The Handmaid's Tale: 6x03 Devotion.
This is the first episode of the final season that felt like it existed in the No Man’s Land between tying up some storylines while still waiting for new ones to take off. Your mileage with Devotion may vary based on how you feel about Nick – but as someone who’s with June’s mum on this one, this wasn’t a great ride for me. June and Nick even talk at the end about how they always end up saying goodbye like it’ll be the last time, so this time they’ll say “see you soon” – except maybe this is now actual a final time, because Nick goes above and beyond here to risk everything once again for the mother of his child, and with all of his father-in-law’s attention on him, it’s hard to see how he will continue to evade detection.
June goes to Mark Tuello to figure out how to retrieve Moira and Luke, who are stuck in an abandoned waterpark in No Man’s Land. Since Nick has stopped providing information on Guardian routes, they’re trapped there, but June knows that Nick will once again do whatever she asks to help, even if he has so much else to protect now. He makes the truly mindboggling choice to go off himself – reluctantly taking June along with him – while the biggest diplomatic event is happening in New Bethlehem, which has invited foreign dignitaries eager to repatriate its populace of Gileadean refugees there. While they search for Luke and Moira, Commander Wharton continuously asks where Nick is, and as much as he seems drawn to Serena (in a creepy way – remember, Serena is meant to get remarried, and there doesn’t seem to be a Mrs Wharton in sight), I’m sure he can keep more than one thing on his mind at any given time. The rescue is relatively unspectacular: Moira watches Luke melting down, doing an Aria Stark routine with the names of the Commanders that ordered the airstrike, killing any hope of rescue for Hannah. Just as they’re about to leave, they do run into a Guardian patrol, but cornered, Nick doesn’t seem to hesitate a moment before he pulls his gun and kills them. It feels kind of low-stakes, like the kind of storytelling device that was necessary for June to leave the relative safety of Alaska, and culminates in another scene in which Nick feels sorry for himself for loving June more than she loves him. His heroism may have gone down a bit more smoothly if he didn’t bother to remind her that he just risked it all to save her husband, whom she chose over her. Both Luke and Nick are frustrating in their own way, but at least Luke’s desperation to prove himself (curtailed by the fact that June once again had to save him, with the humiliating element of Nick’s presence) is more understandable: his daughter is still lost. Moira has suffered so much more than either of these men and yet continues to be a rock and voice of reason.
Back in New Bethlehem, the spotlight is on Serena’s ability to sell the place to people who at least pretend to care about the ultimate fate of refugees who will return there (a nice thought, in the year 2025). As someone who is still skillfully playing the victim card (her missing finger out of view but never out of mind) while also weaving a narrative about seeking forgiveness for her transgression against other women, she talks passionately about the freedoms women will be granted here. What sells it in the end (and I hate to use this word again, but frustratingly) is babies. As much as the two foreign dignitaries ask questions of concern and doubt the sincerity of Gilead’s intention, once Serena rolls out Baby Noah and Commander Wharton presents his pregnant daughter, they become reduced to loving coos, which might just be one of the most insulting things that this show has ever done (an inspired choice for the two main ones who get to speak to be women). They are meant to be respected negotiators, but melt into a puddle at the prospect of holding a baby. Gilead is doing baby diplomacy – which they’ve always known was their biggest selling point – and it still feels like a choice by this show to have them fall for it as badly as they do. It can maybe be excused by the cynical idea that these diplomats were sent their symbolically, that all these countries are all too eager to get rid of refugees and restore diplomatic relations anyway and need only a sliver of an excuse to do so, but still, I do expect more from The Handmaid’s Tale. I hope I could still see through the thin veneer of fascist propaganda if it came with a side of cute puppies and I'm not a career diplomat.
The fun bits of the episode are Serena’s wildly different experiences with Commander Lawrence vs Commander Wharton. She knows that Lawrence is not a true believer, that he can’t even believably pray with her (he says “if there is a god”, a great line for a man representing a theological totalitarian state). I don’t think that any previous iteration of Serena Joy would have had the capacity to realise with just as much pragmatism that his ideological shakiness is exactly what makes him a great ally, whereas Wharton, who speaks her language of devotion perfectly, is much more dangerous to her. Wharton also gives us an insight into what is really going on here: while Lawrence and Serena dream of Gilead transformed by New Bethlehem, with more model villages joining the frays and things eventually changing in Gilead proper, Wharton sees this very much as a limited diplomatic exercise, a symbolic gesture that only serves to restore trade. Wharton has no intention to change Gilead, and he seems, from what we’ve seen, to be much more secure in his power than Lawrence, the odd man out, could ever be. Lawrence wants is driven by his feelings about his dead wife and his guilty conscience, Serena wants to fix the country she broke, but Wharton is perfectly happy for everything to stay exactly the same.
There aren’t many incentives for men like Wharton to change Gilead proper. He doesn’t seem to feel guilt over what he has helped built, and he is living a life of privilege. Back in Gilead proper, Aunt Lydia continues her journey of disillusionment – she would have thought herself to be a paragon of Gileadean virtue, and she believes that her work has helped the women she has, in her interpretation, cared for. It’s the kind of work that has made all these now diplomatically vital babies possible. But now, at Jezebels, she realises that she has been lied to: Not only is Janine there, but three other Handmaids who have fulfilled their duty, who she thought would be living a life of comfort now, are there as well. Janine explains to her that they are the lucky ones – other Handmaids were sent to the colonies, far away from prying eyes. Jezebels, where Gilead allows those who can afford it the privilege to vent their religiously repressed desires, is state-sanctioned, a pressure valve. Aunt Lydia makes it her mission to save Janine from there (Janine warns her that every time she tries to help, she makes things worse – and if anyone has been through the worst, it’s her), and she goes to New Bethlehem to ask Naomi and Commander Lawrence to take her in, which Naomi furiously refuses. What other authorities does Aunt Lydia have to appeal to?
Random notes:
I think this episode was even more frustrating for all it teased in its scenes set at Jezebels: I find myself much more engaged in Janine’s story and Aunt Lydia’s (probably misguided) attempts to save her, but how much of that will be part of The Testaments rather than this final season remains to be seen.
Serena’s “You’re crying right now. On the inside.” made me laugh. Yvonne Strahovski doesn’t get a lot of comedic acting on the show but she’s so good at it.
I think these first few episodes of the season have shown that Mark Tuello truly does not care about the people he sends – he is fighting what he knows is a doomed battle. I think Nick’s life is likely coming to an end soon, but I don’t think that Mark will outlive him by a lot.
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