sometimesoliloquy

[sometimesoliloquy]

🎉🎉🎉

(finally, some justice even if it is cold comfort)

Just the absolute laziest, most cowardly writing. I can't get over it. This show BETTER NOT get any Emmy nods this year, I swear to god…

[sometimesoliloquy]

Father’s Day fanfic spotlight on:

Pretty, Pretty Princess

By volaremos

“Wait, what about the servant? Did she stop loving him?” Holly looked concerned.

“No, she saved him too.” Nick's face softened as he answered.

Ok, last rec for this little Nick Blaine Father’s Day fanfic mini-marathon because suddenly it’s Sunday night and I still have weekend chores to do (whoops😅). But what a great place to end, because oh my goodness, this one shot is so cute and purely sweet and I think it healed my Nick-loving, Osblaine-loving heart just a little bit. Prime Dad!Nick content with Holly (and really sweet mention of Hannah), story time with fairytales that come true(😭🥹), and wish fulfillment for how it should have turned out back in s4 if June had actually fought for Nick for once!

Please feel free to chip in with any other Dad!Nick recs you may have, I just know there are more I may have missed (and there were definitely more multi-chapter fics tagged to Nick/Holly but since I just got the idea today I stuck to 1-2 chapter fics for the purpose of time)😆.

[sometimesoliloquy]

Father’s Day Fanfic spotlight on:

Nick and Holly

By AniRay

“Other times her little hand would reach out and hold onto his. Nick had to learn how to turn pages without letting go of her. It was good. And every night, once she’d fallen asleep, he’d kiss her forehead and whisper, ‘I love you, Holly.’

He always wanted that to be the last thing she heard.”

Oh man, stumbled on this gem in the Nick/Holly tags and it is giving all the Dad!Nick feels 😭. This is a two-parter from the perspectives of Nick and Holly, respectively. It presents an interesting twist in the premise: what if June escaped but was unable to take Holly with her? We get to see Nick being a (secret) dad to his daughter through her formative years, and of course selflessly sacrificing for her. This one will stab you right through the heart and then heal it beautifully 😅❤️‍🩹.

[sometimesoliloquy]

Father’s Day fanfic spotlight on:

Dear Holly

By Arctic_comet

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49227001

He turned to her, frowning, seemingly taken aback by the question. Holly watched as his face morphed, and careful words took form in his mouth. “I’m not alone, I’ve got you.”

Another rec! Single Dad!Nick being the amazing father we know he would be to a teenage Holly in Canada. A heartbreaking in a way, but ultimately really beautiful story of fatherhood and family ❤️❤️‍🩹.

[sometimesoliloquy]

Father’s Day Fanfic spotlight on:

you'll be in my heart

By thismidnight

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32996746

And if she thought his smile was bright earlier, it’s nothing compared to now. She can practically feel the happiness radiating off of him as he looks at Holly like she’s the best thing he’s ever seen or held in his arms, with more love than she ever thought was possible shining in his eyes.

This was the story that helped inspire my TT Dad!Nick one shot: it’s an incredibly sweet expansion on the little family reunion scene of 4x09. A beautiful heartwarming vignette with a bittersweet ending.

[sometimesoliloquy]

The Light that Shines on Us

A few missing moments occurring after the end of "The Testaments". Another long-awaited reunion.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33016744

Eventually he says, low and kinda hoarse, "she's our little girl, we're supposed to protect her" and she says "hey, it's ok" and then "look at me" and he does, but he doesn't move away. She says "our daughter is strong, and so brave. She's here." and he sort of sighs and nods his head against hers, and it's like whatever there was is released.

Happy Fathers Day to Nick Blaine ❤️‍🩹❤️

In honor of the occasion, I’m reposting this brief post-Testaments one shot I wrote after finishing s4 and reading TT. It’s my first and only THT related fanfic, IDK the spirit just moved me, lol, and I’m glad it did because whatever fucked up anti-Nick fanfic s6 was, book TT (you know, where Nick is alive and working against Gilead underground) is still canon as far as I’m concerned, and so this ultimate father/daughter reunion is also still my headcanon.

I know there are other wonderful Dad!Nick stories out there, so I may try to find and spotlight some of those, too.❤️

[sometimesoliloquy]

I was today years old when I found out HBO (oh, so we're calling it HBO again now? thought so) is doing a new Harry Potter series and my main takeaways are:

1) apparently today-year-old me is old as fuck because my first reaction was huh, why do we need another adaptation, the movies were only like 5 years ago... (oh wait)

2) we are really giving JK more money? like probably a LOT. really???? (really?)

3) i guess my silver lining is the thought that maybe in 25 years there could be another television adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale that gets it right (for real Max Minghella better get to work ASAP on having a son who becomes an actor and looks and sounds just like him though).

[sometimesoliloquy]

Random headcanon of the day: Nick Blaine is 1000% Scorpio ascendant sign (fight me😂).

🦂♏😭😆🤭☺️

🤭🤭🤭😊

😭😭😭🥺

(transcript excerpt from the Horoscope Weekly with Aliza Kelly podcast June 4th 2025 ep: "AstroloTea: Your Rising Sign Isn't a Mask, It's a Mission")

See, now I'm furious all over again that the writers and show runners robbed this deeply complex character of the chance to fully realize his flipping destiny and spiritual mission in life as written by the goddamn stars that should have been his journey at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale and leading up to the events of The Testaments.

😭😠😩😂

[sometimesoliloquy]

Oh, please.🤦‍♀️ Look, I know a lot of yall have been way smarter than me about June for several seasons now (which I fully admit) but honestly I was the biggest June supporter/apologist for so freaking long despite so much against her (especially s3) because I have such a soft (and admittedly apparently somewhat blind) spot for messy, strong, human, “unlikable” female characters, and obviously the trauma is *significant*… but even besides Nick, s6 was just the last straw with June for me.

In the last season we watched her continue to redundantly and inexplicably fold herself into a pretzel to be a good little compliant wifey to Luke (even after he stopped asking for that!!), belittle everyone else around her for not being as good of a badass rebel as her (forgetting her own lengthy collateral damage I guess), proceed to treat her literal physical, mental and emotional abuser as well as rapist (as well as actual co-founder/architect of Gilead) like a harmless, cherished old friend who she just bickers with and rolls her eyes at sometimes, and perhaps most alarmingly and undeservedly, apparently suddenly become some kind of blameless, saint-like superhero who of course only selflessly cares about all of humanity and the greater good (Hannah who?).

What?? Where did this character go who was stubborn and brave, AND selfish and ruthless AND soft and compassionate AND held both beauty and so much ugliness within her but was HONEST and HUMAN and so I wanted to root for her? She seems to have been demoted from a three-dimensional character to one or maybe two; a self unaware hypocrite giving cheesy, cringey long-winded speeches; someone apparently too afraid to claim the love she was literally wiling to die for in earlier seasons because of what “people would think”.

I maintain that s5 should have seen her firmly in therapy processing her own trauma, rage and guilt rather than in whatever weird, awkward and inadequate couples therapy with Luke that was, trying to unproductively force down her anger and fit herself back into that nice little pre-Gilead happy wife-shaped box (apparently for nothing, after all). What a waste of a character. Of multiple characters. What a fiasco.

Anyway, it seems fairly clear that this person taking such offense is very likely a Serena stan hiding behind “what about June!” outrage to avoid being called out for supporting a real women-hating female character who personally raped and abused at least 2 of her fellow gender and helped to cause the imprisonment, rape, and death of at least thousands of others, and has actually shown no real signs of her belief system having fundamentally changed, so, whatever.🙄🤷‍♀️

This poll is open to everyone. So everyone can vote for who they want. I didn't mention Nick's character in any way, so people are free to choose.

I must ask. Why being so disrespectful ? You don't like Nick's character ? That's totally ok actually. I respect that and I won't try to change your mind. But why shamed us for caring about him? Why shamed us because we actually liked him ? So I'm asking again, why being so disrespectful ??

Then you said you choose to vote for Serena. Great! She was a huge part of the show and Yvonne is a wonderful actress and she did an amazing job. But let me ask you : did you actually vote for her just to piss everyone off ? Because she is a woman ? Or because you actually liked her character ? Feminism should be about equality, not superiority. Yes, this show is supposed to focus on women, I agree. But does it mean that every men in this show are bad ? Does it mean that, because we choose a character who isn't a woman, we support patriarchy ? That because we didn't choose June as our favorite character, we project our own fantasies onto some guy ? I don't think so. But the poll remains open to everyone. People can vote for who they want. So it would be nice to be respectful. Thank you.

[sometimesoliloquy]

This is so true. And Let's look at this even closer in the larger context of the show and it's major players, both "hero" and "villain" alike. Because even if it were the case that Nick ONLY ever does ANYTHING good for June (which, you could debate all day over the s2 Jezebels letters and whether that was strictly for June or more "noble" reasons--honestly I don't know why it can't be both--but the reason he became an Eye is made extremely clear and there was no June around, no selfish reasons to be seen). But EVEN IF it were the case, we should also remember:

Lawrence is shown as Eleanor (with a healthy side does of regret having mainly also to do with her) being his absolute and ultimate motivation. Even after her death, "I have to clean up my mess for Eleanor" is a JLaw track played on repeat.

Aunt Lydia only finally "sees the light" because of her love for (and probably guilt over) Janine (this after horribly abusing her for years I may add, cutting out her eye and then sending her off time and again to be raped, physically and emotionally harmed).

Serena's entire raison d'être is to have a baby of her own (apparently it doesn't much matter which one since she transfers her single-minded obsession from Nicole to Noah once she finds out she's pregnant). We've seen that she would sacrifice anyone and anything to have a child. She does mostly really really horrible things for this. Of course in the end she does one "good" thing in giving up the plane location, only when June plays on her fear of Wharton being a bad father and example for Noah (such a great sacrifice, really, to give up the husband you met 2 weeks ago who you were literally running out on the night before after 1 hour of marriage!). I'm guessing everything she does from here on out is also going to be for Noah.

Luke makes it very clear (stating many times) that he is working with Mayday to fight for Hannah (not humanity, Hannah). And he didn't even do that much for many years, not until his daughter started approaching her teen years and the reality of her being married off in Gilead became a more tangible fear.

And June. Oh, June. As has been drilled into us over and over again, June's love for Hannah--and getting Hannah back--is her single-minded motivation. June would literally sacrifice anyone (and indeed has) for Hannah. Many have already died because of June's quest for her first daughter and likely more will.

So when people say that "Nick only ever acts because of his love for June" (I would also have to add their daughter in there as I think should be obvious), it's like... Ok, so your point is that he is like every single other major character in the show, all of whom are motivated more by love for their own dear ones than for the abstract concept of a greater cause or humanity itself?

It drives me nuts when Anti-Nick people say he only helped June because he loved her —like that’s a flaw or a reason to be killed off?? Be serious.

Oh selfless ones — how many of you are risking your life for strangers?

The truth is: love is the most real reason people change. Most won’t bend, adapt, or take a bullet for just anyone—but they will for someone they love.

Which is also why that plane scene may drive me insane forever. It's AU level insanity. If that’s my guy on that tarmac, I don’t care what it takes—I’m getting his ass off that plane. Whether I die or not. And that's not even factoring in the baby daddy of it all. There is just no universe where June does that.

[sometimesoliloquy]

No more The Handmaid’s Tale episode next week or ever, Nick’s death, no more Lizzie and Max’s scenes, no more Yvonne playing Serena delulu wonderfully, no more Lawrence’s jokes, no more of my girl Janine, no more Emily or Moira, no more crazy close-ups in Lizzie’s face, Nichole doesn’t have any of her real parents in her life , Hannah is not out, …

Depression is real. 😭

[sometimesoliloquy]

The Gotham Film & Media Institute: Elisabeth Moss and the Cast of “The Handmaid’s Tale” Receive the Ensemble Tribute [video]

[sometimesoliloquy]

“The fandom is centering a man in a story about women, all they can talk about is the man, all they care about is the man and the romance.”

Actually no, what we care about is representation of a strong woman being portrayed as a whole person who can contain multitudes: able to be a mother, daughter, friend, fighter, leader AND a lover if she wants to be. A complexity the character used to be granted before the writers apparently somehow decided it wasn’t “feminist” (a fallacy, btw).

We care about the message it would have sent for the main character to have been allowed to choose for herself a love that makes her feel alive, grounds her and helps her to be the best version of herself as she continues her fight. For her to trust and follow her own heart, mind and gut, as opposed to caving to the societal pressure telling her what she should be and who she should be with. 

Rather than the message we were given, which is that sexual desire and the love and companionship of a romantic partner is a distraction (a “flight of fancy”, even); that as a woman, you don’t get to have that if you want to be strong and independent and reach your true potential (think about how often media sends this same message about a male lead… yeah, not very).

We care about the fact that we wanted to fully emotionally immerse ourselves in an ending that involved beautiful female friendships we’ve been following for nearly 10 years and reflections on motherhood, family and resistance, but were too distracted by nonsensical, unsatisfying character choices, carelessly dropped plotlines and completely unrealistic and unearned moments shoehorned in at the last moment to enjoy the resolution as a whole.

We care about the fact that in the end they seem to have turned a main character we deeply cared about and rooted for into either a sociopath who doesn't care that the man she claimed to love* (at least as of 2 weeks ago) died horrifically, or else has become so fully numbed to death that she is unable to process it, and that this is yet another wound she will have to rip open at some point, another gut-wrenching loss she will have to mourn when she finally reckons with all the the lives needlessly lost over the years.

We care about the show staying even the littlest bit faithful to the spirit and the underlying themes of the source material (and not just in the literal words with which the first novel begins).

The reason we're talking about "the man" (aside from the fact that we appreciate this deeply layered and complex character, which yes, we're allowed to do even in a show centering on women) is that, in so fully and shockingly (the point, ostensibly) destroying not just the character but also apparently everything he had meant to the lead, it also inevitably denies the lead of one of the aspects that made her so relatable in all her messy humanity.

Can she be whole "without a man"? Yes, my god, of course. But she would also not be less with one, or even continuing to love one (or hell, even two) from afar. Was it really necessary to literally blow up the man she loved in order to deny her the choice, even at some potential point in the future beyond what we see after the screen goes black? Personally, I don't find that very "feminist", satisfying or hopeful, but hey that's just me.

*I won’t even get into the fact that we’re not even just talking about romantic love and sexual agency and desire here, we are also quite literally talking about familial love because this was *the father of one of her children*, because quite honestly my point here is that romantic love and sexual agency and desire actually do matter on their very own merit as well.

[sometimesoliloquy]

all of our time chasing America, but she never had a home for me

In season 2, desperate with worry over June's mental health, Nick says to Serena "She doesn't have anyone to look out for her." Serena rightly points out "It appears that she does". Through the years, through thick and thin, even when she was back with Luke and Nick remarried to Rose, he was always there looking out for her. But in the end it appears it was Nick who never had anyone to look out for him.

Nick—as a young man, essentially abandoned by his family, failed by his society and his country. Left without a safety net by the greed and corruption of a capitalist oligarchy masquerading as an equitable democracy. And finally, he ends up failed and abandoned by his own love, the very love that held so much potential to save him as it had saved her. The woman he did and would do anything for but who ultimately refused to fight for him when the raw face of his flawed humanity held up too painful a mirror to her own.

London Grammar’s beautiful song “America” has always made me think of Nick ever since I first heard it four years ago, but now, in the aftermath of season 6 and the series ending, it hits harder (and more tragically) than ever. Interestingly, the artist’s intended meaning behind the lyrics was a more symbolic one, using “the American dream” as a metaphor for her own personal journey of letting go.

But relating to the character of Nick, I think it also works very nicely as a more literal interpretation of how the America in the (semi)fictional world of The Handmaid’s Tale (and June, herself, in representing a much more privileged and complacent sector of that society) let him and so many others like him down—and how our real world America indeed continues to do the same.

How the “American Dream” has essentially become a cruel mirage for too large a swathe of the population, left to flounder and fight for meager scraps, all the while disdained by folks looking down from up on high scoffing “pull yourself up by your bootstraps!”, who themselves have never struggled to literally afford a pair of boots for them or their children.

I get that the writers and show runners wanted to hit a political message with their ending. What I’ll never understand though is the message they ultimately chose to send—one reeking of elitism, classism and non-intersectional white feminism—when they had such an important and poignant opportunity staring them right in the face, one that is both (unfortunately) timely and timeless.

The show really had a chance to highlight the socio-economic oppression that results from corrupt capitalist societies and exacerbates harmful societal division. Which, combined with self-absorbed, self righteous complacency from the upper and middle classes (often even in the most “liberal” and “progressive” populations), makes the rise of totalitarian regimes possible, with those would-be groups looking to grab power (exactly like the fictional Sons of Jacob) thriving on the confusion and division, the “othering” of certain groups, and preying on the most lost and vulnerable in society, those who are disillusioned and desperate, failed by their government and tossed aside by their fellow citizens who view themselves as more “deserving”.

Instead those in charge of THT seem to have doubled down on the idea that certain groups of people are in fact less deserving, in the end providing forgiveness and redemptive arcs for two major architects and founders of Gilead, a baby thieving rapist, and a cattle-prod-happy torturer of women. But not for the disadvantaged young man who got conned into a violent cult parading as a faith-based charity organization for a job and ended up a reluctant citizen of a totalitarian regime with a small amount of power.

They could have presented a message that sometimes good people do bad things out of ignorance and/or desperation, but are still worthy of being saved. That if they have a good heart and want do the right thing, all they might need is someone to say "I see you, I understand." To reach out a hand to help pull them out of the darkness. Instead they gave the character with a tragic backstory an even more tragic ending, with ultimately no one who would fight for him. It's not a very hopeful message if you ask me.

(Sooo this was part of a much much longer review I was writing on my phone in gmail drafts which gmail then decided to delete so fuck me, I guess😅😅😭 Anyway, this is all that was left and I don't have the energy to reconstruct it all, at least definitely not rn, so I guess I'll just leave this excerpt here.)

[sometimesoliloquy]

I see some people saying that The Handmaid's Tale was never about love.

It was love that kept June alive all this time. Her love for her daughters. Her love for her friends. Nick's love for her. She kept fighting because of love. She stayed alive because of love. Even Lawrence came with the idea of New Bethlehem in memory of his beloved wife. Because he loved her.

Love and Power were two of the main themes of the show. June said it herself to Wharton in episode 9.

So tell me, how can you say that love wasn't the heart of the show ?

[sometimesoliloquy]

👏👏👏👏

Season 6 - Critical Mass

Fuck me. Season 6. Some loved it, most hated it. Episode 9 in particular really brought the whole house of cards down for this season, and left the writers and show runners with nothing but angry fans and a thousand questions to answer. I started making my own list sometime ago and episode 9 just tipped me over into critical mass. Because it involved the death of not one but two beloved characters, fans were let’s say, a little miffed. The choice to off Nick Blaine in particular has drawn considerable heat and there’s plenty of reasons why. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest reasons that Season 6 broke abso-fucking-loutely everything.

Firstly, I don’t think that it’s an exaggeration to say that at times season 6 just felt surreal and not in a good way. Previous seasons had set up the rules and guidelines for this world and season 6 simply didn’t care about any of them. For instance; how were people just waltzing in and out of Gilead now? That place used to be fucking locked down. Spot lights, dogs, guard towers, drones, Eyes….anyone remember how Emily had to swim over that freezing river with Holly to get to freedom and it was scary AF? Baby Holly nearly drowned. Now June Osborne, Gilead public enemy number one is just jumping in the car to go shuttle Lawrence across the border to a completely abandoned aircraft hangar. But season 6 didn’t stop there, it also didn’t respect the laws of gravity when it dangled Osborne from a crane 30 feet in the air and then hurled her to the ground without a scratch. In addition to disregarding the very laws of physics, Season 6 also gave characters amnesia on multiple occasions, cited off screen occurrences as lore as some sort of “fail safe”, sought to rewrite characters very natures, violated original texts, assumed knowledge, disregarded plot holes and selectively altered the basic moral compass by which characters would be judged. In fact, there really isn’t much that season 6 didn’t do in terms of just breaking all the guidelines that keep a world intact. I can only hope that it will be used as an example of what NOT to do by future writers, because quite honestly the disbelief and anger by audiences has been visceral, and personally I’ve never wanted to smash my television more.

This season was meant to be about people showing their true faces and I am STUNNED that somewhere, somehow these writers have justified that a woman who participated in multiple rapes, stole a baby, and had her hand in the conception of Gilead, has a benevolent “true face”. On Serena’s wedding night she was astonished to learn that her new husband, King of all the High Commanders was a die hard loyalist who liked to keep a handmaid on staff. She had a bit of a whimper but next morning she was ready to kiss and make up, and then her new hubby left for a morning appointment to execute her bestie. Despite this, Serena the baby snatching rapist, was afforded a redemption arc. I was and am, horrified.

Show runners have seen fit to state that Serena and June were actually the love story all along and I cannot tell you how much it disgusts me to hear that they would actually think that a victim / abuser relationship should ever be described as such. I am deeply disturbed that the creators of this show believe it is appropriate to describe the relationship between a kidnapper, rapist, physical and psychological abuser and their victim, as a love story. To say that June is able to forgive her abuser is one thing, to say that she loves her is quite another. If Serena had been a man, a father, she would have pushed her aboard that doomed plane. As it was she was a mother and therefore untouchable so she ultimately walked away virtually unscathed. So the writers message was we could be forgiven anything, even the vilest acts against our own gender, as long as we reproduced. If they intended me to feel all supported and warm and fuzzy as a woman, they well and truly missed the mark. Women like Serena Joy are fucking traitors, because they know full well what it’s like to be a woman, to fight for every single tiny square inch of freedom, and yet they seek to seize power by crushing their fellow women beneath their heel in order to get it.

Next in line is Aunt Lydia, who sanctioned and carried out torture, rape and murder. She arranged for Janine’s eye to be ripped out and farmed women into slavery. Suddenly she was pleading ignorance over what actually happens to the handmaids in their retirement? Are you fucking kidding me? This woman was so far up Gilead’s arse there was literally nothing that demon didn’t know about what was happening to those Handmaids. Atwood’s text reveals the aunts kept secret detailed files on all of them, and having Aunt Lydia now whining about her “poor girls” after tasing them for 5 seasons is laughable. She’d chained a pregnant handmaid in the basement and informed June she’d be shot after giving birth, so all of her sudden crocodile tears about the ex handmaids being sent to Jezebels was the weakest bunch of bullshit I’d ever seen for her entire character arc. But she’s needed for The Testaments, so she had a benevolent face slapped on her at the last moment and was given a redemption arc of sorts as well. Writers also failed to explain how Aunt Lydia was going to be embedded back into Gilead society now that she’s blown her cover.

Next victim is Lawrence. Last season Lawrence shot down the rescue planes for Hannah and told Blaine that it was a free for all to use June Osborne as target practice. He’s responsible for inventing a world of slavery and death, and he kept his wife imprisoned for years, but Lawrence has a strong papa bear vibe with some punchy one liners, so he gets a redemption arc and a heroes death. It’s worth mentioning that Joseph was actually the one responsible for dragging Serena back to Gilead and NOT Blaine as the Show runners would have you believe. Blaine actually spoke up for her, asking if “it was really necessary to drag her back into this”, however this was painted as Blaine’s decision to bring Serena back……despite the fact it was Lawrence who suggested it…..and physically went and got her…..and virtually strong armed her into the car. It’s also worth noting that Lawrence was all aboard the Gilead train, chowing down on that delicious power as a newly appointed High commander, until he learned that all the other commanders (except Blaine) were gunning for him. So it’s really not like he gave a shit about Mayday out of some sense of righteous justice, he just thought it might save his own neck. The martyr’s death / self sacrificial death are the highest value character deaths and quite frankly I’m not sure he deserved that quality of death but he’s cuddly and Whitford didn’t want him to die a villain, so there you go.

Finally we come to Nick Blaine. Out of the Gilead four this season, he was definitely the one most deserving of a redemption arc, but you know clever plot twist, scapegoat required….and guess who gets fucked after 5 seasons. Nick Blaine had spent 5 seasons risking his life on almost a bi seasonal basis for the protagonist, was deeply in love with her and had connections in Mayday. But in season 6 the writers decided to transform him into nothing but a greedy, power hungry, little fascist over the course of 3 episodes, and then unceremoniously had the protagonist kill him off as some sort of true measure of her strength. The writers not only made him the villain and had him killed, but gave him a death befitting a coward. I’m not sure who thought it would be a good idea to serve up this pile of revenge to a fan favourite who’d been a benevolent companion to the protagonist for the last 5 seasons….but it hideously back fired. I foresaw this when I viewed the original trailers and I prayed that they hadn’t been so stupid as to destroy both a character and a couple that over 80% of the audience were deeply invested in with a spin off waiting in the wings….unfortunately they were and the backlash has been brutal. It was around the time that they decided to bring it all home, that I couldn’t help but notice that out of all of the Gilead four, they’d actually taken the lowest socioeconomic character and seen fit to make him the sole villain and then grind him into a fine powder. It was one thing in season 1 when they illustrated how the poor and uneducated masses could be easily targeted and recruited, it was quite another to make the statement that because he came from “nothing” he was more likely to turn to villainy. Reality is the well spring of most of the worlds evil fuckery lies deep in the hearts of those born to wealth and power. They’re used to it, they don’t like to share it, they’re terrified of losing it and they’ll do anything to get more of it. My nomination for most likely villain out of the Gilead Four was actually Serena. She's used to wealth and power and desperate to send her little spawn of Satan to a decent private school.

Meanwhile in Mayday central the folks there could do no wrong; Tuello fed civilians into the meat grinder that was Gilead’s highly trained military against Blaine’s advice, and yet remained untouched by any moral judgement from the writers. While everyone cheered as Tuello strode purposefully into the room to find Serena breathless at the sight of her little thirst trap, I ground my teeth and felt my fingernails digging into my palms. I just couldn’t help but wonder why on earth would Tuello trust Lawrence after that little incident with Hannah last season either. He’d just been burnt by Nick and his first response is to go pal up with the Architect of Gilead himself? I also didn’t understand why Tuello was skulking around in No Man’s Land in the first place. All the other diplomats were welcome in New Bethlehem, so why wasn’t he running recon or checking in with why Blaine suddenly wasn’t answering his calls? Why not set up a diplomatic embassy in New Bethlehem? Perhaps because IT WOULD HAVE MADE SENSE. This season saw Blaine give up Mayday’s plan. He’d chosen his side apparently and it wasn’t Osborne….after 5 seasons of choosing Osborne (sigh). So I couldn’t help but wonder why this hideous traitor didn’t just tell the other commanders where Mayday central was? He knew approximately where it was and yet there they were all hopping on a plane to DC to work out some intricate plan to curb the rebel operations. I mean the guy could virtually draw a map with a sign that says “bomb here” pointing to the Mayday camp and yet…..Urgh.

The character transformations have gone from zero to a hundred with nothing in between this season. Luke went from wanting to join Mayday, to planting bombs, to running around screaming with a machine gun and hand grenades. Rita went from not wanting to get involved with Mayday, to poisoning the cake with sedatives, to running screaming down the street shooting wildly. Serena got engaged and married in like a week and went from “I didn’t really think about what happened to the handmaids”, to teary eyed demanding to know the “real name” of her new one. Nick proclaimed his undying love for June, 10 seconds later they had a brutal break up, next episode he virtually skipped down the aisle with his wife singing about his new baby and renouncing the parentage of Holly, then he completely ignored the fact that the love of his life was about to be hung (can we just pause and consider how absolutely unbelievable THAT is please), said some BIZARRE shit about commanders being the winners and promptly exploded. Fuuuuuuuck. I mean it would have been hilariously ridiculous if it wasn’t just so fucking tragic to watch all that potential come to such a pointless end. Like so many things this season, this plot line doesn’t make any sense at all. I mean how were these commanders the “winners”? The rebels had just bombed their city and killed most of them, they were practically an endangered species. Somehow the audience was convinced into believing that if the Boston commanders ever made it to DC, Gilead would win and rule over the earth forever and ever. I guess that must have been where they had been keeping their secret special map room and chanting circle. I mean where is the plot? Is the plot in the room with us now? The trajectory on Blaine’s character arc comparative to other seasons, felt like the pilot had suddenly decided to fly the plane into the mountain (excuse the pun). He’d been building to something huge and both of Atwood’s texts indicated that Mayday was in his future, however it was at this point that the writers took incredible licence and deviated from the source material completely. It seemed a huge violation that Blaine’s character was altered from the version in both texts and while all the other characters were carefully manoeuvred into place, he was killed off. Granted Miller and co. had, had the freedom to fill in the blanks between season 2 - 6, various elements of the texts still acted as a guide for these characters natures, journeys and ultimate destinations and there was just no way around the fact that they’d chosen to completely ignore it. Insultingly I was asked to ignore Blaine’s death on the basis that he “had it coming”. Not only was that NOT an answer as to why such liberties were taken with the source material about his nature, depicted allegiances, and you know the fact that he was fucking ALIVE in the book, but that reasoning was also completely riddled with holes.

Throughout the seasons Blaine had been firmly established as an ally to the protagonist via a multitude of mechanisms which were now being blatantly discounted. For example; ALL of the acts of violence that the audience had been shown that were directly and voluntarily committed by Blaine were all performed AGAINST a member of Gilead to either protect the protagonist, at her request or as a form of righteous justice for her cause. Now I was being told that off screen he’d been sneaking around the protagonists back committing horrendous acts on behalf of Gilead….but we just hadn’t seen it….and didn’t know about it…..and SOMEHOW the writers couldn’t understand how that would be confusing..…or even believable. Urgh. The more I looked, the more holes appeared and the more it all just reeked of rewriting history for the sake of a plot twist and a quickly constructed political narrative. For whatever reason it was done, it was sloppy and completely contradictory to the characters original nature, both on screen and in the texts. Even if I did give these writers the benefit of the doubt and BELIEVED their spiel about this character, I’m not sure it worked in their favour to be constantly pointing out that they had neglected to fill in the audience properly on vital character elements during previous seasons.

For some reason the writers and show runners were now under the illusion that their audience had not actually been paying attention while watching the previous 5 seasons, that they had developed some sort of selective amnesia. They also deemed to give the protagonist amnesia, thus making her seem unempathetic, heartless and deeply unlikeable. Blaine had turned up for her countless times and yet was given no quarter. She had simply developed amnesia about what it was like to try and survive in Gilead after a brief stay in Canada. The writers may have intended to make her look strong and assertive, but her failure to extend any measure of compassion or even seek to dig further, made it seem as though the entire relationship had been transactional. It was as if now that Blaine had ceased to serve a purpose, he was being abandoned. This effectively destroyed any integrity to their former bond, it simply made him look like a liar and her an opportunist. I became a bit suspicious that it was not entirely unintentional that these creators were now seeking to change the very nature of this relationship in retrospect, when June attributed Serena responsibility for their relationship in the first place. It sought to completely discount the fact that these two had been circling one another prior to Serena's interference, or even that they continued their relationship despite her objections and efforts to seperate them later.

It was simply more evidence of an almost desperate attempt by the writers to erase this loving connection and replace it with something convenient and superficial. They’d forgotten that Nick and June’s love was actually an act of rebellion, forbidden, a place where both Blaine and Osborne sought freedom and autonomy. Had they remembered this, they might have understood that for a true depiction of a successful rebellion, Nick Blaine should have joined the underground and the two lovers destinies remained intimately intertwined. His true character narrative was as an Eye with connections to Mayday. June / Offred was unsure if she could trust him, but he remained a source of hope, love and quiet rebellion within Gilead. The Handmaids Tale afterword revealed that he’d risked his life to help June escape and gone on to join the resistance. Gilead had tried and failed to kill him at least once and he was later reunited with June and his daughter. The successful depiction of a rebellion that used their relationship as the intended metaphor, was one that had Blaine subvert Gilead as an Eye turned agent for Mayday. Instead his death indicated the success of Gilead to eradicate collective rebellion….by somehow encouraging rebel forces to self sabotage. It simply made no sense, particularly given the rebellions success in the area where Blaine had been stationed. It was like someone had either failed to understand the metaphor completely OR had simply been so desperate to destroy the character and the relationship, that they didn’t care if it meant tearing apart a central theme. Which was absolutely fucking insane.

Fans had followed the writers cues and had understood the underlying message of rebellion in their bond. They’d waited years for the rebellion to succeed and the symbolic narrative to reach it’s natural conclusion, by having Blaine cross the border to join June and Mayday. So when instead the writers chose to start labelling Blaine as a loyalist and gut this relationship, slaughtering this manifestation of collective rebellion, the audience was understandably angry and confused. His role as an embedded Mayday agent in The Testaments stand as evidence that this was precisely who Blaine was and not some dubious fascist all along. Atwood consulted during season 2, but it was only during season 3 that show runners decided to whack a commander suit on Blaine and start using him for statements about patriarchal power that had nothing to do with his original character construct. He was never a commander, not in The Handmaid’s Tale and not in The Testaments either…..but these writers thought they knew better than the author, so here we are. I think about the potential for this story line had it been completed correctly and I could just weep. I could write a book on why the destruction of this character and relationship was one of the dumbest fucking things I’ve ever seen a writer do to their own creation, and how this is one of the biggest violations of an authors symbolic narrative I’ve ever witnessed, but honestly I’ve got a lot to get through today.

The writers and staff scrambled to provide clarity about who Nick Blaine was all along, but what they failed to understand was that it was utterly irrelevant. If they had to tell audiences after the fact who their character actually was and what their true motivations were, then they’d failed their mission. Writers cited story elements that supposedly occurred off screen, as lore when they either should have been clearer from the beginning or just followed the established on screen character arc through without trying to get clever. Now for clarity I believe the rot started in season 5 but only truly set in in season 6.

Come season 6 Minghella would be lucky to get a few minutes of screen time in 6 episodes, and in that time they had to convince the audience that he’d been a totally different person than the one they’d been shown all along. Consider the characters nature, established relationship with the protagonist and everyone around him….over 5 seasons….now with ALL of that think about how impossible it actually is to flip that character in the space of approximately 10-15 minutes, and how insane you’d have to be to green light that shit. And yet SOMEHOW it was my fault for not believing them. Probably because I’d read the books.

Writers asked audiences to reassess characters 4 episodes from the end of a final season. That’s neither realistic or wise and they shouldn’t be surprised if people feel like they’ve been duped and cheated. The fact is that they told audiences that a character had a particular motivation for the last 5 seasons, etched it into to him like it was the very essence of his being, and suddenly they wanted audiences to believe that he was forsaking it in the last moment. That he would simply give it up at the first sign of adversity. That he’d be just kosher with not only giving it up but destroying the object of his obsession within 2 brief episodes. It’s utterly ridiculous, I don’t believe any of it and these writers shouldn’t be surprised by that. You can’t tell me that someone is deep and sensitive in one breath and then tell me they’re angling for an upper management position in a society that enslaves the vulnerable in the next….particularly if the bottom of barrel is exactly where they come from. It makes no fucking sense.

Because of his core nature as a sensitive, loving and loyal individual, the ONLY parts of Nick Blaine’s character that actually EVER made any sense were the ones attached to Mayday, those that loved June, that “would do anything for me and for Nicole”, that were trapped and tricked into signing onto Gilead, anything else just seemed in direct conflict with his personality overall. Blaine cried over a dead handmaid and refused to call June by her slave name, he had contacts in Mayday that he referred to as “friendlies”. What made the writers think I would believe an individual this sensitive and obviously invested in rebel operations, would seek a higher position in this society for ANY other reason than to subvert it? Ambitious greedy ghouls do not smuggle out letters of imprisoned handmaids and they don’t baulk over sleeping with their child brides. They just don’t give a fuck.

Right now show runners are working overtime to create a narrative in which they write off Nicks damning choices in episode 6 as the result of both full autonomy AND coercive control. If he acted with full autonomy, Blaine was a monster who knew what he was doing, sought power and subscribed to Gilead’s rhetoric of slavery. If he was acting as a result of coercive control he was frightened, abused and controlled with little to no recourse. The reason that the writers couldn’t decide which one it was, was because they wanted it to be the first, but they knew full well it was the second. Season 1 and 2 had already shown that Blaine was indeed stripped of his autonomy and yet in 5 10 Tuello claimed that he could have run away with her while he lived at the Waterfords. They were trying to alter the narrative around how much power he had possessed, but it was too late, we’d already seen the dogs, the drones, the spotlights, the checkpoints and all those guardians. We’d already seen all that terror and we weren’t about to forget.

Show runners claimed that Blaine had full autonomy on the basis that he had many chances to defect, but again there was plenty of evidence to discredit this theory. In season 2 June boarded a plane to leave and a driver attempted to sneak on board. He’s hauled off the plane and shot by Gilead guards, this heavily implied that Blaine would have died if he’d tried to accompany her. In season 3 Eleanor told June that Lawrence could never leave because he’d be imprisoned for life. In season 4 Fred was arrested at the border and jailed, when he tried to negotiate immunity he was traded back to Gilead and ended up dead. In season 5 Blaine WAS offered a deal from Tuello which he took, but it did require that he remain in Gilead indefinitely. Throughout season 6 the presence of Wharton was inserted specifically to create an environment of coercive control that restricted and monitored his movements. So no I don’t believe he had full autonomy. It also seems incredibly odd for the writers to say that Blaine has full autonomy and THEN have Serena tell June “If he ever thought he had a choice, he would have chosen you”. I mean in what alternative dimension should an audience NOT be confused by this constant mixed messaging?

I was informed through various forms of PR, that the second Blaine knew his relationship was over with Osborne he’d simply sought to lose himself in power, but this was utterly ridiculous. Blaine had been confronted with the reality of losing her many times before and he still hadn’t stuck his face in a bucket of Kool Aid. The idea that Blaine had failed to show up and do anything about June being executed because he considered their relationship over, was laughable. In season 4 he’d strong armed Lawrence into keeping her alive even though he knew she “was never coming back to him”. In season 5 he dashed across the border and signed a contract with Tuello just to ensure her safety even though “she already has people who care for her, I’m nothing”. It didn’t wash. NONE of it washed. Now I MIGHT have been able to swallow that he’d taken solace in Gilead after his relationship with Osborne completely dissolved but there was no period of mourning for the loss of a deep abiding love he’d carried with him for 5 and half seasons. No tears, no despair, nothing….Instead Blaine immediately started rambling on about Gilead like it was Sale of the fucking Century and he couldn’t get enough of those Nazi war spoils. It was utterly baffling. Mid season we all travelled deep into the Twilight Zone when Blaine made some sort of schizophrenic switch from prioritising June to an unquenchable thirst for power. It was impossible to reconcile with his previous manifestation, but somehow this all remained my fault for failing to grasp it, rather than the writers for either not communicating it in earlier seasons or an ill advised quick change.

We were also told that Blaine was a villain because of his role in the original attacks and that well, because you had to be a bad guy to be promoted to a commander. Firstly; scenes of Blaine actually participating in the original attacks were cut and are now being cited as part of the character history, and I’m not sure that works in their favour, as the original ones show him being sick and stunned at the violence anyway. It read more like someone who’d been roped into something that had quickly turned nightmarish and of which he now couldn’t escape. In season 3 Blaine said about the government “they don’t give a shit about us” and “once you get in bed with the government, it’s not so easy to get out”, not REALLY the words of an enamoured loyalist. Secondly; Blaine was promoted from a Eye to a Commander as a form of punishment from Fred for his insubordination, to have him sent to the front to die. These two singular moments should have been definitively painted to follow the writers intention from the beginning, but they weren’t and as a result his characters role in Gilead's conception and growth remained hazy at best. Again, not the audiences fault, the writers. Creators can't keep claiming they had an active loyalist on their hands all along when everything they ever showed their audience said otherwise. They can't keep claiming it in the face of the source material which completely contradicts them.

It’s pretty telling that audiences aren’t so much sad as angry about it. Writers are doubling down because well, they don’t have much choice. What’s done is done and they’re never going to take any of it back or admit any shortcomings. They’re never going to admit they sidelined and significantly altered a character from the source material. They’re never going to admit they out right IGNORED their audience and then proudly claimed to be listening to them. After analysing all of the diatribe and reasoning that the cast, writers and show runners have put forth I’ve come to a few simple conclusions about why Blaine was killed off. Firstly: Certain individuals could not tolerate the idea of a woman leaving her husband for another man, I believe this stems from a deep seated theological indoctrination that is ingrained into American society and consequently into ALL of their writing. It’s most evident in their attitudes to sex and love and these moralistic shackles severely restrict all of their plot and character development. My advice, go and learn from some of our British friends, they know how to write and their final seasons don’t look like a dogs breakfast. Secondly: He was used as a scapegoat for the rest of the Gilead four. Put simply, they had to have at least one bad guy. Thirdly: they wanted to make a political statement about young males being recruited into neo fascism in America today. They were not concerned about breaking with literary integrity, character construct or even narrative symbolism in order to achieve it. As someone who has taught analysis of media and literature, I can honestly say, they should have been concerned, because it definitely looks fucking broken and it will cost these creators.

I’m still reeling from the fact that so many gossamer threads in this vast story line which could have been pulled together beautifully, were instead clumsily tangled or just abandoned. Replaced instead with plot lines delivered with a clumsy ignorance of how the audience would actually feel. Which sick fuck thought that plane trip into the abyss should be the Casablanca ending they were referring to all along? I’d prefer to leave The Handmaid’s Tale behind me at the end of season 4. Even though some of the constructs of Blaine’s character were already incorrectly portrayed by this point, it was during season 5 that show runners decided to truly begin Blaine's slide from ambiguous ally to Gilead loyalist. One of the biggest appeals of Nick Blaine was his mystery but it seems that during these last 2 seasons show creators were intent on stripping him of it and reducing him to nothing but a 2 dimensional family man who just turned to water at the sign of a strong father figure.

Miller’s Wilderness was possibly one of the most amazing television season finales I’ve ever seen, and it just never got any better than that. It set the story line up beautifully to lead into The Testaments, and he could have simply walked straight into his spin off with a few cameos to smoothen the transition. I don’t know why those writers were so afraid of the character dynamic between Nick and June, it was extraordinary and we’ll be lucky to see one like it ever again. From the beginning there was something about these two that the audience emotionally engaged with and if the writers had been smarter they would have truly acknowledged and embraced it. Instead their relationships sudden end, and the death of Nick Blaine, will become the one thing that follows this series around, and sticks in the craw of many viewers for years to come.

[sometimesoliloquy]

LITERALLY. “just come back with us tonight, Janine!” Excuse me, ma’am, you think you can just casually steal off into the night with one of “theirs” and the rest of the women there will be just fine and dandy? Like they were after the last time you killed at Boston Jezebels? (not that I blame you for that one but you certainly can’t deny it had it’s unintended consequences, solely born by others). I guess caring more about those you know and love deeply is a sin only as regards one Mr. Blaine, though.

Why is no one talking about the fact that June told Nick he gave up all those girls to save himself but just an episode before she would have given up all those girls to save Janine