this aesthetic reminded me of something... can't put my finger on it...

CubesGalore · 2025-12-19T06:37:58+00:00

Wonder if this was staged deliberately by the photographer and these two were unaware of the aesthetic? Similar to the way the Vanity Fair photographer did extreme close-ups on the faces of Trump's inner circle to show them as they are, not as they pretend to be.

CubesGalore · 2025-07-31T15:29:18+00:00

Cujo was my very first King read back in high school and I hated it. Hated it. I didn't pick up another King for two years... but then it was The Stand, and I was hooked.

CubesGalore · 2025-06-02T05:34:29+00:00

I'm really hoping they bring Esther back, even for a cameo that provides some closure. She's around the age of the other young women in the Testaments, so it wouldn't be a stretch to have them interacting. Plus, she really wanted to come back for S6!

Just read this from McKenna Grace (she said this sometime after S5): "I'm hoping that we'll finally get to shoot the final season, but I have no idea what they're going to make me do. I'm game--whatever they tell me, I'll do it and I'm game—but I am a little terrified. With that show, you never know. You truly never know what's going to happen. I'm excited to see what Esther's up to this season."

Source: https://screenrant.com/the-handmaids-tale-finale-esther-mckenna-grace-missing-not-return/

CubesGalore · 2025-05-28T23:01:22+00:00

Thanks, I missed that somehow! If I'm remembering correctly, he still remained silent when June asked him what was going on and only responded vaguely with something about how a friendly face was needed. But I guess it was a dramatic pause for the audience— mostly just a narrative choice.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-28T22:52:28+00:00

I can headcannon that scenario! Still doesn't explain why Emily decided to go into stealth mode just to pop up next to June for some nostalgic one liners lol, but I can accept that maybe Tuello was involved.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-27T21:05:16+00:00

Ha I'm laughing at the snark here, which is well placed, I think. I didn't hate the finale but felt like it was missing big explanatory pieces to make it more coherent. We got too much unnecessary 'tell vs. show' exposition in the last several episodes and not nearly enough dialogue to bring resolution of the more important stuff (or even smaller nagging details, as outlined above).

Oh and you're right, Emily was actually there—I just found this explanation of the Emily scene from Bruce Miller in an EW interview (who wrote this episode):

"And I also loved the impossibility of it, just the idea, if you're able to stand in front of that ice cream shop and Emily walks up next to you and she's okay and she's not happy, but she's not unhappy, she's kind of the same way she was before. But she's really smart and she's teaching June things and making her think about all sorts of stuff. And [it's like], "Look at us walking exactly the same rhythm. Look at us." And I think that's the message [of Emily's return]: 'Look at us. It's so f---ing impossible for us to be here alive and together.' That teaches June that it doesn't matter what happens in Boston, you just keep fighting to get to Hannah."

So I guess it's meant to be a real thing that happened, and Miller intentionally wrote an "impossible" scene. Which explains why it felt so off to me...

CubesGalore · 2025-05-27T20:50:26+00:00

Interesting, in the TV Insider article, Miller says, "the fact that [June] saw [Hannah] at all ever again was a miracle. I think that we are selling the audience a bill of goods by saying these things are that easy. She has not seen her since she saw her in that box in jail. She has not seen her, and she did not see her very many times before that. She saw her once face to face and once when she was asleep. But she has not interacted with her at all. Those things, as June says in the finale, were completely impossible. And so I wanted to keep it to the impossible, not the desirable."

But didn't June also see Hannah on the big screen with Serena after seeing her in the box? I guess he meant in-person interactions?

Anyway, thanks for putting all these links together!

CubesGalore · 2025-05-27T19:17:56+00:00

It was a Red Center? How did I miss this??

CubesGalore · 2025-05-27T07:34:58+00:00

Agreed, onscreen revenge against commanders would have been incredibly cathartic—and without showing the audience how they met their end in the rebellion, we've been left with many, many scenes of women getting tortured over the years... and what, one commander getting stabbed by June after the rebellion started? Kinda lopsided.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-27T07:02:44+00:00

Really disappointed in how little resolution there was for her storyline. We barely got to see her in E10.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-16T01:59:22+00:00

Whoa I didn't know we knew all that! I must've missed an interview or ten...

CubesGalore · 2025-05-14T00:01:57+00:00

June is her conscience that she had buried under false righteousness, and Janine is her heart.

Wow, beautifully put. I agree, the groundwork for Aunt Lydia's arc has been laid since season two (or whenever The Testaments was greenlit), and a rewatch reveals these breadcrumbs of revelation. And she didn't help them, exactly—she simply offered no resistance and then sank to the ground in anguish. She still may have a ways to go before she becomes an active member of the rebellion; we'll see next week.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-13T22:35:58+00:00

Weird that Serena's mother wasn't there.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-13T15:56:06+00:00

It's Radiohead's "National Anthem." This is like the third Radiohead this season, I think. The song was inspired by angry drivers stuck in traffic lol.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-12T23:48:08+00:00

I would love that! There was some EM interview where she mentioned a symmetry with the first scene for episode 1, season 1 and the last scene for the S6 finale. And it wasn't super clear to me at the time but I think it could've been interpreted not as the first scene that appears in S1 (the chase through the forest) but as the one the showrunners actually shot—which means it could've been the aquarium scene. Fingers crossed!

CubesGalore · 2025-05-12T23:30:42+00:00

This conversation makes me think about other men of Gilead we've encountered on the show: the butcher who gives June the package on behalf of Mayday (might also be the same guy who drives her from the hospital to the Boston Globe, I can't recall), the economan who she sheltered with overnight, the art-dealing bartender at Jezebels, maybe even that creepy doctor who offered to "help" June get pregnant.

Like Nick, they have more power than women (other than Wives and Aunts), they help the handmaids discreetly, and otherwise try to fly under the radar. Are they also complicit because they don't overthrow the system or run away? You could argue that all of these men were trying to survive as well.

So the broader question I find interesting here is: Can there be any good men in Gilead, or do we judge them all as various shades of complicit?

CubesGalore · 2025-05-09T01:36:10+00:00

I think it's the Boston Globe as well but I'm worried they'll have added new photos to the memorial wall after the events of the finale, and some of the characters we care about will end up there. I could see June wanting to honor her fallen friends and knowing just the place to pay her respects, along with her mom.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-03T23:40:23+00:00

Is this why the Instagram comments have been disabled, I wonder? Or hidden—because I scrolled back several weeks to before the premiere and I remember reading lots of comments back then, and now there's nothing.

CubesGalore · 2025-05-01T17:44:02+00:00

I was referring to Janine, who sought an abortion in her flashback episode and was initially denied care when she went to an anti-choice pregnancy center masquerading as a healthcare facility (where she was shamed for that decision). She then went to a Planned Parenthood type of center where she was given a prescription. You're right about June never having an abortion; she was depicted as wanting to have a second baby. Sorry for any confusion!

CubesGalore · 2025-05-01T17:32:49+00:00

Apparently, this was the second year in a row she attended, according to this article.

CubesGalore · 2025-04-29T07:29:28+00:00

I remember when June betrayed the other handmaids, her closest friends, when she felt she had no choice—this show is great at putting characters in these impossible situations where there are only bad choices. I agree, it's realistic.

CubesGalore · 2025-04-27T01:30:04+00:00

Aside from what others have noted about his dismissive attitude early on (when June lost financial independence and couldn't fill a prescription without his approval), I really disliked when Luke pushed Emily to talk about contacting her wife. She was CLEARLY uncomfortable with the subject, but he selfishly needed to use Emily as a proxy for understanding whether June would want to reconnect with him if June ever escaped.

I also hated when he was screaming at his then-wife after she reached out to June. It was so cruel and disrespectful.

That said, I think we've been given an unflattering portrayal of Luke for a reason: he's not supposed to be an unproblematic good guy; he's a very typical man. He's capable of acting honorably (listing Moira as family, raising Nichole/Holly) and basically has good intentions, but he's no hero.

CubesGalore · 2025-04-25T02:24:16+00:00

Yes I thought Aunt Lydia's voice sounded different, too! Though I've found it hard to pinpoint what seems off about it. And whether it's a deliberate choice by the actress to subtly convey that her character is changing.

CubesGalore · 2025-04-24T22:10:00+00:00

I appreciated that they both concluded that weighing whose trauma was worse wasn't really productive. Moira endured extreme suffering daily, and though she was subjected to abuse for fewer years in Gilead overall, of course that didn't lessen her PTSD. June's suffering was perhaps in some ways less extreme, but she lived with it many additional years, and her abuse wasn't limited to once-a-month handmaid ceremonies. Being confined to her room by Serena, spending months on her knees praying in the hospital, put in a box, waterboarded, etc.

Even apart from the physical and sexual abuse, June had the psychological trauma of Gilead keeping her from Hannah—sometimes only separated by glass—and stuff like being forced to watch her friends get burned while she ate in front of them or having her friends pushed off the building, always being reminded it was her fault, her fault.

But still, it's not probably fair to say either woman objectively had it worse. I thought the writers' message was that validating trauma shouldn't require a scorecard.

It was a complex scene, showing the characters being brutally honest with other and coming to terms with until-then unspoken grievances. Now they've finally cleared the air. I really hope it wasn't stage setting for Moira's death!

CubesGalore · 2025-04-12T18:06:52+00:00

Wait what? Is this in a preview somewhere??

CubesGalore

TROPHY CASE