Even for a show as harrowing as Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the fourth season of the series, based on Margaret Atwood‘s famous dystopian novel and cautionary tale, is surprisingly bleak. Granted, a show dealing with an apocalyptically totalitarian society, known as Gilead, that subjects women, known as “Handmaids,” to child-bearing slavery and servitude, isn’t much of a joyride. However, in the series’ fourth season, the protagonist and central handmaiden, June Osborne’s (Elisabeth Moss) personal demons, threaten to undermine and engulf her in a way that’s unsettling.
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June’s issues of self-recrimination, remorse, and anger are escalating to such destructively emotional heights, something explosive feels like it’s on the horizon. In the post-Gilead, post-Trump texture that fed the show, this season moves past the stagnation of previous seasons —the catch and release repetition of plotting an escape, failing, and then falling into cruel subjugation again—but doesn’t surpass its usual exploration set across a rigid dynamic of men vs. women and ignores those who exist at intersections such as Black women.
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Last season, Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes), who, with his wife Serena Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski), abused and raped June over previous seasons, was finally arrested for war crimes, despite Serena’s attempts to avoid accountability by turning on her husband. June has also killed a couple of people: Commander Winslow, who tried to rape her, and a soldier who shot her in the finale. So this season begins with her bloody, bruised, and on the run from Gilead, essentially free to a greater extent than she’s ever seen previously.
While June experienced some hope last season, helping free dozens of children into Canada, this season, she’s slowly unraveling. June has broken down emotionally before—crippled from the loss of her daughter and the deaths of allies who tried to aid and abet her escape, like Omar from season two, who was killed (his wife made a Handmaid and child placed with another family). But now, her PTSD is manifesting into uncontrollable, festering anger. And with the government in pursuit, she doesn’t have the luxury of despair or revenge. Throughout, characters like Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) throw June’s affair with now-husband Luke (O. T. Fagbenle), who was married to another woman at the time their relationship began, in June’s face; saying she is being punished for her transgressions. Though June scoffs aloud, she is often paralyzed by fear they may be speaking dark truths.
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Seeing so many Handmaids and Marthas suffer while she always somehow survives, June is both wracked with guilt and compelled to take action. Even with her darkest days seemingly behind her, June struggles to feel normalcy because of all the trauma experienced. Intentional or not, this struggle parallels the “return to normalcy” notions many have expected to feel in the post-Trump, post-pandemic era. “The Handmaid’s Tale” has always tried to capture the cultural zeitgeist, especially regarding the notions of encroaching authoritarianism and the misogyny inherent in that structure, and it does so this season primarily and effectively—regarding women’s rights at least—through characters. However, the series still mostly ignores the intersection of gender, race, trans, etc., which feels like a missed opportunity. The exploration is continuously one-note, white women’s feminism. That said, the shift from feminism in subjugation to feminism on the warpath is at least a refreshing change.
Elisabeth Moss’ acting as June is naturally still amazing, and it’s her complexity and great range of expressing rage mixed with suffering and pain that has always elevated the show when the writing has otherwise failed it. Moira (Samira Wiley), June’s friend before Gilead and her husband’s sibling, is a perfect counter this season. Moira escaped to Canada, and though she too has struggled with the trauma of post-Gilead life, she has begun to emerge to the other side, thanks to a support group of Gilead survivors who share their experiences. This reclamation of the emotional soul is within June’s reach, but she has to want to get there first. Currently, however, she wants to fight, not with words but with action. It’s here that “The Handmaid’s Tale” is at its most powerful because her desperate compulsion for accountability and crimes committed poignantly echoes the last four years of American trauma.
When anger starts to blur the lines between hero and villain, the racialized tension is unmistakable. One scene particularly may anger viewers because of the violence and race dynamics. June is seen as a protagonist, but she also has all the selfishness and entitlement a white woman possesses. This season feels similar to “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2,” as June embraces the need to fight and resist, and “Game of Thrones” because of the music and June’s striking resemblance to Khaleesi. And we all know how that white savior went out.
Not only is the liberator trope tiring, as each season progresses, June’s knack for survival, while those around her get mutilated, shot, or hanged, becomes more improbable and frankly maddening. Everyone on the show is caping for her, and it’s puzzling. After all, June is not the first woman in Gilead to be victimized. Hell, some of those risking their lives to help June are also victims of missing kids.
While entertaining largely due to Elisabeth Moss’ phenomenal acting, a feeling of “enough already” permeates the show in its constant brutalizing, dehumanization, and the way it favors the hierarchy of privileged women. It can be a challenge to cheer for June because of her immoral actions, yet, her circumstances have been understandably horrific. While there needs to be understanding when someone suffers something horrendous, the show’s sense of morality and retribution walks a dangerous line. Because of all the suffering she’s endured, June’s white savior complex is amplified; she feels like no one can tell her anything, which feels so quintessentially Karen. She knows what’s best, and that’s tragically similar to those she wants to destroy. So while we fear her turn to the dark side, and the descent is engaging, her distinctly white feminism often undercuts what can be a captivating show. [B]
The new season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is available now on Hulu.
