her waking up, you could see that spark of defiance coming back into her after so long of playing docile with Aunt Lydia. Even for the chance to maybe be around her daughter in this very limited way, she can't just sit back and take it, not when she hears that June is under attack from the very place that has Janine under its thumb.

This episode really had a "fuck around and find out" flavor to it. You've got Janine standing up to Naomi, and you've also got Nick punching Lawrence in the face in front of a whole crowd of people. You've got Tuello helping June and Luke to get out of danger in Canada. Multiple characters who have had to toe the line, play the middle, and have now pretty firmly declared their allegiance. Nick isn't the good little obedient Commander. Janine isn't the docile little Handmaid. Luke is making his play, allowing himself to be arrested in order to keep his family safe. There's nothing half-measure left on the board, and for that I am grateful!

Despite my doubts about Nick's decisions this episode, I've gotta say, I did really love that final scene with his wife. "A good man wouldn't leave his pregnant wife every time his girlfriend calls." Like, get it, Rose, that was a great line. And it's so true. Nick can't fully commit to his life in Gilead when he is still so entangled with June. He loves her so much, it's a frightening thing. It's a life-ruining thing. That's the good shit; I'm still rooting for them against all odds.

Commander Lawrence, as I keep saying, is extremely interesting! Because we know he's conflicted, we know he's trying to make Gilead better, yadda yadda, but at the same time, he's never going to admit his full culpability. As he tells Nick, it wasn't his decision to put a hit out on June. And that's all well and good, but he didn't fight against it. And he had Janine sent away, and he married Naomi, and he had Nick locked up, and maybe he feels guilty forever and ever about it all but that doesn't change the fact that he's going along with it. That he'd sacrifice June and he'd sacrifice Nick and he'd sacrifice Janine. What does he care? What does it matter if he cares?

I knew Serena was going to be on the train. I knew it the second I realized Luke wasn't coming. I felt so smart when the baby started crying and it was Serena and Noah. But also this is such a cool setup for the sixth and final season of this show. After all the back and forth, all the power imbalances, all the times in which they've had control over one another in all sorts of different ways, they are made equal by circumstances at last. On a train, alone with a young child, heading off into the unknown to escape those who would seek to hurt them. Are they going to remain allies as they try to settle into a new normal? Are they going to turn on each other, and how? I for one cannot wait to find out!

So that's a wrap on season five. Just one more season of this show before we get our final goodbyes, and I hope we get some answers as to how the world might start to equalize, what the future is for Gilead, and America, and Canada, and all of world politics, for that matter. For those who have read the books, we know from the ending that Gilead doesn't stick around forever, but we also don't know the exact mechanism by which it falls... maybe we'll get to find out?

8/10