#Ofmatthew

[throwbackmovie]

Ashleigh LaThrop as Natalie in the TV series THE HANDMAIDS TALE – 2019

@ashleighlathrop

[linkinthepeople]

Doodled this while watching S3 of The Handmaid's Tale. RIP Natalie.

[lady-whistledowns]

The Handmaid’s Tale 3.09 - “Heroic”

“I’m gonna get them out. I’m gonna get out as many children as I can. I don’t really know how yet, but I swear to you, I’m gonna get them out. Because Gilead should known how this feels. It’s their turn to hurt.”

[spacecatcactus]

In this house we recognize Ofmatthew is a victim and NOT a villain. She’s had three babies taken from her and is clearly traumatized and brainwashed.

[zalrb]

“June didn’t bully Ofmatthew because she was Black” is literally not the point. It’s about the choices made by Bruce Miller and the writing room about when they put Black women/people and women/people of colour into the predominately white show and the roles these women/people occupy.

[ofjoseph]

I used to be bad at waiting. “They also serve who stand and wait,” Aunt Lydia said. She also said, “Not all of you will make it through. Some of you will fall on dry ground or thorns. Some of you are shallow-rooted. Think of yourselves as seeds. What kind of seed will you be, girls?” I pretend I’m a tree. And I wait.

[comeallyelost]

The Handmaid’s Tale 3x08 Thoughts

I think I'm getting a clearer picture of where this season is headed, but the way they are going about it is not at all ideal. 

Four sections to this post:

June

Aunt Lydia

General Episode Notes

The Racism Problem

1. On June’s Sanity

The plot is barely moving forward, but we're seeing more of June's descent into madness/ desperation and her loss of humanity as a result of losing her closest allies. (I'm gonna loop in Serena and Nick here because for a while at least, I think June believed Serena was in her camp post pinky-finger). 

So based on the looks of things, Nick's absence and ambiguity HAS to be intentional since it's having a direct effect on June's ability to cope with the horrors of Gilead.

This episode most definitely was used to paint June as the villain and Natalie/OfMatthew as the victim. They turned it around on us, implying that anyone can go mad here, even our protagonist whom we've been rooting for this entire time. And like, I don't really want to draw too many parallels here, because the development has been a better on THT and there is a much more tangled web of *things* going on, but I'm getting similar "mad queen" Dany vibes that were happening on Game of Thrones.

But honestly, what irks me most about this whole season is how we all came in expecting a season about the resistance. About Mayday, about June fighting back. June STAYED in Gilead for a reason. For Hannah. Or so we thought. Where is that narrative? We've gotten nothing so far. 

I would argue that it does makes sense for June's character to go darker, to go to extremes she would have never considered before. Especially without someone to anchor her down. Nick was her rock and he's gone. Not just physically, but in her mind she feels like she lost the person she thought he was. HOWEVER, just because these elements were removed, it serves no point for her to stray in this direction and lose sight of her daughter, of the fight against Gilead.  The handmaids this episode played out like a Mean Girls skit and poor Janine is this series' punching dummy and I'm getting tired of that.

Side note: Another facet of June’s spiral is the lack of flashbacks. Her ties to Luke, Hannah, Moira, and her life from before are fading. Nick keeping her sane and helping her survive in present Gilead was one side, but her ties to her humanity are also very much embedded in the person she was before. She may not be the same June, but it’s those memories that keep her fighting, that keep her going. And I don’t think we’ve seen a flashback since like...the beginning of ep 5 if I’m not mistaken.

It's been EIGHT episodes gdi. What do we have left? Five? I sincerely hope they're not wasted. But my hope is dwindling. Watching this week's ep I honestly felt like I was watching an entirely different show from the one I was so obsessed with last year.

2. On Aunt Lydia’s backstory

Yay! Woohoo we finally get a backstory for someone new. Except it’s Aunt Lydia, and I don’t think I ever found her compelling enough to merit a backstory. 

What I mean is, I always found her to be as pious as they come in Gilead and she serves the regime wholeheartedly. Her character was always finding a way to help others in some twisted radical christian logic and I was right!

What I do keep seeing people post about that I disagree with is that she “turned” on the young mom because she was rejected by a man. Her motivations are more complex than that. She mentions “moral weakness” enough that I think her compulsion to help others in the way she thought she was helping Noelle was to rid them of it. She thought herself above it, or at least she carried herself as someone who overcame moral weakness and thought it her calling to help others in overcoming it as well. 

So when she found herself displaying it towards the principal, I think something snapped in her. His rejection in the middle of their (intense) make-out session served as a wakeup call to her imo. And she blamed Noelle for making her “morally weak”.

So what we can draw from this flashback I’d say, is that Aunt Lydia’s whole schtick is helping others overcome their moral weakness as she puts it. She truly believes she is doing God’s work. She was totally okay with taking Noelle’s kid away from her. And so the brutalities she’s committed as an Aunt are not seen by her as such. She fits right in. A perfect fit for the role.

3. Thoughts I had while watching the Ep: - the chanting scene in the school gym felt like a nightmare/dream sequence - June’s posse is super clique-y which I kind of like if only they used their powers for the good of the resistance and not to terrorize OfMatthew/Natalie - June tattling on OfMatthew/Natalie was super petty. Can she please focus on the bigger picture? - Hannah and the Mackenzie’s are GONE. What now? I really really thought we were gonna see Hannah get out this season. - Janine is literally the only sane one and yet probably the one who has suffered most - Commander Lawrence's "Do not presume to speak to me about my wife" last episode versus. "I'll bet that felt good" this week - I didn’t quite understand OfMatthew’s behavior. I know she was terrified, and I know June outing her for her sinful thoughts rattled her, but her being on edge enough to beat Janine, kill a guardian, and take his gun? What broke her? - I also hated how that scene was filmed. It felt like a shooter video game sequence

4. On the racism problem:

THT's "colorblind" approach from the inception of the series was already problematic. Margaret Atwood's version of Gilead was based directly on the inequalities she saw in (her) present day. I completely get rejecting the notion of an all-white cast and their logic that a fertility crisis would take priority over racism, but hell, if there is one thing that is inherently american, it's RACISM. A fertility crisis wouldn't ERASE racism altogether. And that's how Hulu's version made it seem. 

Also, another element of Atwood's Gilead and the fertility issue was the underlying eugenics of it all which is not present whatsoever in the series. If we're exploring a fascist, oppressive regime, eugenics is definitely playing some sort of role. Casting a diverse group of women as handmaids and marthas was not a bad move. But simply having the POC ones making the background more "colorful" won't cut it. I think there could still have been a diverse cast with some sort of oppressive racial hierarchy in place within Gilead. The LGBTQ community is targeted, the women are entirely powerless and assigned roles within certain constructs, but they won't even mention race? It's like an unspoken elephant in the room they've decided to ignore. Which then makes all the actions against POC in the series that much more unsettling.

I'm questioning whether this racism is intentional then? Or just a consequence of the ingrained, learned racism we've all grown up with. Either way, it's a complete disaster. Diversity is not just seeing POCs onscreen. It's GIVING THEM A VOICE. It's letting them tell their version of things. Serena as the embodiment of white feminism, I thought, was intentional at first. June's ability to get away with SO MUCH and suffer hardly any consequences in this awful regime, I'm thinking now, is another example of white privilege in this society. And it can be. It would actually be a great tool IF IT WERE ACTUALLY ADDRESSED IN THE SERIES. But instead we just see POCs suffer, get no back stories, no voices, and just see June, Serena, and the other white handmaids carrying the series.

This episode we did get Aunt Lydia saying one of the households didn't want a handmaid of color. So there we had a teeny tiny glimpse into the fact that there is some underlying racism going on somewhere. But again, like all of the other snippets we've seen this season, it leads to nothing. It's not explored or examined or ever addressed again.

I was skeptical of OfMatthew's (Natalie) role as June's partner from the get go. No one here is doing anything except trying to survive. There are imo few actual villains in Gilead except those who constructed it for their own gain. Every single handmaid, martha, ~insert oppressed role in here~ is playing a role in order to survive. 

I've mentioned before that one of the elements I love (or maybe loved in past tense at this point) about this show is how it highlights humanity's capacity to endure suffering or see others endure suffering. When do you snap? Who falls in line and who resists? What are the triggers? What moral standards do you uphold when society as you knew it to be has been erased?  

So taking all that into consideration, OfMatthew/Natalie was never a villain for me. Annoying? Maybe in her intro. But she's popped out 3 kids. She's about to give birth to a 4th and is legit terrified for her daughter. Her snitching on June was shitty, but she was just trying to survive like everyone else. The fact that it cost the life of another martha (who was a POC) and June faced no repercussions was even shittier on the writers’ part.

This show has me going in circles honestly. Questioning whether these decisions were intentional or not. I don't know which one is worse. If it was intentional, the lack of actually addressing the racism in Gilead makes it pretty shitty on the part of the showrunners. If it was unintentional, then they really need to reexamine the writers room and staff more POCs. Like wtf.

[midnightinjapan]

I think the injection of race is slightly off center with criticism of last night’s episode of tht. Everyone is upset that June is bullying a black woman even though her daughter is half black. I look at this in reverse. June isn’t bullying her because she’s black, nor should the color of her skin save her from the consequences of what she did. June is bullying her because she did something something terrible, irreparable, and did not feel sorry for it. Her skin color doesn’t matter in this situation which is actually fair and balanced if we’re talking true equality.

Now we can debate all day about how seeking mob justice like this is making June more of a monster. That argument is hella valid. But don’t make it out to be about race from June’s perspective. That blame should be placed squarely on the casting director and writers. I think they try to be color blind but it’s starting to lean to one side. Look at the decisions being made in the plot.

We’ve seen Serena slap her Martha, who is black, because she couldn’t slap June.

A black Martha was hanged in the last episode.

We heard Aunt Lydia say that one commander and his wife did not want “a handmaid of color”.

And the choice to cast Ashleigh LaThrop as the only black handmaid in the group and then turn her character into a target wasn’t made by June. They could have just as easily cast a white woman to play this part.

So yeah there is a component of racism but I think it’s in the writer’s room

[throwbackmovie]

Ashleigh LaThrop as Natalie in the TV series THE HANDMAID’S TALE – 2019

@ashleighlathrop

[johannas-motivational-insults]

K real talk though, June is a fucking terrible person. It’s getting worse every week, and if they’re trying to pull the “hero’s descent into villainy” trope then they’re doing a fabulous job. Like bitch you and Serena deserve each other.

[nickblaine]

[lady-whistledowns]

The Handmaid’s Tale 3.08 - “Unfit”

“I hurt her, and I enjoyed it. The wives and aunts too. Grieving over Ofandys dead child. And Lawrence, they all deserve to suffer. Its an acquired taste seeing others in pain. Like that smoky scotch, Luke got as a gift once. I grew to like that.”

[baddecisionsmakegoodstoriesinten]

Can they stop terrorizing Janine! Oh my God I can't.

[warningsine]

[naturallydemsoc]

Handmaid tales spoilers!!!!!

Okay seriously June has now been directly responsible for the death of 3 black people seeing 2 in back to back episodes, this show can claim to be post racial if it wants to but two hangings and being shot all to advance an Arian woman wrapped in relative privilege (they literally can not harm her because she’s being used as propaganda) recks of racism and that would be fine IF THEY ADDRESSED IT!!! but they aren’t we are just killing POCs. It’s not post racial is gaslighting.

[jckthelad]

3x07 under his eye

one of my favorite moments from this episode was june confronting ofmatthew. i LOVE when we see her take off her wings before she confronts ofmatthew she literally said here hold my gloves lmao how iconic. but really though i loved how she let out this RAGE she’s had inside for so long. by confronting ofmatthew she wanted to make her face what she had just done. even if you’re just trying to look out for yourself to survive in here, you can’t escape what’s happening and the effects of your actions.