Resistance is Futile

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3 Episode 6: Household

Filming of The Handmaid’s Tale at the Lincoln Memorial by Victoria Pickering on Flickr

(Spoiler alert: I talk about the current and past two seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale.)

The Handmaid’s Tale tends to inspire a lot of questions — “Will June get her daughter back?” is a major question throughout Season 3.

But I think there are larger, more interesting, questions that came out of Episode 6, “Household.”

Is Gilead redeemable? Can it be conquered? Will it be one of those oppressive regimes the world deplores but accepts?

I had even more questions when I watched the scene in the National Mall. There were thousands of Handmaids, all bowing down in submission. So many women, yet they refuse to resist? At what point in pre-Gilead could so many fertile women be rounded up?

In earlier seasons, it seems like there were a series of tipping points (women no longer being allowed to work, for example). My impression, though, is that not all of the Handmaids are unwilling surrogates. At least, initially, some must have agreed in order for such a system to have gained ground.

There must have been true believers on all levels.