As an eventful and thrilling climax to an eventful and thrilling season, The Handmaid's Tale season 2 episode 13, 'The Word' delivered, but it has set the show on a potentially disappointing trajectory for season 3.
*Note: Major season 2 finale spoilers ahead*
With revolt having demonstrably gotten June nowhere, Serena tried a diplomatic approach to Gilead and its atrocious ideologies this week, forming a coalition of teal-clad women and having them present to Gilead's equivalent of the Senate, Serena arguing for the rule against women reading to be lifted in the case of the Bible and, in a daring flourish, reading scripture before the panel of men. It was the kind of bravery we've been hoping to see from her this season, even though we had a suspicion it may be foolhardy. Indeed, the commanders had no time for her entreaties and sliced off her pinky finger as punishment.
"I tried," she told June in a tender scene back at the Waterford house, June placing a sympathetic hand on Serena's only good one, a sombre denouement to a fascinating Serena arc this season throughout which Yvonne Strahovski has been superb.
Emily, meanwhile, resolved to pre-empt whatever plans her sinister new captor had by stabbing him with a kitchen knife during their first 'ceremony'. When the opportunity didn't arrive she instead used the blade - in a shocking twist - on Aunt Lydia. Stabbed, punched, thrown over bannisters, stomped and kicked down a flight of stairs, I think we are to assume Lydia is dead, which is a great shame as Ann Dowd has been perhaps the best thing about the show (though I wouldn't rule out her pulling through - Fred survived a bomb blast with just a few scratches after all).
Having exacted swift and violent punishment on Serena, Fred figured he better try the carrot instead of the stick with a furious June, promising to let her stay at the house and even see her daughter if she acted the good little housemaid, but June's mind was already made up. The burning house diversion and emergence of a network of rebellious Marthas that afforded her escape all happened pretty fast, to the point of feeling rushed, as June and her daughter were shepherded out of the house and neighbourhood, Nick managing to keep Fred back in the house.
Serena's redemption arc was complete as she caught the mother and daughter fleeing but allowed them to go, positioning Serena as the new June; physically abused and oppressed and now surely seeking an out from Fred's tyranny (here's hoping she still has that cigarette pack from the American operative).
And so we came to the season's final scene, set under a dark bridge haemorrhaging rain onto the asphalt. Emily's new commander turned out to be a force for good (so just as well she didn't shank him!), not punishing her for attacking Lydia but instead helping her to freedom. "I am become death," Oppenheimer famously said with regret after inventing the atomic bomb, and perhaps the commander felt a similar guilt over his invention of Gilead's colonies.
I was hoping June and the newly-christened "Nicole" (the name change a gesture of warmth for Serena) would board the truck with Emily and flee, setting up for a very different third season based outside of Gilead and looking in, or else shifting the focus to a different character(s) in the republic.
Instead, we got an ending that felt Star Wars-esque (right down to the moment she pulled her hood up like a Jedi would, though this reclaiming of the robe that had enslaved her was nice), June passing Nicole to Emily and returning back to Gilead to try and emancipate her other daughter, Hannah.
As Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" played over the credits, the message seemed to be 'no more Mrs. Nice Handmaid', though how she can possibly take on a military state single-handed one can only imagine - not to mention the fact that a key theme this season has been her realisation that struggling only seems to make her predicament worse.
I'm not sure a 'June strives to free Hannah' season is the kind I want to see next, but if it is then perhaps I'm just being impatient. Yes, there is so much for the show still to explore, it having established a fascinating universe, but in service of this, the creator has conceived of a potential ten seasons for the show.
The Handmaid's Tale season 2 concluded on Hulu in the US on Wednesday and continues a few weeks behind in the UK on Channel 4.
