jessieexplores

[jessieexplores]

you know instead of making Nick a commander, or putting more focus on Serena, even Lawerence, even though i enjoyed his character, why in the hell they didn’t focus on how Mayday infiltrated the power structure, which honestly sure keep Nick as a commander, BUT USE THAT as a means of infiltration.

idk if i’ll ever be over what they did to one of my favorite books. maybe this is why i get so irked when people say “you’re centering this around a man” no ma’am. those people just thought they could write a better story and they couldn’t.

you think a bunch of people on the outside of a regime are going to take it down, with little to no help on the inside? alrighty then.

[jessieexplores]

and this would have been a satisfying ending. should’ve stopped while they were ahead 🤷‍♀️

Blood. Fire. Forever: The Best of the Nick/June Cuts

Cut: The one where Nick delivers Fred to June and they burn the world together (4x10)

This one isn’t an ending, it’s the ending. 4x10 isn’t just about Fred’s death, it’s about what Nick and June become in the act of it.

Everything the show built between them comes to a head here, in blood and fire.

The sheer brilliance of this episode is how it strips away everything else: politics, allegiances, even survival, and leaves only the truth of them. This isn’t just another Nick/June cut, it’s the truth of who they are and why they’ll never be able to walk away from each other.

Nick’s arrival at the border with Lawrence is already charged before a single word is spoken. Lawrence is smug, playing puppet master as usual, but Nick is different: taut, quiet, dangerous.

He’s there to deliver Fred, but the moment is layered with everything that’s come before: every compromise, every secret, every piece of himself Nick has had to bury to survive in Gilead.

And now he’s standing on this literal border, a man split between two worlds, about to hand over the one thing June has always deserved: justice.

Then comes the slap.

It’s not just physical, it’s emotional history crashing forward.

Nick hits Fred with years of pent-up fury, for every Ceremony forced on June, every time Fred called her “Offred,” every humiliation she endured under his command.

Nick has endured Fred’s smug power firsthand, too, living under him, spying on him, forced to watch him brutalize the woman he loves.

That slap is personal.

It’s love, rage, and vengeance condensed into one motion.

And it lands not just on Fred, but on the whole system Fred represents.

For Nick, this is resistance. Not speeches, not overt rebellion, but the quiet, calculated violence of a man who has learned how to survive inside the machine while still striking at its core.

Nick’s own way of fighting back, of saying no more, of making Fred answer for everything he’s sown.

The second June arrives, Nick’s body language changes.

One heartbeat he’s steel, the next he’s all gravity, pulled entirely into her orbit.

Every ounce of tension in him recalibrates toward her with focus, protection, devotion. You can feel it in the way Max plays it: the stillness, the softening, the way his eyes never leave her.

“Do not be deceived. God is not to be mocked. For whatever a man sows so shall he reap.” 

On the surface, it’s scripture, a holy warning for Fred.

But through Nick’s mouth, it’s more than that, it’s prophecy. It’s Nick speaking June’s justice into existence.

He’s saying, in his quiet, deliberate way: this man will pay for what he’s done to you.

He’s not just handing her Fred, he’s anointing her vengeance, sanctifying it with the gravity of his love and his faith in her.

The beauty of the moment is how little Nick makes it about himself.

He isn’t claiming space in the act, he isn’t asking to share it, he’s framing it for her, setting the stage for her to step in and finish what she needs to finish.

Everything about him says: this is yours. Do what you want. I’ve got you.

And then June kisses him.

No words, no hesitation, her body moves first, like she has to taste him before anything else can happen.

It’s not tender in the way of candlelight and safety; it’s feral, loaded, impossible to contain.

You can feel everything colliding in that moment: gratitude, rage, longing, devotion.

It’s “thank you,” it’s “I see you,” it’s “we’re the same fire.”

What makes it hit so hard is that it isn’t planned or staged, it erupts.

June doesn’t stop to articulate, because what she feels can’t be spoken.

Nick has just given her the gift of Fred, the man who destroyed her, and in return she gives him the only thing that makes sense in that second: her mouth on his, their flames entwined.

This kiss isn’t just affection, it’s recognition.

They’re twin flames, mirrors, partners in something bigger than themselves.

The heat of it seals them, not in a domestic way, not in a “happily ever after,” but in the raw truth of who they are: two people bound together by love, rage, and survival, unable to stop burning even if they wanted to.

Max plays every ounce of that fire through Nick’s eyes. Those trademark looks, the longing, the surrender, the absolute devotion, it’s all there, wordless but undeniable. He gives himself away completely in that gaze.

You can feel that Nick isn’t just giving June Fred, he’s giving her himself, all in, no armor left, just love and sacrifice laid bare.

And then he walks away.

June is still glowing, her eyes locked on him as she breathes out that “thank you.” 

It isn’t casual gratitude. It’s the kind you save for the one person who sees you, who gives you what no one else ever could.

She watches him leave like she’s tethered, like her body would follow if it could.

This is not unrequited. It’s not lukewarm or uncertain.

This is a woman head-over-heels, completely consumed, watching the man she loves vanish into the shadows after giving her the ultimate gift.

And Nick doesn’t walk away because he’s indifferent, he does it because he’s already given her everything. He’s placed the power in her hands, and now he lets her carry it.

Nick doesn’t need to stay in the frame to prove his love. The truth is already here. In the slap, in the scripture, in the kiss, in the goodbye.

Rage and devotion, sacrifice and fire.

Whatever the show tries to tell us later, this moment stands unshakable.

This isn’t an almost, it isn’t one-sided. It’s love written in blood. Nick and June aren’t just lovers here: they’re partners, twin flames, unstoppable.

Love as resistance. 💕

Because in the end, love is as strong as death.

And that’s a wrap on my Nick/June Cuts series — all my favorites, from the first knock on the door to that blood-soaked kiss of vengeance. 💔🔥

Thank you to everyone who’s been reading, reblogging, screaming in the tags, and generally riding this spiral with me. Putting these together has been cathartic and honestly healing, and I’m so glad I got to share them with people who love this ship as much as I do.

Cut credit: @trademarkblue

[jessieexplores]

Bridge. Love. Devotion: The Best of the Nick/June Cuts

Cut: The one where the bridge is everything (4x03)

This scene lives rent-free in my brain. I’ve watched it a thousand times and it never loses its power. Because this is the moment that blows every later rewrite of their story to pieces. It’s not unrequited love. It’s not delusion. It’s not June lying to herself. It’s a woman who knows this man, who sees him exactly as he is, flaws, compromises, blood on his hands, and chooses him anyway.

She loves him, full stop.

That’s why the bridge plays like a love letter, like their own Bodyguard moment. They might as well have rolled credits with Whitney singing “I Will Always Love You.” Because from the second June walks out and sees Nick waiting, everything changes.

The chemistry is staggering. Years of tension, glances, whispered confessions, all of it funnels into this one scene. If the series had ended right here, as heartbreaking as that would have been, I would have been fine with it. Because it says everything about who they are and how they feel. And I don’t know how you could film this scene, watch these two together, and not understand that they are the heart of the story.

Nick, true to form, makes Hannah the priority. The first words out of his mouth aren’t about himself. He wants her to know she’s safe. Then he starts to apologize, and June stops him cold. No apology needed. She doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t doubt him. She trusts him. That alone speaks volumes about where they are by Season 4.

And then June cracks. She’s finally allowed to stop holding herself upright because Nick is there. And that’s when he steadies her, hands gentle but firm, forehead pressed to hers like he could fuse them together, like proximity alone might keep her whole.

Max Minghella wrecks me here. He plays it with this trembling restraint, like Nick is one heartbeat away from falling apart himself, but he refuses to let it happen because she needs him steadier than she is.

His breath catches audibly, his voice drops to that low, raw whisper, and he gives her the truths she needs most in this world:

“She loves you. She loves you. I love you.”

It’s not just a declaration.

It’s Nick handing June his soul, stripped bare. He puts Hannah first, because that’s who June is, that’s what she needs to hear, and he knows it. Then he lets the final words slip, almost against his own will: I love you.

It’s not tactical. It’s not calculated. It’s not even careful. It’s instinct. It’s the one thing he can’t not say in this moment.

And the look in his eyes as he says it? God. It’s not pleading, not possessive. Max plays it like Nick is taking a mental photograph, burning her into memory, because he already knows she’s about to be ripped away again.

He’s saying goodbye in the same breath as he’s saying “I love you.” That’s why it guts so deep. You can feel him fracturing even as he holds her. He’s already broken before she walks away, because in his mind, this is the last time.

And then, that June "turn".

It’s so small at first, just a pause in her step, but you feel the earth shift. June has walked away from Nick before. But here? She doesn’t make it to the van. She can’t. Her body rebels against the script. And in that split second, you can see the decision register: she’s not going to leave without showing him what he means.

She runs. Straight back into him.

The kiss detonates. It’s not delicate, not rehearsed, not even remotely careful. It’s urgent, electric, feral, the kind of kiss that says if I don’t have you right now, I might actually die. 

And here’s the brilliance: it’s not Nick pulling her in, it’s June charging him like a force of nature. She grabs his face like she’s staking her claim, like she’s imprinting her need directly onto his skin.

And this is why I will forever call bullshit on any later suggestion that June is “confused” about what she wants. Look at her. Look at how she consumes him. This is pure, unfiltered desire. It’s rare in their story that the want comes through this nakedly from her side, and here, it’s undeniable. EM plays it with a raw hunger that cuts through every single layer of denial the show tries to slap on later.

She isn’t pretending. She isn’t waffling. She isn’t torn.

She’s choosing Nick, in the most primal, instinctive way possible. Her body makes the choice her circumstances won’t let her say out loud.

And it’s glorious.

What follows is the soft unraveling after the storm.

The kiss has blown them apart and stitched them back together, but now comes the part that shatters me: the gentleness.

June keeps his face in her hands like she physically cannot let go, like if she does, he’ll disappear into the void. She whispers, hey, and it lands like the most intimate word in the world. Just that tiny syllable, cracked open with emotion, pulls him back to her.

And those eyes, those devastating Max Minghella eyes, are brimming with love, already wrecked by the inevitability of letting her go, and still so achingly tender it hurts to watch.

Then she says it. I love you. 

Only the second time she’s ever spoken it aloud, and the way she says it, like it’s oxygen, like it’s the only truth she has left to give, it just destroys me.

It’s not performative, it’s not cautious, it’s not a half-truth hidden between breaths. It’s June stripped down to her core.

And Nick. Oh, Nick.

He doesn’t waste it with speeches or self-pity. He just reaches out and touches her nose, that tiny, almost childlike gesture, like he’s reminding himself she’s flesh and bone and not a dream he’s about to wake from, and says it back: I love you. 

Simple. Uncomplicated. Absolutely, devastatingly true.

That final kiss, feather-light, feels less like a kiss and more like a prayer. A benediction.

The way they both close their eyes, as if shutting the world out could stretch the moment into forever, is unbearable in the most beautiful way.

June presses her lips to his forehead, the gentlest goodbye, almost like she’s blessing him, before she walks away.

And you know in your bones that neither of them will ever recover from this moment.

It’s why every attempt to rewrite their story later rings false. Because on that bridge, there is no doubt.

No hesitation. Just love, raw, undeniable, eternal.

And me? I’m roadkill. Absolutely feral. Bawling on the floor. Sending the therapy bill to Bruce Miller personally because HOW are we supposed to survive after watching this… and then watching that series ending.

Cut credit: @trademarkblue

[jessieexplores]

the way they looked at each other once she was standing was just chefs kiss

Trust. Touch. Surrender: The Best of the Nick/June Cuts

Cut: The one where Nick stands over June like a knight in bloody shining armor (4x02)

There are TV scenes that land. And then there are TV scenes that hollow you out in the best way. This one belongs in the second category. It’s dark, dangerous, terrifying on the surface, and then it pivots into one of the most achingly intimate Nick/June moments in the entire series.

This is The Handmaid’s Tale at its absolute best: brutal, suspenseful, and somehow still a love story. Honestly, the entire run from this scene through the bridge kiss in 4x03 is a masterclass. If I sound dramatic, it’s because the show actually earned it here.

Nick finds her at the safehouse, and the first words out of his mouth are simple but weighted: “where are the Handmaids?” He could’ve barked it like an order. He could’ve come at her with cold authority. But he doesn’t. The line lands with this strange softness, careful and searching, like he’s trying to remind her: it’s still me. You can still trust me. On paper, it’s a demand for information. In practice, it’s him reaching out through everything between them, asking her to see him again.

What makes this scene hit even harder is the subtext. June knows now. She’s aware of his past, the violence, the blood on his hands. The weight of who he’s had to be in this nightmare. And Nick knows she knows. He doesn’t defend himself. He doesn’t posture or explain. Instead, he offers her the only thing that matters: 

“I’m trying to keep you alive.” 

It’s not just a line, it’s a vow. The way he says it is gentle but unshakable, like he’s carving the words into the air for her to hold onto. And then he touches her, grounding her, reminding her in the most physical, human way that no matter what she’s seen, no matter what she knows, she is still safe with him.

And then comes the shift that destroys me every time: the surrender. Her hand loosens on the gun, she lets it fall, and in that tiny gesture you can feel everything. It’s not weakness. It’s not defeat. It’s trust. It’s love. It’s her saying without words, I believe you. I still believe in you. 

In a world where every decision is about survival, the act of surrendering to him is as intimate as it gets. She’s giving him her life in that moment, and the fact that she can do that after everything speaks louder than any declaration ever could.

The way it’s staged seals it. Nick standing over her, the music swelling, his eyes fixed on her like she’s the center of gravity holding him in place. It’s protective, it’s reverent, it’s almost unbearable in its devotion. He doesn’t just look at her like he loves her, he looks at her like she’s the only thing tethering him to the earth, the reason he’s still here, the reason he’s still fighting. For once, the show lets the love story be as big and operatic as the horror surrounding it.

This scene is perfection. A collision of danger and devotion, survival and surrender, and everything Nick and June are distilled into a single moment. It’s the kind of scene that lingers, because beneath the fear and the violence, it reminds you why we root for them in the first place.

Cut credit: @trademarkblue

[jessieexplores]

oh now i need to piggy back off of this because of something i just heard someone say, why can’t the main female character end up with the love interest, like it some how diminishes her story arc? but it’s ok for a main male lead to end up with his love interest and it doesn’t take away from his arc?

both June and Nick had their individual story lines, and were strong on their own, and at the same time while their stories intersected it was just as strong.

if The Handmaid’s Tale is about women’s oppression and how the patriarchy is damgerous, but also about women reclaiming their identity and autonomy as a form of resistance, then please explain to me like i’m five how June choosing a relationship with Nick isn’t part of what the show is about..?

Gilead doesn’t believe in love or rather they think it’s bad, then wouldn’t a woman who finds love in a desolate place be subversive to that regime? wouldn’t a woman who finds trust and understanding not just with her fellow handmaid’s but a low ranking man be subversive in a place that reprograms you to distrust? wouldn’t a man who sees women as human beings, who recognizes their torment, be subversive to Gilead’s belief system? who once finds out June’s name only calls her that to her face, be a form of resistance?

the show lost that in its final seasons. because now you got people out here saying the show was never about June finding love and holding onto that love. June found love because she’s a human being, she held onto that humanity as a form of resistance against Gilead. and how that’s all of a sudden lost on people, baffles me.

and Nick? he was worthy of that love, because of his devotion to June and their daughter, because up until season 5 he was keeping tabs on Hannah, because he knew what she meant to June. he never wanted to control her, because he simply did not want to. he took what she was willing to give. so miss me with that BS that their love wasn’t powerful and beautiful.

the ending was bad. because it lost its messaging. because there was no narrative coherence in the ending. because the tone no longer matched what it used to be. and also because the plot no longer made any sort of sense 

[jessieexplores]

if The Handmaid’s Tale is about women’s oppression and how the patriarchy is damgerous, but also about women reclaiming their identity and autonomy as a form of resistance, then please explain to me like i’m five how June choosing a relationship with Nick isn’t part of what the show is about..?

Gilead doesn’t believe in love or rather they think it’s bad, then wouldn’t a woman who finds love in a desolate place be subversive to that regime? wouldn’t a woman who finds trust and understanding not just with her fellow handmaid’s but a low ranking man be subversive in a place that reprograms you to distrust? wouldn’t a man who sees women as human beings, who recognizes their torment, be subversive to Gilead’s belief system? who once finds out June’s name only calls her that to her face, be a form of resistance?

the show lost that in its final seasons. because now you got people out here saying the show was never about June finding love and holding onto that love. June found love because she’s a human being, she held onto that humanity as a form of resistance against Gilead. and how that’s all of a sudden lost on people, baffles me.

and Nick? he was worthy of that love, because of his devotion to June and their daughter, because up until season 5 he was keeping tabs on Hannah, because he knew what she meant to June. he never wanted to control her, because he simply did not want to. he took what she was willing to give. so miss me with that BS that their love wasn’t powerful and beautiful.

the ending was bad. because it lost its messaging. because there was no narrative coherence in the ending. because the tone no longer matched what it used to be. and also because the plot no longer made any sort of sense 

[jessieexplores]

Terror. Tenderness. Truth: The Best of the Nick/June Cuts

Cut: The one where Nick says “I’m not going to let anything happen to you” and kisses her like he means it (2x07)

She’s scared.

Not of punishment. Not of being caught. She’s scared because she just saw a Martha gunned down in the street, no trial, no warning, for doing nothing. For being in the wrong place, for existing in the wrong way. For being seen.

And the reality of Gilead feels so real. It’s bullets. It’s blood. It’s death in broad daylight.

June Osborne has never been a coward, but this?

This shakes her.

Because she knows it could’ve been her. It will be her, if she’s not careful. And for the first time in a long time, she doesn’t feel brave, she feels breakable.

He doesn’t try to fix it. He knows he can’t.

Instead, he says the only thing he can say. The thing she’s been silently aching to hear:

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

And she looks at him, eyes wide, mouth trembling, and asks the question that breaks his (and our) heart:

“What about you?”

Because she knows. She knows how dangerous it is for him to be near her. To love her. To protect her.

She knows what he’s risking just by being here, touching her, looking at her like that.

And still… she needs to ask. Because the thought of something happening to him? It’s unbearable.

This isn’t a man she’s using. This isn’t a fling. This is the man she loves standing in front of her, promising protection like it’s the only language he knows. Even though she hasn't said it aloud yet.

And for once? Nick can’t hold back.

Not with words. Not with restraint.

So he kisses her.

And this kiss — this kiss — is everything.

It’s desperate. Unfiltered. Raw. It’s the kind of kiss you give someone when you think it might be your last. When you can’t say all the things you want to say. When your heart is breaking and still you choose them, again and again.

It’s the kind of kiss that says: I love you. I’m terrified. I’d do it all again.

And in that moment, June finally understands how deep it goes for him. How much he’s been holding in. How much he loves her, not in theory, not in secret, but right now, with his whole chest.

This isn’t a daydream. It’s not a fantasy. This is Nick choosing her, here, in public, in danger, with the weight of Gilead pressing in around them.

And she kisses him back like she knows it. Like she needs it. Like it’s saving her.

Because it is.

This isn’t just a kiss. It’s a reckoning. It’s the moment everything she's tried to suppress comes flooding up, the fear, the longing, the love that terrifies her because it’s so real.

He’s told her now. Out loud. “I love you.” “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He’s said it in no uncertain terms. He’s not walking away.

And now she has to feel it. All of it.

So she holds him.

Not like she’s trying to stop time. Not like she’s scared he’ll disappear. Like she’s choosing him. Like she’s pulling him into her, where it’s safe. Where he already lives.

And she takes him in, his closeness, his warmth, the way his hands ground her like an anchor in a storm, and it’s all there. The truth. The grief. The hope. The love she hasn’t said yet but feels, with her whole body.

This kiss is not a promise they’ll survive. It’s not a plan. It’s not even rational.

It’s the thing that makes them human.

And the fact that the show would later try to tell us these two gave up on each other like it was nothing? Laughable.

Because you don’t kiss someone like this and forget. You don’t hold someone like this and move on.

This is the kind of love that marks you.

And June Osborne? She’s marked.

Because in this hallway, in this flash of intimacy carved out of terror, they both stop pretending.

They’re not just allies. Or co-parents. Or ships passing in the night.

They are it for each other.

And that’s what makes Season 6 so maddening.

Because once you’ve seen this — the fear in her voice when she says “What about you?”, the way he says “I’m not going to let anything happen to you” like it’s a vow, the kiss that levels them both — you know.

You know this isn’t a maybe love story.

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime one.

And anyone who says otherwise wasn’t watching.

Cut credit: @trademarkblue

[jessieexplores]

this

Desire. Desperation. Declaration: The Best of the Nick/June Cuts

Cut: The one where June says “I can’t lose you” and Nick finally says he loves her out loud (2x06)

She tells him what he has to do.

Not because she wants to. Because Gilead gives her no other choice.

Eden’s going to report him. She’s suspicious, jealous, ready to blow everything up, and June knows it. Knows how young girls like Eden are trained. How dangerous “piety” becomes when it’s weaponized.

So she tells him, carefully, deliberately, to go. To sleep with his child bride. To protect them both.

And it breaks her.

Because this is not a woman asking for distance. This is a woman trying to save his life.

And Nick knows it.

He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t plead. Just stares at her like the world is slipping through his fingers.

And then she says the words that rip him open:

“Because I can’t lose you.”

And that’s it. That’s the moment everything cracks.

Because Nick Blaine — this quiet, careful man — has spent the entire season loving her in silence.

He’s held back when it hurt. Bit his tongue when he wanted to scream. Built walls to protect her, and buried his own feelings underneath them.

He’s been the watcher. The guardian. The man in the corner who gets things done without asking for anything in return.

But this?

This breaks the seal.

Because June doesn’t just admit she cares, she begs. Not with volume. Not with tears. Just with truth. And it cuts through every layer of his restraint.

She says “I can’t lose you,” and for the first time, he knows she means him. Not what he can do. Not what he represents. Him.

The man. The lover. The father of her child. The person she still reaches for, even now.

And for Nick, that’s enough.

It’s not safe. It’s not smart. But it’s real. So he says the one thing he’s been swallowing down for what feels like forever:

“I love you.”

No hesitation. No soft landing. He says it like it’s oxygen. Like it’s all he has left.

Because she deserves to hear it — not just through his protection, or his presence, or the way he looks at her like she’s the center of gravity — but in words.

Simple. Clear. Devastating.

He doesn't say it because he wants her to stay. He says it because she might not. Because if this is all they get, she should know.

Because what June is really saying is: You matter to me more than anything. And what Nick is saying back is: You are everything.

It’s not romantic. It’s not ideal. It’s Gilead. It’s terrifying.

They’re standing in the ruins of what should be impossible: love, here.

And yet, there it is.

Not a whisper. Not a question. A statement.

This is where Nick Blaine plants his flag. Not in power. Not in rebellion. Not even in hope. But in her.

In the truth of what they are.

He’s been unraveling since the wedding. Since the Ceremony. Since he found her in the rain.

And now, with no protection left, no illusion, no mask, he finally gives her the thing she didn’t know she needed:

The words.

Not just devotion. But declaration.

She can tell him to protect himself. She can make the hard call. She can do the brave thing.

But he’s still going to say it. Because if this is the last moment they get — if this is all they can have — she deserves to hear it. Just once.

And she does.

It’s not about sex. Or shame. Or survival.

It’s about the only thing they have left that’s still theirs:

Love.

Cut credit: @trademarkblue

[jessieexplores]

Scripture. Side-Eyes. Subtext: The Best of the Nick/June Cuts

Cut: The one where Nick turns a Bible verse into a love letter (2x05)

This cut is quiet. Controlled. Wordless between them. But it’s also a declaration. A protest. A love letter wrapped in scripture and delivered like a dagger. The Waterfords think they’re staging a morality play here, a little parlor performance about marriage and virtue, complete with decorative Handmaid. But Nick? He flips the script the second he opens that Bible.

“Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love delights not in evil but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things. Believes all things. Endures all things. Love never fails.”

The second those words leave his mouth, the air shifts. Because he’s not reading for them. He’s not performing. He’s talking to her. Every line, every breath, every subtle glance is aimed straight at June like a silent vow.

Nick’s voice is steady, but his eyes tell the story. There’s heat behind them. There’s defiance.

And when he gets to: “It keeps no record of wrongs.” He looks directly at June. Not a flicker. A look. Deep. Intentional. Deliberate. Like: I know what you’ve done. I know what’s been done to you. And I love you anyway. Still. Always.

It’s not forgiveness. She didn’t ask for that. It’s grace: unearned, unconditional, undeniable. And it lands.

Because she looks back.

Quiet, steady, present. Even hollowed out and fraying, she sees him seeing her. And for a second, just a second, she breathes. And so does he.

Because this is Nick Blaine, Gilead Husband™️, reciting holy scripture in a sitting room full of villains, and every word is a shot across the bow.

He’s not just professing love. He’s resisting.

He’s saying: You can marry me off. You can surveil me. You can make me play house with your child bride. But you can’t take this. You can’t take her.

And then the moment hits like a slap:

“Husbands and wives only.”

And it’s not just pain on his face. It’s rage.

Because this isn’t just about separation. It’s humiliation. It’s the Waterfords reminding him she’s not his wife. Not his anything. Not anymore.

Except? That’s a lie.

Because she is. Always has been. Always will be.

And that look he gives them as June walks out? That’s the sermon.

Because this isn’t just romance. It’s rebellion. It's love, real love. The kind that sees you at your worst and stays anyway, and yet, has no place in Gilead. It threatens the whole machine. And that’s exactly what Nick is doing here. Threatening them. Quietly. Boldly. With nothing but his eyes and the Word of God.

He’s not just speaking to June. He’s speaking for her. Declaring her worthy. Refusing their shame. Claiming what’s his, not by ownership, but by devotion.

This is what Atwood meant by love as resistance.

Not the soft kind. Not the easy kind. But the radical kind. The defiant kind. The kind that endures. And endures. And does not fail.

Because even in the belly of the beast, Nick Blaine opens his Bible, finds the truth, and preaches it straight into June’s soul. Not for them. For her.

And that? That’s holy.

Cut credit: @trademarkblue

[jessieexplores]

i think it’s ironic how the writers/show runners wanted us to believe that Nick was somehow pro Gilead in season 6, and i’m not just talking about the laundry list of things i could use from seasons 1-4 to say other wise, but there’s a specific scene from season 5, which mind you is only a few months from season 6 timeline, but it’s where Nick meets June at that school in no man’s land, i think it was from episode 9 if i’m not mistaken, where June is asking him to take Tuello’s deal, and Nick is explaining to her why he can’t, and this is a tribute to Max’s acting, but he says something along the lines of Gilead is Rose’s home, and when he says it, he shakes his head as if he’s disgusted by it. it’s so subtle, but that alone tells he is not pro Gilead, nor could he ever be.

[jessieexplores]

Frustration. Fire. Consent: The Best of the Nick/June Cuts

Cut: The one where June and Nick fight and fuck like it's the only language they speak (2x02).

Welcome to the Boston Globe episodes. The Boston Globe building was a graveyard. Bloodstains left behind. Names scratched into brick walls by the last people who died there. She stood inside it. Breathed it in. And now she’s barely keeping her body upright.

Her plan is simple, impossible, everything: Get to Hannah. Get out. No strategy. No backup. Just one mother, a tiny spark of hope, and a world still trying to kill her.

But now she’s safe, and she’s already trying to leave again. And not for some resistance fantasy, for something even more dangerous. To get her daughter back. Alone. No protection. No plan.

“Because you’re trying to play the hero, huh Nick?”

She throws it like a jab, trying to keep the walls up. But she’s scared, and so is he.

He watches her start to disappear in front of him, and he can’t stand it.

“You’re being so fucking stubborn,” he says, pacing like his body might explode from the weight of his fear.

It’s not really a fight. It’s a collapse in real time. Two people barely holding it together. Both knowing what’s at stake and helpless to stop each other.

He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t plead. He just reaches into his coat, and hands her his gun.

He knows what she’s walking into. Knows she might not come back. Knows he can’t stop her.

But he gives her the only thing he can: protection. Power. A chance. It’s not just a gun. It’s trust. It’s grace.

And that’s what undoes her.

Not the fight. Not the fear. The fact that he still gives. Even when he knows he might lose her.

She stares at him. Stares at the car. At the dark unknown beyond it. But her body won’t move.

She turns back. Walks inside. Crosses the space between them like it’s nothing.

She grabs his hair, rough, urgent, no hesitation, yanking his head back just enough to say see me. Then she slides her hand down his pants like she owns him, because in this moment, she does. Not out of power. Out of need.

He lets her. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t question. Doesn’t pull back. Because this is their language. This is how they speak when the words won’t come.

Then he moves.

Pushes her up against the wall. Kisses her like he’s drowning and she’s the only thing keeping him from going under. It’s not gentle. It’s not rehearsed. It’s instinct.

Her legs around his waist. Their bodies still clothed and still burning. Their breath all teeth and heat and panic.

They fuck like they’re trying to outrun the ghosts, the ones hanging in the Globe, the ones hanging in their own chests. Like the only way to survive is to feel something that’s theirs and only theirs.

She doesn’t ask him to be careful. He doesn’t ask her to soften.

They just are. Two people broken open and still choosing each other.

Because for all the pain, all the fear, here’s still this. This rhythm. This knowing. This place to land.

They’re not a fairytale. They’re not some sanitized couple with good boundaries and good timing. They’re unhinged. Messy. Complex.

And the thing is? He matches her.

June sets the fire, and Nick walks straight into it, not to put it out, but to burn with her.

Because he’s just as gone for her as she is for him. Just as crazy. Just as dangerous. Just as in it. And he never tries to pull her back from the edge. He just stands beside her, and jumps.

There’s this moment, just after she grabs him, just after he slams her against the wall, where she bites him. Hard. Like she’s claiming him with her teeth.

And his face, God, his face.

He looks at her like he can’t believe what he’s holding. Like she’s feral and holy and his, all at once.

Then he turns her around.

Not gently. Not slowly. Not sweetly.

Forcefully. Deliberately.

Because this isn’t about carefulness. This is about letting go.

And he fucks her from behind like he understands it: the pain, the fear, the chaos she’s carrying. Like he’s holding space for it the only way he knows how.

It’s not romantic. It’s not tender. It’s everything else.

And when it’s over, when the silence wraps around them tighter than the room, she nudges him.

A little smile. A flicker of warmth in the aftermath.

“I can’t,” he groans, breathless. “I can’t.” And she just smirks. “Try.”

Like: I’m not done with you. Like: This? Us? This is what’s real.

And let’s just say it: This isn’t Season 5. This isn’t the scene where June tells someone to stop and he doesn’t. This is the opposite of that.

This is trust.

This is June leading, and Nick listening. This is sex that isn’t about possession, or performance, it’s about presence.

Because when Nick touches her, it’s never about owning her. It’s about knowing her. And when she takes from him, it’s because she knows she’s safe to. This isn’t soft-focus, candlelit nonsense. This is a war story with orgasms. They’re a disaster. A holy mess. They bite, they bruise, they beg for more. And it's glorious.

Cut credit: @trademarkblue

[jessieexplores]

🩸 What Margaret Atwood Says About Men 🩸

GENDER AND THE PATRIARCHY: In the Handmaid’s Tale.

While many fans view The Handmaid’s Tale solely as a story about female oppression, Margaret Atwood’s own words remind us that patriarchy harms everyone outside the elite — including men.

“It’s not just women who are controlled in the book… it’s everyone except those at the top. Gilead is a theocratic totalitarianism, not simply a Men-have-power Women-do-not world. Lower status men are told when and who to marry.”

— Margaret Atwood, Twitter (2018)

Atwood’s portrayal of men is nuanced and unflinching. She doesn’t paint them all as monsters — but she also doesn’t let them off the hook. Here’s how she breaks it down:

🔹 Beneficiaries of Patriarchy

Men in Gilead enjoy built-in privilege — over women’s bodies, their futures, and their identities. Commanders have power simply because they’re male and high-ranking. They don’t need to earn control; it’s given.

🔹 Perpetuators of Control

This system doesn’t just appear — it’s enforced. Commanders write the laws. Guardians enforce them. Eyes surveil and punish. Even “good men” participate in violence through duty, denial, or loyalty to structure.

🔹 Complicity and Conformity

Atwood’s brilliance is in showing how oppression doesn’t always look like cruelty. Sometimes, it looks like indifference. Like comfort. Like a man watching his wife lose her job — and saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

This is Luke’s role in the pre-Gilead collapse. He isn’t in uniform. He isn’t a Commander. But he benefits from the system while offering nothing to resist it. When June’s money was seized, Luke didn’t rage. When she was fired, he didn’t protest. He reassured her with paternalistic affection — not action. That’s not love. That’s paternalism disguised as protection. Luke is complicit because he believes his stability makes hers unnecessary. He represents the kind of man Atwood warns us about: The one who doesn’t hurt you — but doesn’t help you either.

🔹 Power, Fantasy, and Fragility

Atwood critiques male fantasies of dominance — and how fragile masculinity clings to control out of fear of being challenged. Gilead institutionalizes these fantasies through Handmaids: compliant, silent, fertile. Women reduced to function, arranged around male insecurity.

🔹 Men Are Not Exempt from Oppression

And yet — not all men are safe. Low-status men (Guardians, drivers, Econohusbands) are also assigned wives, monitored, and discarded when they step out of line. Their status is conditional. Their masculinity, policed. Even inside the system, many men remain disposable. Just not as disposable as women.

Not all men choose comfort over courage.

Nick Blaine was in the system — but not of it.

And he’s the clearest example of what resistance looks like from the inside.

[jessieexplores]

Let me be clear, when I say “I love The Handmaid’s Tale”, I’m talking about the book not the soap opera.

[jessieexplores]

something i cannot stop thinking about from The Handmaid’s Tale finale, is how June just willingly gives up her daughter, Nichole (yes i’m going to continue to call her that, because i refuse to erase Nick from existence) to be raised by someone else, while she chooses to run off to do whatever.

in TT she gives Nichole up because it’s not safe for her to be with her. but in the show they erase that danger for some reason. This woman already had one daughter ripped from her arms, you’re telling me she just willingly passes the other one off? Absolutely not. she would want to keep her close, that’s why it made sense in the book for her to give her up for her own protection.

i do not know how you can claim this show is about motherhood, when a mother just walks away from her child after already losing one. they want to claim it’s for noble reasons, like getting Hannah back, even though there’s a slim chance in hell for June to rescue her herself safely.

[jessieexplores]

Why Season 1 The Handmaid’s Tale Won Awards (And Why It Deserved To)

I started the Nick/June Cuts series not just because I’m emotionally wrecked by these two (though… I am), but because revisiting their scenes in Season 1 reminded me how good this show used to be. How specific. How intimate. How brilliantly it understood that rebellion isn’t always loud, and that love, when layered and complicated and earned, can be revolutionary.

I’ll be going through 4x10. Because to me, that’s where the story still held its power. Still honored its roots. Still understood what it was building.

There’s a reason Season 1 cleaned up at every major awards show. A reason it felt electric. Devastating. Timely. Feminist. Erotic. Terrifying. And above all, cohesive.

Because in Season 1, the vision was clear. The creative leadership understood that The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t just a dystopia. It’s a mirror. A meditation on power, identity, desire, and survival. It’s about how women hold onto themselves in the face of erasure. It’s about what it means to love—and resist—when both things could get you killed.

And Bruce Miller got that. His adaptation of Atwood’s novel wasn’t just faithful to the world she built, it expanded on it. Carefully. Intelligently. Intimately.

Season 1 made bold choices: • Framing sex as resistance • Letting June’s interiority guide the tone • Crafting Nick as a moral gray zone: someone who offered safety without idealization • Giving weight to every glance, breath, silence

It was nuanced. Brutal. Sensual. Literary. It trusted its audience.

Somewhere after Season 4, the center gave out. Creative control shifted. Tuchman, Yang, and Moss stepped in with clear intentions, but the wrong instincts. They stripped away the layers. Made it plotty. Punishing. Emotionally inconsistent.

Nick and June stopped being the heart of the story and became narrative obstacles. The show stopped being about women surviving and subverting power, and started being about who could suffer the most.

Motherhood became a weapon. Not a source of agency, but a trap. A moral leash. June was punished over and over for daring to want both love and justice, for being a mother who was also a woman with desire, rage, and a past she didn’t want to erase.

And somehow, in the middle of all that, Serena got handed a redemption arc.

The same Serena who designed the system. Who held the whip. Who brutalized June, ordered rapes, and played power games with a child’s life. Suddenly she was the one granted nuance, protection, and, unbelievably, sisterhood.

It was a reversal of the show’s own thesis.

It betrayed the feminism it once embodied.

And the result? A story that once felt revolutionary started to feel regressive. A story about survival and subversion became a story about punishment and pain.

But let’s talk about Nick Blaine for a minute.

Because for me, one of the biggest heartbreaks of this series wasn’t just what they did to June, it was how deliberately they unraveled Nick. How they rewrote him into a plot device. A guilt trip. A mistake.

Margaret Atwood told us who Nick was. In The Handmaid’s Tale’s Historical Notes, he’s not a maybe. He’s not an ambiguity. He’s a Mayday operative, planted inside the regime. He’s the one who got June out. He risked his life to do it. He could have killed her, and didn’t. Because — as Atwood puts it — “the human heart remains a factor.”

“More likely it was “Nick,” who, by the evidence of the very existence of the tapes, must have helped “Offred” to escape. The way in which he was able to do this marks him as a member of the shadowy Mayday underground, which was not identical with the Underground Femaleroad but had connections with it. The latter was purely a rescue operation, the former quasi-military. A number of Mayday operatives are known to have infiltrated the Gileadean power structure at the highest levels, and the placement of one of their members as chauffeur to Waterford would certainly have been a coup; a double coup, as “Nick” must have been at the same time a member of the Eyes, as such chauffeurs and personal servants often were."

And Max Minghella got that. His Season 1 performance is a masterclass in restraint. You can see every contradiction in his body: the stillness, the shame, the control, the want. He plays Nick like a man caught between two versions of himself, the role he plays to survive, and the person he’s terrified to become if he lets himself care. But then he does care. And we see what that costs him. Every look. Every breath. Every time he lets June in a little more.

And here’s where I get angry.

Because somewhere around Season 5, the writers decided that desire was dangerous, not in the way it always had been in this world (punishable, subversive, radical), but in a way that made it bad writing. Like the show couldn’t bear the weight of its own history. Like it had to walk back the story of love, resistance, and intimacy it once told so carefully. Like it couldn’t bear to let Nick exist in the gray anymore. And started preaching to the audience.

And in doing that, they didn’t just flatten him. They criminalized him.

As if wanting June was predatory. As if helping her escape was selfish. As if being quiet, conflicted, devoted, but not performative, made him the villain.

It’s absurd. It’s regressive. And it’s not what Atwood wrote.

Because this was never just a story about survival. It was about connection. Real, messy, human connection in the face of erasure. And Nick and June were the heartbeat of that idea. Love as a risk. As a rebellion. As a choice.

Season 1 got that. It was lightning in a bottle.

And it’s not just nostalgia talking.

It earned every award.

It's the only canon that matters.

So yes. I’ll be rewatching the best of the cuts. Reposting. Reclaiming. Because this story deserved better. Nick Blaine deserved better. And Season 1? That’s the blueprint.

[jessieexplores]

Unbutton. Unravel. Undo Me: The Best of the Nick/June Cuts

Cut: The night Nick fell in love and we all blacked out (1x05)

There are TV scenes that hit. And then there are scenes that haunt. This one? It lives rent-free, mortgage-free, tax-free in my soul. Every single time. No words. Just need. Just surrender. Just two people who stopped pretending for one night and let it all burn.

How we got here (and why it hurts so good):

This scene doesn’t just hit out of nowhere. It earns its emotional punch, so a few call-outs that didn't make the top cut list.

The kitchen eye contact earlier in the episode? Thick with tension. Charged. That stare-down before Serena tells June about the “arrangement”? It's silent acknowledgment of something bigger building between them.

I’ve always had complicated feelings about the Ceremony scene in Nick’s room, Serena watching makes it feel theatrical, performative, and deeply violating. But that discomfort is the point. It makes the moment that follows, when June comes back to Nick on her own terms, all the more powerful.

And then, Nick tells her he’s an Eye. A moment of real trust, dropped into a world built on lies. The book keeps it vague. The show does not. It lets us know: he’s already taking risks for her. Another creative decision I fully approve of. Like I said, season one was stacked with choices so good, you almost forget them in the hell of later seasons.

So when June knocks on his door, it’s not impulsive. It’s inevitable.

Let’s break it down:

Knock knock. It’s game over.

June knocks. He opens the door. And that’s it. No one says a thing. Because nothing needs to be said. Everything is already understood.

She walks in like she’s making a choice: for herself, for her body, for her need to feel something that’s hers again. And Nick? He’s still. Reverent. Holding back like she’s made of something holy and he doesn’t want to spook her.

And then she begins to undress him. One layer at a time. Eyes locked. Heart exposed. Every movement deliberate.

It’s erotic, yes, but it’s also honest. Vulnerable. Raw. You don’t see scenes like this on TV. Not like this. Not this quiet. Not this full of meaning.

Nick? He’s wrecked. The look on his face when she’s standing there, completely bare, it’s the look of a man falling in love and not even trying to stop it.

He’s done. A total goner.

And Max Minghella? He sells it without a single word. Just breath, stillness, and that aching, stunned reverence.

Lips. Hands. Zero self-control.

The moment their lips meet, all that carefully restrained tension erupts. It’s messy. Desperate. Immediate. The kind of kiss that doesn’t ask permission because it’s already too late.

They can’t keep their hands off each other. Breathing ragged. Touching like they’ve been starving for it.

It’s real. It’s raw. It’s intimate. Not performative. Not power-driven. Just two people letting themselves feel after being forced to feel nothing for so long.

This isn’t just lust, it’s a release. A reclaiming. Of agency. Of desire. Of choice.

You can practically hear the emotional locks clicking open with every touch. And the rhythm of it? It’s not rushed, it’s urgent. Like they know they may never get this again. Like it’s now or never.

They’ve been circling this moment for episodes. And now that it's here? They don’t hold back.

And that’s the tragedy, too. Because you know, they can’t stay here. Not in this room. Not in this feeling. Not in a world like Gilead.

Softness, surrender, and everything they don’t say.

There are so many intimate details in this scene, I almost get lost in them. The way it’s shot, the way it moves, it’s not just about sex. It’s about who they are.

June is decisive. In control. She’s choosing this. Choosing him. And Nick? He lets her lead. He follows her cues. There’s no ego, no hesitation, just surrender. Not in a passive way. In a way that says: I trust you. I want this, but only if you do too.

And then he’s on the bottom. And everything about him shifts, the vulnerability, the awe, the way he just lets go. It’s not performative. It’s emotional. It’s him handing over the last bit of control he’s been clutching to survive in this place.

He doesn’t want to stop touching her. Doesn’t want the moment to end. The way he reaches for her, gentle, insistent, it’s like if he lets her go, it’ll all vanish.

He doesn’t say “I love you.” He doesn’t have to. His body says it for him.

This scene rewired my brain chemistry. Someone cast Max Minghella in a romance immediately. Preferably shirtless and whispering “Are you sure?” in candlelight.

Cut credit: @trademarkblue

[jessieexplores]

this needs to be shared over and over again. if they really wanted to make a political statement, Serena’s character was perfect for that: how dangerous privileged white women can be. they’re the people more likely to vote against their own interests, who aren’t just dangerous for other women, but for other marginalized people.

The Dangerous Myth of Redemption: June’s Forgiveness of Serena

In The Handmaid’s Tale, one of the most troubling narrative choices of the final seasons is the framing of June’s apparent forgiveness of Serena Joy. Serena, June’s abuser and rapist, a central architect of Gilead’s terror, receives not accountability but empathy — an empathy the show encourages viewers to share. This choice does not merely distort character arcs; it sends a dangerous message about abuse, complicity, and the nature of forgiveness in the face of oppression.

Serena is not just another woman surviving within a patriarchal regime. She is one of Gilead’s foundational architects — a woman who advocated for the removal of women’s rights in a book entitled A Woman’s Place, while never living by the doctrine she helped create. She was not a passive wife but an active political operative: writing policy, speaking publicly, and even participating in the planning of violent attacks that led to Gilead’s formation — including assaults on the Capitol, the White House, and the Supreme Court. She is portrayed as believing wholeheartedly in Gilead’s ideology, continuing to support it well into later seasons. In every instance where she could have escaped or defected, she instead chose to stay — or, when temporarily exiled, to return.

The fact that she is ultimately trapped within the world she built should not compel viewer sympathy. Her rare and self-serving attempts to change aspects of the regime are always motivated by personal stakes — not empathy or principle. Even after Noah is born, she shows no interest in full-time motherhood, entrusting his care to Marthas while seeking status and influence. Her arc is not one of awakening, but of strategic adaptation. The show’s portrayal of her as a tragic mother or fallen believer whitewashes the very system she created — and the cost of that narrative leniency is paid by characters like June.

A Mother First, a Monster Second: Serena’s Self-Justification

Since Season 1, Serena has been portrayed as both victim and perpetrator, but crucially, she remains ideologically aligned with Gilead’s core principles. Though she occasionally expresses personal regret about how she treated June — moments that the show highlights as supposed growth — Serena never truly repents for building the regime or enabling its horrors. Her emotional center remains tied to her own desires: power, recognition, and above all, motherhood. Even Yvonne Strahovski, who portrays Serena, has expressed skepticism about her character’s redemptive potential, stating in an interview: “I mean, it would take a lot to make her redeemable ... maybe she should become a nun or something. … It’s all for her own sake.” She elaborates further, acknowledging that while Serena may be aware of her wrongdoings, “she justifies them constantly because of her own personal circumstances… It’s a selfish survival mode, it’s not for the greater good of others.” (AwardsRadar, 2021). This actor’s insight aligns with the show’s textual portrayal: Serena’s choices are never truly altruistic, only strategic, and motivated by self-interest

Serena’s justification for Gilead’s terror crystallizes in her belief that “maybe it was all worth it.” This chilling admission reveals that, for Serena, the suffering of others — including June — was a price she was willing to pay to achieve her goal. Gilead, in her eyes, made her a mother, and that personal fulfillment absolves the system’s crimes.

She may have deeply wanted to become a mother, but she never showed any desire to be a full-time caregiver; her priority was always power and influence. Serena only pursued surrogacy via Handmaids after "window shopping" for kidnapped children — a chilling flashback in Season 5 shows her and Naomi evaluating children as if they were accessories. When her first Handmaid dies by suicide, Serena doesn’t mourn her — she’s angry that her reproductive plans have been disrupted. And even after Noah’s birth, Serena hands off most caregiving duties to household staff, contradicting her supposed maternal ideal.

As feminist theorists like bell hooks have noted, the tendency to excuse women’s complicity in patriarchal systems by framing them as victims of their own circumstances is deeply problematic. It shifts the lens from responsibility to sympathy, allowing women like Serena — women with power and agency — to hide behind sentimentality and strategic tears.

When Forgiveness Becomes Betrayal: June’s Survivor Story Undermined

June is often portrayed as a deeply Christian and forgiving woman — a trait the show emphasizes throughout the series. And yet, this identity is at odds with some of her most reckless decisions, many of which have led to unnecessary deaths in the name of her personal mission. That contradiction becomes especially glaring in her selective forgiveness. She extends empathy and grace to Serena, her abuser and rapist, but withholds it from Nick — the father of her child, the love of her life, and the man who risked his life repeatedly to help and protect her.

Nick’s so-called betrayal, which June condemns without hesitation, involved him revealing vague information about the Mayday plan under extreme duress. He never exposed names or concrete details. In fact, according to Max Minghella’s interview and the subtext of the scene, Nick assumed Wharton already knew about the plan and was merely testing him. It wasn’t betrayal — it was survival. Had Nick refused to speak, he likely would have ended up on the Wall. The choice was no choice at all. And yet, June’s response is not understanding, but condemnation.

This double standard reaches its peak when June lets Nick board a plane she knows has been planted with explosives — an attack orchestrated via Lawrence. Meanwhile, she embraces Joseph Lawrence, who refused to help her find Hannah, stood by as commanders plotted to kill her, and was complicit in shooting down the planes that were meant to raid Hannah’s school and rescue the children. She also grows closer to Aunt Lydia, who tortured her and her friends, mutilated Janine, and remained loyal to Gilead’s ideology for years.

This selective moral logic undermines June’s arc. It asks the audience to accept a distorted sense of justice where charismatic abusers are forgiven, while allies who falter under impossible conditions are discarded. It’s not only unrealistic — it’s narratively irresponsible.

When evaluating Serena’s role in June’s brutal rape, carried out at nine months pregnant, the show’s creators themselves emphasize that there is no ambiguity in Serena’s culpability. In an interview, writer Yahlin Chang makes clear that Serena actively “helped Fred rape June to make the baby come faster,” saying the brutality reflects Gilead’s normalization of assault:

“They don’t see any problem with that… I wanted to get it to the truth of sexual assault.” (The Washington Post, 2018)

This branding of the act as political realism underscores Serena’s moral agency: she does not hesitate to weaponize June’s body to satisfy her own longing for a child — even as June nears full term. That level of direct orchestration leaves no room for the sentimental forgiveness the narrative later grants her.

Serena’s cruelty is not limited to a single episode. She has a long record of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse toward June. After suspecting that June was pregnant — and then discovering she wasn’t — Serena punished her by confining her to her room for two weeks. She slapped, pushed, and physically assaulted her repeatedly — once smashing her head into a doorframe. She drove her fingernails into June’s hands during the Ceremony. She arranged Nick’s forced marriage to Eden and showed excitement at a wedding where visibly underage girls — no older than 13 or 14 — were married off. She paraded Hannah in front of June like a hostage and repeatedly used the child as a threat. Her cruelty was not incidental or coerced; it was sustained, intentional, and fueled by possessiveness and rage.

Despite Serena’s unrepentant stance, the show increasingly positions June as a figure of compassion toward her. The narrative aesthetic — soft music, tender close-ups, Serena’s tears — encourages viewers to see Serena primarily through the lens of her maternal suffering rather than her role as an oppressor. June’s gestures of empathy, from aiding Serena in childbirth to comforting her in moments of vulnerability, are framed as signs of June’s strength and healing. But this depiction misrepresents the realities of trauma and recovery.

As trauma theorists have argued, genuine healing does not depend on — and is often undermined by — offering forgiveness to an unrepentant abuser. On the contrary, forgiveness that is premature or demanded by social or narrative pressures can retraumatize the survivor, deepening the harm. The Handmaid’s Tale, however, seems to valorize June’s capacity to empathize with Serena as though it is a necessary step toward her own liberation — sidelining the need for justice and accountability.

The Perils of Sympathizing with the Oppressor

By romanticizing June’s forgiveness of Serena, The Handmaid’s Tale undermines its own feminist foundation. The series was initially celebrated for exposing patriarchal violence with stark clarity, offering little comfort to those complicit in oppression. Yet in its later seasons, that clarity erodes. The moral weight of the story shifts from the survivors of Gilead’s cruelty to the emotional struggles of its enforcers.

Elisabeth Moss herself describes the June-Serena dynamic in strikingly intimate terms, calling it “the centerpiece of the show. It is the love story of the show. They’re the heroes and the villains of the show, and they often trade places in those roles.”  (Vanity Fair, 2025) This framing lays bare the series’ approach: Serena and June are positioned as moral equals whose bond transcends their history of violence and abuse.

But this interpretation is deeply troubling. By romanticizing a relationship born of exploitation and cruelty, the show risks blurring essential moral lines. What began as a tale of survival and resistance against oppression transforms into a narrative where the abuser and the victim are cast as co-protagonists in a mutual drama — their power dynamics softened, their crimes reframed as mere chapters in a complicated love story. In doing so, the series undermines its own critique of patriarchy, offering redemption where none was earned and asking viewers to invest in an emotional arc that obscures the need for accountability.

Serena’s redemption arc is not earned through transformation or accountability, but through the emotional labor of her victim — a dynamic that feminist philosophers like Kate Manne have identified as central to the maintenance of misogynistic systems. The cultural narrative that emerges suggests that women’s participation in oppressive regimes is forgivable, even understandable, so long as they conform to familiar roles of suffering or maternal devotion. This is a dangerous message, as it not only distorts the ethics of the story’s world but also risks normalizing similar patterns in the real world, where abusers are often shielded by sentimentality and the myth of personal redemption without accountability.

In the end, June’s forgiveness of Serena is framed as a triumph of compassion over hatred, but in truth, it represents a failure to honor the survivor’s story. It offers a fantasy of absolution for the unrepentant — a dangerous myth that serves neither justice nor healing.

The implication is chilling: redemption is not about moral reckoning or change, but about who the narrative chooses to protect. Charisma, motherhood, and suffering become shields for cruelty — even as quiet, loyal resistance, like Nick’s, is punished or forgotten.

Beauty, Youth, and Sympathy: How the Show Shapes Our View of Serena

Another subtle yet significant way The Handmaid’s Tale distorts the moral clarity of Serena’s character lies in its casting and characterization choices. In Margaret Atwood’s original novel, Serena is an older woman, her power diminished not only by Gilead’s patriarchal structures but also by the way those structures devalue women past their reproductive prime. The novel’s Serena embodies the consequences of a system that punishes all women, even those who helped build it — a bitter, discarded architect of her own cage.

The show, however, deliberately alters this dynamic. By casting a younger, strikingly beautiful actress as Serena — and by crafting the character to be closer in age and life stage to June — the series invites a different kind of viewer response. The age gap that symbolized Serena’s loss of status in the book is erased; instead, Serena becomes a figure of misplaced potential, a woman viewers are encouraged to see as still vibrant, desirable, and emotionally complex. This is compounded by the charisma and vulnerability that Yvonne Strahovski brings to the role — traits that, while a testament to the actress’s skill, contribute to the moral confusion surrounding Serena’s actions.

This choice taps into a well-documented cultural bias: audiences are more inclined to empathize with attractive characters, particularly when their suffering is framed in familiar, humanizing ways. As feminist thinkers such as Naomi Wolf have argued, beauty functions as a kind of currency within patriarchy — one that can grant power, obscure culpability, and manipulate perception. In The Beauty Myth, Wolf describes how cultural narratives often conflate a woman’s value with her appearance, conditioning audiences to see beauty as a proxy for virtue or worth. Similarly, Laura Mulvey’s critique of visual culture notes how cinema trains viewers to find pleasure — and thus sympathy — in looking at beautiful women, even when their actions warrant moral scrutiny.

By making Serena younger, more beautiful, and emotionally layered through casting and scripting choices, the series not only departs from Atwood’s sharp commentary on the cost of complicity but also reinforces antifeminist tropes. It suggests, however unintentionally, that oppressive women are more forgivable — or at least more worthy of our sympathy — if they are attractive and charismatic. As Susan Bordo has pointed out, this dynamic reflects a deeper cultural logic that binds women’s moral and social value to their bodies, inviting audiences to forgive or excuse when those bodies conform to certain ideals.

The result is a narrative that prioritizes Serena’s humanity over the dehumanization she inflicted on others — and ultimately, over the humanity of those who were never granted the same narrative grace. This is especially striking when contrasted with the show’s treatment of Nick — a character who, despite his emotional restraint and consistent moral compass, is given significantly less screen time and far fewer opportunities for emotional framing. His sacrifice is quiet, his pain internal, and his love expressed in subtle, selfless gestures. His stoicism may be misread by some as detachment, but to viewers with literary, psychological, or visual literacy — or simply higher emotional intelligence — it’s clear that Nick is one of the most tender, brave, and quietly heroic characters in the series. Serena, on the other hand, remains emotionally volatile and fundamentally self-serving. Apart from Fred — already dead by the final season — she is perhaps the coldest main character, yet her beauty and vulnerability ensure that she is constantly rehumanized by the narrative. In the end, the show teaches us that redemption is not earned — it is framed.

Rather than exposing how systems like Gilead exploit and discard women, The Handmaid’s Tale risks reinforcing the very ideologies it set out to critique: that a woman’s worth, even as a villain, remains tied to her appearance and ability to evoke desire or pity.

Conclusion: The Price of Selective Forgiveness

The Handmaid’s Tale has always been a story about moral ambiguity — about the impossible choices people make to survive within a system designed to strip them of power, agency, and integrity. Its early power came from its unflinching portrayal of these complexities: how even small acts of defiance carried enormous risk, and how survival often required compromises that blurred the line between victim and collaborator.

Yet in its later seasons, the show loses sight of that moral subtlety, offering a fractured vision of justice that undermines the complexity it once honored. June’s journey — once defined by the brutal reality of navigating power under tyranny — becomes clouded by selective forgiveness that follows no ethical logic, only narrative convenience and emotional manipulation.

Elisabeth Moss framed June’s forgiveness not as something she offers to Serena, but as something she does “for Noah“.

„June knows that Serena does need that forgiveness, and June is big enough to give it. She’s a pretty great person.”  (Vanity Fair, 2025) This framing highlights the show’s attempt to portray June’s forgiveness as noble — but it sidesteps the question of whether such forgiveness is just. The moral weight shifts from Serena’s accountability to June’s capacity for empathy, erasing the need for genuine atonement.

We see June extend compassion and even trust to characters whose hands are stained with the very crimes she fought to survive. Commander Lawrence, the architect of Gilead and the inventor of the Colonies, orchestrated the bombing that killed innocents in Chicago, ordered planes to be shot down as they attempted to raid Hannah’s school, and stood by silently as Gilead’s leadership plotted June’s death. Aunt Lydia oversaw torture, mutilation, and humiliation of handmaids for years, burning hands, gouging out eyes, and enforcing the regime’s ideology with zeal. Serena subjected June to relentless cruelty: physical violence, orchestrated rape, psychological torment, and the exploitation of June’s own daughter as a weapon. And yet, June forgives them. She comforts Serena, allies herself with Lawrence, and accepts Lydia’s supposed change of heart — without any of these figures ever fully reckoning with their actions.

By contrast, Nick — who repeatedly risked his life to protect June and Nicole, who worked quietly against Gilead, who fathered June’s child without ever asserting ownership or control — is cast out. His loyalty is questioned, his presence is rejected, and no forgiveness is offered. The show frames him as somehow tainted — not by his actions, but simply by the uniform he wears, or the role he plays within Gilead’s ranks, despite his resistance from within.

Bruce Miller acknowledges this tension, admitting, “Serena’s done unforgivable things. I don’t think there’s any forgiving her as a human being. But can June forgive her? Redemption just doesn’t seem like something that exists in the world. It’s a nice idea in a fictional story, but if our story is going to help the audience navigate the world, it can’t be that picture.”  (Vulture, 2025) Yet, despite this, the narrative does seem to present a picture of redemption — or at least of softened judgment — for Serena, using motherhood and vulnerability as shields. This contradiction mirrors the show’s broader inconsistency: it claims to eschew simplistic redemption arcs, yet writes them into its fabric through emotional manipulation.

This inconsistency reflects, and reinforces, a dangerous cultural message. As feminist thinkers such as Kate Manne, Naomi Wolf, and Susan Bordo have shown, societies are conditioned to excuse harm when it comes wrapped in beauty, maternal longing, or charm. The Handmaid’s Tale — perhaps unwittingly — participates in this dynamic. The beauty, charisma, or proximity to parenthood of Serena, Lydia, and Lawrence becomes a shield that softens our view of their crimes. Serena’s biological motherhood, Lydia’s self-fashioned maternal role toward Janine, and Lawrence’s growing bond with Charlotte each provide a veneer of humanity that the show uses to invite sympathy — even in the absence of true atonement. Meanwhile, Nick — who longs to be present for his daughter but is denied that opportunity — is left without such narrative protection, his loyalty overlooked and his isolation reinforced.

What’s most troubling is not that June’s feelings are complicated — true complexity would enrich the narrative. It is that the show offers no coherent moral framework for forgiveness or condemnation. It invites us to sympathize with unrepentant abusers, while isolating those who resisted. In doing so, The Handmaid’s Tale ceases to critique the dynamics of power; instead, it becomes complicit in the very patterns of selective empathy it once sought to expose. A show that began as a searing portrait of resistance ends by asking its heroine — and its audience — to do the emotional labor of forgiving the unforgivable. That is not catharsis. That is capitulation.