The Handmaid’s Tale Is Nothing More Than Feminist Porn.

Oh, hamburgers.

Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale has taken on a life of its own. Over the past two years, the “critically acclaimed” drama has won multiple awards, made quite a bit of money for the Walt Disney Company, and has wormed its way into political protests. I never really thought about taking a look at this show, but the trailers for Season 3 caught my attention. With that in mind, I decided to fire it up and give it a shot.

Long story short, I have no idea why this show is as acclaimed as it is. I know that some of you may say that it’s merely an exaggerated parable about women’s rights, but I’m going to bust that assertion right now. Margaret Atwood has routinely described this story as a piece of speculative fiction that could happen any day now. It will be judged as such.

Before Gilead.

Dur hur hur! The cinematographer did a symbolism!

Under normal circumstances, I start off these articles with a look at the cast, but I’m not going to do that here because the characters are robotic vessels for the writers. Therefore, I’m going to depart from my usual format, tackle the plot in segments, and expose its suspension-of-disbelief-snapping inconsistencies and absurdities. And since this show can’t tell a sequential story to save its life, let’s reconstruct the flashbacks that are strewn throughout each episode.

It’s half past tomorrow, and the world as we know it is going through a massive fertility crisis. For some stupid reason, the EPA and all of the 500 million environmental groups out there have ceased to exist, leading to a world that is supposedly contaminated with pollution and radiation. However, we learn in Season 2 that North American women have force fields around their cooters that render them immune to the devastated environment around them. Naturally, American scientists don’t study these magical slopboxes and give up all of their efforts because they read a script somewhere.

What? You thought I was joking? All of these plot points are in the damn episodes!

For some reason, the American government and society in this tardverse doesn’t propose logical remedies like temporarily banning birth control, mandating fertility testing, cleaning up pollution, giving money to anyone who has more than two kids, and throwing money at medical researchers.

No. As the infant mortality rate rises to 80%, everyone decides to turn to a weird mix of Christian and Islamic fascism. That’s where Fred (Joseph Fiennes) and Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) Waterford come in. It’s implied that they were once just a bunch of right-wing lecturers, but things went off the rails toward extremism when Serena got shot in her baby balls. At some point, they join the aforementioned fascist cult called the Sons of Jacob, keep all law enforcement completely in the dark, help to launch a decapitation strike on the U.S. government, suspend the Constitution, and reorganize the continental United States into the theocratic Republic of Gilead.

After Gilead.

If the writers cut out all of the repetitive information dumps, each episode would probably have a run time of less than 30 minutes.

For the sake of plot convenience, the sudden takeover of the United States doesn’t really trigger the fail-safe of the Second Amendment, a counter-revolution by the U.S. Army, or the massing of a NATO intervention force. There are pockets of rebel activity here and there, but Gilead has somehow managed to push U.S. forces back to Michigan (Ayy!), Chicago, the Deep South, the Far North, and the West Coast. Naturally, everyone else just gives up on America and starts to hang all of the gender traitors.

That’s how it works, right? No? I didn’t think so.

After this sudden disaster that makes no fucking sense, June Osborne (Elizabeth Moss), Moira (Samira Wiley), Emily (Alexis Bledel), and all other women are legally purged from all employment and have their bank accounts handed over to men. Apparently, this doesn’t really trigger an economic meltdown in Gilead, so were those jobs really necessary in the first place?

Anyway, June and Emily are introduced to the nightmare scenario when they are captured on their way to Canada and forced to become handmaids. The show tries to display the horror of a monthly rape ceremony, but those scenes are undermined by unintentional comedy and the show’s awful worldbuilding in every other scene. For instance, the regime doesn’t let them read anything, even though propaganda is an effective way to reinforce totalitarian regimes. On the other hand, they are supposedly allowed to mouth off to the higher castes, talk in the public square, imagine that their Commanders are being thrown into wood chippers while machine gunners are standing right next to them, and spend money even though they’re not allowed to spend money.

I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty damn confusing.

The Writers Have No Clue About Politics, Economics, Or Anything Else.

Almost all of the female characters have an unbelievable amount of plot armor.

To make matters worse, I don’t think that the writers have put a shred of thought into the political and social story points, even though there are multiple issues that blow gaping holes in the plot.

On the more obvious side of things, Luke Bankole’s (O-T Fagbenle) journey in Canada is laughable. When he arrives, pretty much everything is fine and dandy, even though that directly contradicts the idea that the fertility crisis is a global phenomenon. On top of that, the rump U.S. government can almost instantly retrieve information about a suicide bombing in Gilead, but they don’t know anything else because that would completely destroy the point of the letters that sat under June’s handmaid tub for about three-quarters of Season 2.

On another note, Emily’s post-Gilead story is a howlingly funny plot hole. Over the course of Season 1 and the first two episodes of Season 2, she engages in a lesbian relationship with a Martha for reasons. After her partner is executed, the regime suddenly turns Islamic and cuts her clitoris off, which compels her to steal a car and kill a guard. For reasons, the guards don’t have her shot on the spot for murder. Instead, she is sent to the Colonies to clean up irradiated soil… or something. It gets so bad that her teeth start to fall out, but Gilead just assumes that she’s fine after the suicide bombing and sends her to Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford), who just so happens to be associated with the Resistance.

What a coincidence!

And by the way, why would Gilead have any leverage over the global economy? At certain points, the characters mention that the European Union and United Nations are leading a trade embargo against the theocrats. Serena thinks that their campaign is going to mess with the global economy, but how could that be when virtually everyone is allied with the United States and Gilead only seems to want to export food and sex slaves?

What the hell is going on here?!

Conclusion.

Why would a terrorist attack on a government that represents a clear threat to Canadian security convince the Canadians to open up diplomatic talks with that hostile government? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the worst television shows that I’ve ever seen. The characters are outright robots, the story is an absolute mess, and virtually nothing of consequence happens until the middle of Season 2. For the uninitiated, there are far better dramas on the market that properly mix story, characterization, and pacing into a cohesive whole. And best of all, those stories probably won’t feel dated in another ten years.

Then again, Season 3 might shake things up with dozens of additional plot holes, so I’m going to suffer through it for your amusement!