The Handmaid's Tale | Season 4 | April 28, 2021

Entea · August 28, 2019

Image result for The Handmaid's Tale banner

Quote

The Handmaid's Tale is an American dystopian drama web television series created by Bruce Miller, based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood. It was ordered by the streaming service Hulu as a straight-to-series order of 10 episodes, for which production began in late 2016. The plot features a dystopia following a Second American Civil War wherein a totalitarian society subjects fertile women, called "Handmaids", into child-bearing slavery.

The first three episodes of the series premiered on April 26, 2017; the subsequent seven episodes were released every Wednesday. In May 2017, the series was renewed for a second season which premiered on April 25, 2018. In May 2018, Hulu renewed the series for a third season, which premiered on June 5, 2019. In July 2019, the series was renewed for a fourth season.

The Handmaid's Tale has received critical acclaim and its first season won eight Primetime Emmy Awards from thirteen nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series. It is the first show produced by Hulu to win a major award as well as the first series on a streaming service to win an Emmy for Outstanding Series. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama. Elisabeth Moss was also awarded the Golden Globe for Best Actress.

Plot

Spoiler

In a world where fertility rates have collapsed as a result of sexually transmitted diseases and environmental pollution, the totalitarian, theonomic government of Gilead establishes rule in the former United States in the aftermath of a civil war. Society is organized by power-hungry leaders along with a new, militarized, hierarchical regime of fanaticism and newly-created social classes, in which women are brutally subjugated, and by law are forced to work in very limited roles – and not allowed to own property, handle money, or read.

Worldwide infertility has led to the enslavement of the few remaining fertile women in Gilead, citing an extremist interpretation of the Biblical account of Bilhah. These women, called Handmaids, are assigned to the homes of the ruling elite, where they must submit to ritualized rape by their male masters in order to become pregnant and bear children for those men and their wives. They assume a name created by the addition of the prefix Of- to the first name of the man who owns them. When they are transferred, their names are changed.

Along with the Handmaids, much of society is now grouped into classes that dictate their freedoms and duties. Women are divided into a small range of social categories, each one signified by a plain dress in a specific color: Handmaids wear long red dresses, heavy boots and white coifs, with a larger white coif to be worn outside, concealing them from public view and restricting their own vision. Marthas (who are housekeepers and cooks, named after the biblical figure) wear long, loose-fitting dull green garments and cover their hair with headwraps. Upperclass Wives (who are expected to run their households beautifully) wear elegant, tailored dresses in blue and turquoise, cut in styles evoking the 1950s. They wear high heels, their hair is carefully coiffed, and they wear gloves and hats when out of doors.

Econowives, the lower-class women who still have minimal agency, are a sort of mixture of all these categories, and they wear shades of gray (a departure from the book in which Econowives wear clothing striped with the aforementioned colors). Female prisoners are called Unwomen and, wearing rags, are worked to death clearing toxic waste in the Colonies.

Another class of women, Aunts (who train, oversee and discipline the Handmaids), wear brown. Jezebels are forced into prostitution in secret brothels catering to the elite ruling class. They wear otherwise-forbidden evening clothes, costumes, and lingerie from “before”.

Among the men of Gilead, the Eyes are secret police watching over the general populace for signs of rebellion, Hunters track down people attempting to flee the country.

June Osborne, renamed Offred (Elisabeth Moss), is the Handmaid assigned to the home of the Gileadan Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski). The Waterfords, key players in the rise of Gilead, struggle with the realities of the society they helped create.

During "the time before", June was married and had a daughter. At the beginning of the story, while attempting to flee Gilead with her husband and daughter, June was captured and forced to become a Handmaid because of the adultery she and her husband committed. Her daughter was taken and given to an upper-class family to raise, and her husband escaped into Canada. Much of the plot revolves around June's desire to be reunited with her husband and daughter.

Trailer