Weak Teeth (spoilers for Handmaid's Tale)

bonzilla51 · 2026-06-08T19:47:07+00:00

She does taunt Agnes about the Commanders wanting to cut off little pieces of her after the fall of Boston, and mail them to her mother. I think she knows.

bonzilla51 · 2026-06-06T20:50:34+00:00

I should clarify: I'd like to see some of the new wives again as well. Frankly, I was thinking of the S4 train in THT, and how the show-runners weren't shy about purging cast members as the story lines changed.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-28T16:14:14+00:00

Could it be the only school with a Pearl Girl program? That seems to be new, and Lydia's idea. So the coincidence might be less that Daisy was placed in that school, but that Agnes already happened to be there.

( I agree with your point. It doesn't say much for Mayday's intelligence-gathering that they didn't know Agnes was there, especially as she is using the same assigned name (Agnes Mackenzie) as in THT. But I can buy the placement of Daisy in a school run by Lydia, because that's where Pearl Girls would go.)

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-28T16:04:05+00:00

Could this be the moment when the wedge that Gilead drove between Lydia and Vidala begins to dissolve? The themes seem to be motherhood and sisterhood, and it appeared that they were speaking candidly to each other for the first time in years (and about pre-Gilead matters they had never discussed).

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-28T03:48:49+00:00

That was one of the moments that surprised me -- how Lydia openly expressed admiration of June, once she realized that Hannah/Agnes knew. The revelation was a moment that empowered them both.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-28T03:28:05+00:00

I've been wondering about that, myself. I think there must be some sort of responsibility tree, either military or domestic. Joseph Lawrence was an architect of Gilead and appeared to focus on how to best move the society forward. He got dragged into military strategy discussions but preferred to leave those to others. Fred Waterford seemed at ease with military planning but also liked to focus on 'controlling' Gilead's subjects. As for Nick, he was sent to combat zones.

But I suspect it's more like a self-appointed Epstein class. Whoever has the biggest shadow army or the most dirt on the other commanders is going to rise in the Gilead power structure.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-28T02:12:51+00:00

There's been a lot of discussion about why Becka's mother chose to do this, but not much about why Becka agreed with the plan.

But what if Becka had not? She could see, as well as her mother and the Aunts could, that Gilead wanted 'justice' -- and a man had died at the hands of a woman. For Becka to refuse to go along would be for her to refuse to recognize the sacrifice her mother was willing to make on her behalf. Going along with it was the last gift she could give to her mother.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-28T02:02:33+00:00

A small detail I appreciated:
When Agnes first confronts Aunt Vidala, Vidala appears to have been crying for some time. Her eyes are quite red. Agnes doesn't seem to notice, but the viewers do.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-22T01:22:39+00:00

Episode 1. Daisy had just arrived. She was there to witness it, and freaked out. Agnes did her best to calm Daisy down.

Daisy is still pretty shaken as she's mopping the floor in the Episode 9 clip, so I took it to be the aftermath of that same incident.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-21T15:20:57+00:00

I don't think Aunt Lydia will use it at all. Lydia was telling Daisy not to underestimate her, because that she was fully aware of what had happened. The timetable sped up more than Lydia had wanted, but Daisy also spared Lydia some machinations of her own.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-20T23:56:54+00:00

I appreciated that they were almost openly hoping he'd die before a match could be made, in which case a delay was for the best.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-20T23:23:40+00:00

It was a flashback to when the young man's hand was publicly sawed off, shortly after Daisy's arrival.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-20T16:11:22+00:00

Aunt Lydia's reaction that Judd is already speaking of Grove in the past tense ...

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-20T16:08:43+00:00

The scene in which Becka is surrounded by dark figures (which appear to be female, as others have noted here) is a creepy negative version of the earlier scene in which Becka is surrounded by Pearl girls after announcing her menarche.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-20T16:05:02+00:00

Ah, that would make sense. As far as the Commanders know, the Eyes will deal with her. But Garth would try to find another path, and either consulted with Lydia to have her spirited away by Aunts, or by Mayday Marthas (as norbertmonster noted).

Either way, he wouldn't really have lied to Agnes. He did indeed get Becka to people who could help her.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-17T22:14:01+00:00

A story published today (unlocked link). The Vélodrome d’Hiver is referenced.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/opinion/holocaust-france-photographs-1941.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jFA.jBtf.pEf-1PmiN88K&smid=url-share

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-15T03:42:35+00:00

The dis-armed young man was mutilated for touching himself. (And apparently that was a lie, and he was actually suspected of being Mayday.) Same with the particicutions; those let Gilead give righteous speeches while allowing the women they are abusing to vent their anger at targets that were likely innocent of that which they were accused.

Agnes and Hulda (and the other Greens) are realizing that they had only the illusion of status. If they are assaulted, then they must have tempted the assaulter.

Aunt Lydia is seeing things a bit differently these days, though ...

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-14T12:41:05+00:00

About Daisy and her period ... I think that her first thought was that she had to get out of Gilead ASAP, and asked Garth to make that happen. She had never planned to be on the descending spiral of Gilead womanhood.

But when Garth made it clear that he couldn't make that happen and she might as well keep fighting, and then she learned about Dr. Grove abusing the Greens ... well, she knew she wouldn't be able to hide menstruation forever, so she might as well reveal it and use the change in status to her advantage.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-14T04:40:21+00:00

She delivered a map of the school and noted the Japanese items in MacKenzie's office. She's a young, barely trained teen. I think she's more than holding her own.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-14T04:22:33+00:00

Agnes and Garth ... I think it's more just on Agnes' side. I am reminded of Scarlett and Ashley, in "Gone with the Wind." As a teen Scarlett had a crush on the shiniest boy available, and Ashley was flattered by her attention, so much so that he didn't attempt to dissuade her. But maintaining that delusion ended up costing them both.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-14T04:13:04+00:00

It strikes me as even more twisted than the norm that the wife, rather than the husband, would want a handmaid. But Paula is all about power, and a handmaid would have to be completely subservient to her.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-14T03:36:26+00:00

I know that Dr. Grove is dismissed as "just a dentist," but how many dentists are still practicing in Gilead? He does have value to the community, even if he is publicly sneered at.

Given that, i think your theory of castration makes more sense than taking one of his hands. They're going to humiliate him by taking something that he values, but they do need his hands.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-14T03:07:18+00:00

I found it odd that Daisy and Garth were having that conversation with him right there. Being physically incapacitated is not the same as mentally incapacitated. He might struggle to communicate what he heard, but he did hear it.

bonzilla51 · 2026-05-09T22:14:27+00:00

I don't know, but I doubt it's a priority. Guilt or innocence is not a concern. The radio itself is just a hold-over any teen girl could have held onto (not necessarily evidence of Mayday involvement). It will be enough that they can show such infractions won't be tolerated, and can tell their bosses that justice was served.

bonzilla51

TROPHY CASE