You realize will probably be a landmark episode when the screener drops an hour earlier than airtime and the spoiler be aware explicitly tells you to not focus on music selection or the demise of any characters.
After which the episode is titled “Execution”?
Come on. You don’t want a Gilead-approved prayer e-book to know we had been heading straight into the hearth.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
However what I didn’t anticipate — even in any case this time — was how private it will really feel. How heavy, how earned.
And the way… exhilarating.
“Look What You Made Me Do” — And Look Who We’ve Turn out to be
Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” opens the episode with such brutal perfection that it’s virtually laughable they tried to maintain it beneath wraps. Because the handmaids scatter within the night time, hunted like animals, there’s no extra room for symbolism. There’s solely conflict.
And but within the chaos — Serena operating, the echoes of wives screaming, Gilead burning — what stood out most was the love.
June. Moira. Janine. Ava (an embedded CIA agent!). At the back of that truck, soiled and decided, they make a selection. We’re staying. We’re ending this. They usually say it like sisters — like ladies who’ve shared ache so particular and ugly it’s unattainable to clarify, solely to really feel.
They are saying “I like you” earlier than June is dragged away.
And in some way, that is the true revolution. Not the bombs. Not the blades. However the truth that after six seasons of being tortured, raped, silenced, and discarded, these ladies nonetheless know the way to love one another.
They didn’t simply combat Gilead. They remembered what Gilead tried to remove: connection.
The God of Vengeance and the Girls Who Rose Anyway
Aunt Lydia all the time believed she was doing God’s work. That if she was simply agency sufficient — merciless sufficient — obedient sufficient — she may defend her ladies by guiding them by struggling.
However when she’s delivered to the stage subsequent to June, nonetheless unaware of what’s taking place, she has a second of reckoning. She appears out on the sea of purple, the nooses, the righteous rage disguised as ritual, and you may see the cracks forming.
After which she does one thing that just about wrecked me.
She prays aloud — not for the boys, not even for herself, not precisely. However for them. For “her valuable ladies,” for what has been performed to them, whereas they’ve been prisoners of depraved, godless males.”
She lastly mentioned it.
This girl, who twisted scripture into submission, lastly let the reality out of her mouth.
And June? The girl who has walked previous physique after physique hanging on The Wall, who as soon as dared to like a daughter stolen from her, who has carried grief and fury in equal measure — she offers them one final prayer, one that turns right into a guttural, full-bodied battle cry.
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down!”
The gunfire begins. The ropes fall. And for as soon as, they’re not those dying.
June and the God of Love
There was one thing poetic in June’s jail cell dialog with Gabriel. Not simply because she’s tied to so many moments of righteous confrontation, however as a result of it lastly reframed the why.
Gilead used God as a weapon. Twisted His identify into doctrine. Justified all the things — rape, torture, pressured childbirth — by invoking “His will.”
However June by no means accepted their God. Her God — and Serena’s, for all her failings — is a God of affection.
“Select love,” she tells Gabriel. “Be the person she believes you will be.”
It’s such a easy line, and but… no Gilead commander has ever appeared smaller than Gabriel did in that second. As a result of deep down, all of them know what June mentioned is true.
It was by no means about piety. It was all the time about energy.
Serena’s Final Line — And Her First Step?
Serena’s been so many issues. A villain. A sufferer. A cautionary story. A survivor. However in “Execution,” she’s quiet.
She sees Gabriel. She hears the identical drained language. She watches him twist kindness right into a leash, and she or he doesn’t run. She doesn’t assist. She simply appears… unhappy. Misplaced.
No less than till June — the lady she as soon as hated, the one who saved her — stares her down and asks, what sort of man would you like elevating your son?
Serena offers up the commanders’ flight plan. For as soon as, she doesn’t attain for energy. She reaches for decency, remembering that the lady earlier than her did way more for her for a lot lower than her new husband ever may.
The Remaining Flight
Joseph and June drive to the hangar. Joseph is scared. June isn’t. Nevertheless it’s not June who has to get on that aircraft, by no means to return. The look on his face, the hand to his coronary heart. It was a crushing blow for man who made unhealthy selections for the precise causes.
Nick arrives, and June crumbles. There are two males she liked getting on that aircraft. Two males who liked her, otherwise and insufficiently. And neither of them will get to remain.
Joseph’s closing phrases to Nick — “Somebody higher than me should see it by” — hit like a quiet confession. A passing of the torch. An request for forgiveness, hope, and give up.
Nick asks, “Is she alright?” Joseph solutions with a smirk: “You’ll be able to’t maintain a bitter girl down.”
Joseph knew what was coming. Nick didn’t, however he was resigned to his place on this world, one which, with out June, wasn’t value dwelling.
Then the aircraft exploded, mirrored in June’s eyes. She watched it fall like fireworks on the Fourth of July, and the fallout isn’t any completely different. The combat for freedom continues.
Remaining Ideas: Execution Was the Reckoning We’ve Waited For
This wasn’t only a battle. It was the second The Handmaid’s Story stopped asking to be understood and have become what it all the time promised it could possibly be — a narrative not about ache, however energy. Not about trauma, however transformation.
The handmaids didn’t simply survive. They rose, collectively. In love, in fury, and in sacred vengeance.
And in case you’ve ever identified what it’s prefer to be silenced, dismissed, managed, or reshaped by another person’s guidelines — you felt it too.
There may be one episode left, and I don’t know how we are going to say goodbye to those characters we’ve grown to like. However I’m prepared for it. Let’s go.
How about you?
Did “Execution” zig if you thought it will zag? The place will the finale take us? Share your ideas within the feedback under.
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