the handmaid's tale - hulu - s2

[henrygandorf 29201]

i made a whole post on the netflix thread about this, but it's another case of a show that likely wasn't planning on going multiple seasons, and now that they have a chance to, they're milking it for all it's worth to make as much money as they can by stretching the shit out of the story.

everyone wins except the viewer.

[RomaVicta 30121]

1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

i made a whole post on the netflix thread about this, but it's another case of a show that likely wasn't planning on going multiple seasons, and now that they have a chance to, they're milking it for all it's worth to make as much money as they can by stretching the shit out of the story.

everyone wins except the viewer.

Makes sense. In essence, they told the same broad story in season two that they did in season one. The life of handmaids is so bad that the handmaids will become defiant and rebel. The rebellious look on Moss' face at the end of the season is the same as her proclamation at the end of season one that the masters had "created an army" of defiant, angry handmaids.

 

[henrygandorf 29201]

i can go find my post, but the four examples of season 2's that i found disappointing in this way were handmaid's, westworld, 13 reasons why, and goliath.

it's the way the tv business works - it's almost always a season by season renewal process, and you write to make money and stay on the air.

like roma said, nothing new was really learned in s2, and the overall story didn't progress.  viewer fatigue will set in early in s3 if something doesn't change.  i really thought after the terrorist attack that shit was going to go sideways and get good.  not so much.

[d2o 1602]

On 7/25/2018 at 11:43 AM, mdmost said:

Wife is a huge Margaret Atwood fan and she says she's out after this season. My only question is how exactly do they walk back June's decision to stay given she stole a baby from Gilead? Yeah she's fertile but how many times do you allow a handmaid to run off before sending her to the colonies? Or Nick's decision to hold Waterford in his house with the threat of a weapon? And what was June's body count this year? At least 2 more people because she makes terrible decisions or puts people needlessly at risk, not to mention orphaning a little boy and forcing his mother to be a future rape victim. I agree with above, there are too many plot points that just get dropped. I just don't know if we can sign up for another season of June almost getting away, getting caught, getting sent home with no consequences, Serena being decent then back to awful. It just seems to be a show spinning its wheels and it's only season 2. 

Yep, I know she is fertile but that shouldn't mean she is beyond serious punishment.     As brutal as they have been to others it would seem they would that very least cut off a leg or foot or something so she cant run again.

I know its a shitty situation for all women and shit trickles down from the most powerful to the least but Serena's extreme wavering being nice one moment and then mean as shit the next seems unrealistic.

Also seems unrealistic that after going through all the trouble to get the baby out she would just give her to Emily who she "kinda" knows with no discussion of a plan for getting the baby back or getting her to Luke/Moira.   I know she wants to get Hanna out but Hanna is no immediate danger.   Seems like she would make sure she and the baby get out then work to go back and get Hanna.

[elnimo 55]

I'm not surprised June stayed back.  Annoyed as fuck, yes.  But not surprised.  She's got plot teflon.  June is gonna get everyone else killed except herself.  Martha is gonna die next season.

Reddit seems to think the commander that helped Emily will be helping June out next season.  I hope this causes some sort of collapse of Gilead.  You could get a good two season of material just off of that, with season 5/6 being the final season where the US is re-instituted.

[d2o 1602]

8 hours ago, elnimo said:

I'm not surprised June stayed back.  Annoyed as fuck, yes.  But not surprised.  She's got plot teflon.  June is gonna get everyone else killed except herself.  Martha is gonna die next season.

Reddit seems to think the commander that helped Emily will be helping June out next season.  I hope this causes some sort of collapse of Gilead.  You could get a good two season of material just off of that, with season 5/6 being the final season where the US is re-instituted.

That annoyed me as much as anything.   All these folks put their lives on the line to get her out and she stays??

[HaroldBS 1]

On 7/25/2018 at 4:00 PM, henrygandorf said:

i made a whole post on the netflix thread about this, but it's another case of a show that likely wasn't planning on going multiple seasons, and now that they have a chance to, they're milking it for all it's worth to make as much money as they can by stretching the shit out of the story.

everyone wins except the viewer.

I honestly don't know why this show got so much acclaim in the first place.  The entire premise for the show didn't seem all that realistic. 

[Guest Lobo]

^
but the leftovers premise was totally real to you?  Atwood is a brilliant writer.  It's not her fault they want to make this into a 6-season arc to go up against Trump and compliment #metoo.  There's just enough source material there to go beyond Moss making faces to the camera and escaping, then captured, then escaping, then capture, then defying power, then being dismissive, then defying power, then being dismissive.  Atwood's whole premise was women are marginalized and treated as meat.  She wrote the story after second wave feminism had truly taken root.  But realized her fictional world needed a twist, so it exploited a panic around low birth rates. 

How the leaders of Gilead convinced the rest of the (former) American populace that remained to go along with what they were doing---to me, that would make a compelling few episodes.  Or what the Government in Exile looks like, how the rest of the world sees Gilead (besides Canada and 3 Mexicans).   How the "Eye" operates within Gilead.  More on the Colonies.  The boundary territories and war fronts with remnants of the U.S.  How they infiltrated the U.S. Government and destroyed it in an age where any digital footprint would have been picked up by the intel community (unless they were compelled by the Gilead vision).  Would Gilead be "got" from the inside by the likes of Bradley Whitford's character and others.   How many people are truly left in Gilead and what function to they serve.  Etc.  Etc. 

So many compelling sub-stories that they have artistic license to pursue now that Atwood's tale has been told.  But I'm guessing they don't.  I'm betting it's 10 more episodes of wink-wink, Trump is bad, here's Moss making dramatic faces into obfuscated windows.  Here's a carousel to nowhere...

[Go Pokes 979]

I'd watch the shit out of everything in your 2nd paragraph.  

[HaroldBS 1]

@Lobo I am talking about the show so the book really doesn't matter to me. 

I get the politics angle but modern science has pretty much destroyed the premise that a "panic around low birth rates" would result in a world like this.  It's an outdated fear like Nazi moon bases or gamma radiation resulting in Godzilla.   

Normally that kind of thing can be silly and not make any sense andstill be entertaining

I just think this show in particular is using the setting as a crutch.   It's front and center for every character interaction yet the characters do not react in a believable way in response to it.  So I'm having a hard time understanding why people are saying this is a good show because it's certainly not well written.   Is it playing into rape fantasies or something?

[Guest Lobo]

I agree with you for the most part.  Was merely pointing out that society could get carried away like this with lowering birth rates (kinda like "Children of Men" but before the true shitshow kicks into gear).  It really would throw the world into a panic.  We don't talk about it, but we are animals looking to propagate and little else.  

Anyway, you are right--the show is not terribly well written.  The dialogue is clunky and trite.  My paragraph about other episode ventures they could take still holds true IMO.  Either send June with her big girl pants on to get rescue her other daughter and get the fuck outta Dodge or have her start to work formally with the resistance.  Another season of her in/outta the Waterford home staring bedgrudigingly at the greenhouse, though it may serve the anti-Trump/#metoo audiences that have rallied around the production...will tune a lot of eyes off of Hulu.  You can be true to Atwood, tell Trump and his mysoginist voters to fuck off, and still make a compelling alt-future show which is blessed with a talented cast and great world-building.  

[d2o 1602]

 

48 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I agree with you for the most part.  Was merely pointing out that society could get carried away like this with lowering birth rates (kinda like "Children of Men" but before the true shitshow kicks into gear).  It really would throw the world into a panic.  We don't talk about it, but we are animals looking to propagate and little else.  

Anyway, you are right--the show is not terribly well written.  The dialogue is clunky and trite.  My paragraph about other episode ventures they could take still holds true IMO.  Either send June with her big girl pants on to get rescue her other daughter and get the fuck outta Dodge or have her start to work formally with the resistance.  Another season of her in/outta the Waterford home staring bedgrudigingly at the greenhouse, though it may serve the anti-Trump/#metoo audiences that have rallied around the production...will tune a lot of eyes off of Hulu.  You can be true to Atwood, tell Trump and his mysoginist voters to fuck off, and still make a compelling alt-future show which is blessed with a talented cast and great world-building.  

My wife and I said the same thing when she was escaping this last time.   If she ends up back in that house, we're done.   Especially after giving the baby away there should not be one chance she should be allowed to live.

Edited August 2, 2018 by d2o

[mdmost 43321]

Well Atwood only wrote up to the point where June/Offred gets loaded into the van though not for defying Aunt Lydia but more because Nick may be helping her escape. 

[henrygandorf 29201]

i'm not in it for the politics, and don't really care about the reality of the scenario they've presented us.  much like the already mentioned "leftovers", it's the job of the writer/creator to lay out the premise of a show, and then it's up to me if i'm interested enough to watch stories unfold against that backdrop.  there are plenty of issues i could have with how gilead started, or the timetable laid out (it seems pretty fast).  i have lots of questions about how other countries are reacting/behaving, and what america actually is at this moment.

i hope they address these, but that's not the reason i'm watching or not watching.  ultimately it comes down to the stories and character arcs.  in s1, i was interested enough in those.  s2 pretty much spun its wheels, because (i believe) they just didn't have enough story to tell, and want the show to last several seasons.

the turning point to me was the bomb.  before that, i was like, "come on already", then it blew up, and i was like, let's do this.  once it got back to business as usual, i began to lose hope.  maybe that's the whole idea.  fucking genius.

[wild_turkey 3223]

i made a whole post on the netflix thread about this, but it's another case of a show that likely wasn't planning on going multiple seasons, and now that they have a chance to, they're milking it for all it's worth to make as much money as they can by stretching the shit out of the story.
everyone wins except the viewer.

Wife and I just binged the first 2 seasons, have not yet seen season 3, hence the reason why I am reading and posting in this thread.

I found season 1 very interesting because I like stories set in a dystopian future, even if that future requires some suspension of disbelief. The world was unique and interesting to me, the acting was good, and it had a reasonable pace for the plot and suspense.

Season 2 has definitely been spinning its wheels and the writing is highly inconsistent. A bomb goes off in a building and only one irrelevant named character dies. They spent multiple episodes on June’s first escape only to have her return home with no serious consequences. They allowed her to suddenly see Hannah (why would they even consider that?) and “escape” again with no consequences. Nick got shot in the front yard of that house, then he is magically back to normal with no mention of how he escaped his captors. And now June escapes again only to turn back to Gilead, which was unfortunately predictable and spoiled the S2 finale.

I’ve been concerned about hg’s comments above since the beginning. The premise worked for me but it seemed pretty clear that this is a 3 season story at most. You can’t keep June caged up in the Waterford house for much longer and have it remain interesting. My concern is that this is Hulu’s best original series and they won’t allow it to wrap up in a reasonable time, so instead of getting a clean plot like The Leftovers, we are going to watch it drag out and turn into The Walking Dead or Dexter.

I’ll watch season 3 next and hope for the best. I’m sure many of you have already watched it so you know how things will go. If there isn’t significant progression then I’ll probably stop before season 4, which is really easy to do since this is the only reason I registered for Hulu.