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she states that her favourite storylines were the Dark Swan and a number of CS moments. We all thought she was ripped off during the Dark Swan storyline,
Yeah, I’m really surprised she has any favorite memories from Dark Swan. Surely she gets that S1 is superior storytelling?
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"10×6 “Extremis”
Hmmmmm
I dunno, you guys. Was this episode good? It’s hard to say. This is Moffat checking mark several things off the “quintessential Moffat” list. Multiple narratives and time frames, big themes, existential crisis. It’s better than other attempts because there’s a seasonal point instead of being a one-off but I’ve been enjoying the stripped back version of Doctor Who this season. We still have themes and ideas but they are more tangible (racism, privilege) instead of questioning the entire nature of reality. But honestly? I was little bit bored.
6/10?
–Oh hey Missy’s in the Vault and the Doctor promised to watch over her for 1000 years. If she can’t leave the Vault then why can’t the Doctor leave?
–The aliens are coming! Cool. I guess that’s the story for the rest of the season.
–Bill’s face when the Pope entered her kitchen after she comforted her very skittish date was hilarious.
–“You’re an idiot.” “Everyone knows that.”
–I know the aliens are monitoring everything but their attention to detail is almost a bit too much. Like it was Simulation Nardole that spoke truths to a Simulation Doctor about why the latter won’t tell Simulation Bill about the blindness. Remarkable given that Nardole is a robot?
–“Are you trying to get rid of us?” “What make you say that?” “Cause you’re sending us into the dark after a man with a gun.”
–Soooo basically….this is an episode about the Doctor watching an episode of Doctor Who.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"That scene in the cinema where she is preaching her ideological position while totally oblivious to the conditions of possibility that make this preaching possible in the first place is such an amazing and uncomfortable moment.
Yes, this. Serena is sitting in a theater (after telling–not requesting–but telling her husband they were going out) watching a Hollywood movie, with popcorn, free to discuss what they are discussing (if in hushed tones), to give and share ideas and opinions freely and she’s advocating and preaching the removal of all this.
As much as I don’t like Serena I think we need another flashback because I think we need to get inside her head more. She’s such a rigid contained person; as if at every moment she’s keeping a tight lid on her emotions to project an air of control. But when the government of Gilead began taking away things that Serena couldn’t have imagined–sex with your husband, reading,–and implementing the Handmaids what were her thoughts? Did she lie to herself and tell herself this is what she wanted and did her brain try to rationalize it, spin it as the best possible solution? Or did she have tiny rebellions like we see sometimes with Offred? For example, does she have a stash of books somewhere?
it is unclear whether the sorts of taboos on non-reproductively-aimed sex (even, say, within marriage) apply to everyone, or only to the elites. I can’t remember this from the book. But for example, are servants allowed to have lovers? Because if there’s a generalized taboo on sexuality except for reproductive sexuality mediated through the Handmaidens, and if the goal is to fix the demographic collapse, then this is a pretty exceptionally inefficient method of going about it.
I think not. I have this really vague memory of the Marthas gossiping (in the book) about a Martha who was had a lover and how it was seen as taboo in that situation. In the Pilot of this series, Offred’s voice over mentions something about how Nick hasn’t been given a wife yet so I think that lovers are also illegal. The difference is that servants don’t get Handmaids, those are just for the Commanders.
It’s like the demographic collapse necessitating Handmaids is just an excuse.
Also, do we think Luke might actually be alive?
That seems to “happy ending” but with the show getting a second season I’m not going to rule it out.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I’ve had a day to suss out my feelings and they are fairly complicated and so I’m going to talk about this episode in piecemeal because I honestly think I need another rewatch of it. This is going to be pretty scattered….fair warning.
This isn’t from the novel at all which I interpret as the show writers doing very deliberately. They could have done just about anything with Serena but they went a very deliberate route. They’ve modernized their interpretation of the novel in other ways–the grocery store, the aesthetics, ect–but this is maybe the first time they’ve been so forward about it.
Serena is obviously the big story here and her complicit nature in how this universe came together. Serena Joy is emblematic of a very particular type of woman–the uber conservative who believes women have a certain role, a certain place and a certain obligation as women that only they, again as women, can fulfill. This is boiled down to the typical three-parter: wife, mother, keeper of the house. But what I’ve often found frustrating and infuriating about these types of women is that they preach their version of womanhood as if it were their career. They make money and a name for themselves being antithetical to what they are actually saying. Don’t they get that they are working within a system that allows them to do the very thing that they don’t want women to do!
Serena Joy has conference calls and writes articles and books and has a busy schedule full of public speaking, rallies, and apparently getting arrested. She’s not home 24/7 in the place she’s advocating for. Her entire life isn’t serving her husband and making sure he’s taken care of. She’s independent to him, even if they are a team. To the show’s credit they call Serena Joy on her hypocrisy when the Ambassador asks if Serena imagined this type of world–a world where women can’t even read the book she wrote about a woman’s place.
But this isn’t what angers me most about Serena Joy. What angers me most is that it’s largely her ideas about Handmaid’s and reproduction as a national commerce that have gotten women like June to where they are now. How does it not register with Serena Joy that she’s sending hundreds of women off to be raped? To have their children ripped from them? A woman doing this to another woman is…I can’t even come up with a proper word. But at the same time how am I surprised when hundreds if not thousands of woman laughed and said bragging about sexual assault was just locker room talk.
Does Serena even feel a measure of guilt for any of this? I doubt it. I don’t think she’s happy with how it turned out (turns out the place she ends up isn’t all that she thought it would be!) but she’s happy enough to continue benefiting from this system even though it’s clear that the Commander took a lot of her ideas, passed them off as his own, and doesn’t bother crediting her at all. That’s…different from how I thought this would play out. So Serena does contribute in his mind but he needs everyone to think he’s the one with the real ideas/power. Do we think he ever really fought for her to have a voice? We see him say he’ll keep trying to convince “them” to let Serena talk and share her ideas but I doubt he did much other than mention it a few times. Fred seems to agree with his fellow Commander that “we let them forget their place” because of academic and career pursuits (that line had me pause my computer so I could walk around the room and vent some anger…)
But through it all, as much as I do hate Serena in light of this flashback and her plans for the future, there was a small part of me that felt bad for her. She’s found herself in the world she advocated for and it sucks. She’s not even allowed to have sex with her husband anymore, something she clearly liked doing. (side note: was VERY surprised we got a Commander/Serena sex scene. I thought they’d stop honestly). Like June she had to give up her entire identity in order to fit into this new world and I think internally she’s realizes that her identity does not match with what she preached when she was allowed to do so.
Other notes for now
–“Awesome.” I love Elisabeth Moss
–The scene with the children and the faces of the Handmaids was haunting
–Oh, so we’ve reached the point in the novel where it might be possible to get a message to Luke?
–I’m interested in the world outside of Gilead. They appear to only know rumors of Handmaids and the sort of life that’s happening on the East Coast of former America.
Ok, hopefully more later!
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I hadn’t read that comment by JMo about baggage. Whoa! Where is that tweet?
It was her Instagram when she hacked off half her hair. IIRC it was the person who cut off her hair who made the baggage comment.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BTG4NBolRqQ/?taken-by=jenmorrisonlive&hl=en
JMo basically gave the show the bird in coded PR speech
Well if you’re a conspiracy theory nut, there’s been a lot of chatter that JMo has been sending messages to ABC for awhile now through social media (mostly Instagram) that some read as “executive producer or I walk…” type. (I’ll try to find the EFNewsService post where they laid it out….)
ETA: Found it! (Thanks to @rainbow)
But, basically, if made EP I guess JMo would have more creative control over the show–stories, direction, and character. It makes one think, to be sure.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"A look at Barnes’ Executioner costume
….wow
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Pretty sure she’s purely made up and has no basis in any folklore/myth/tale.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I think I’m going to talk this out since I’m confusing myself
–Abby talks to Raven and learns Raven is all better. Abby knows that someone is going to go get Raven–she even says that Raven will be here fixing stuff up or something
–Abby tells Kane she’s leaving the Bunker for reasons
–Bellamy and Clarke leave
–Plot happens and they all go to get Raven but also have to plan to go into space because they can’t get back to the bunker before the deathwave. <–this is the part I don’t think Abby knows. I don’t think she knows that Clarke/Bellamy/Raven aren’t coming back to the Bunker. She might next week but she didn’t when she told Kane to make sure he didn’t chose her name. So in the moment she told Kane this, she was under the assumption Raven was coming to the bunker and was going to fix Abby soon.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I agree it’s something that’s becoming the shape of a person. This seems fairly personal for Henry and I’m starting to wonder if it’s Lucy’s mother. After all, where is *she* during all this–especially if this is a flashforward as some think
But the thing is in the next scene doesn’t Tiger Lily say she’s going to take Lucy to her mother or something like that?
Oh maybe? I honestly don’t remember. But that doesn’t mean the “thing” can’t be Lucy’s mother. It actually feels sorta OUAT-ish to have Lucy’s mom be the thing that’s out to destroy the EF, ect. Surprise! You’re mom is actually a dangerous dark entity.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I agree it’s something that’s becoming the shape of a person. This seems fairly personal for Henry and I’m starting to wonder if it’s Lucy’s mother. After all, where is *she* during all this–especially if this is a flashforward as some think
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
