The Handmaid's Tale: Seasons 1 - 4 RECAP

welcome to the man of recaps this is the handmaid's tale seasons one through four now the show features incredibly disturbing content but i'm not going to show any or go into too much detail so you can get the story without living through the trauma welcome to gilead the rebranded name for a near future america that is descended into a christian-themed dystopian nightmare women in particular are the most oppressed group who have lost all personal freedom apparently this all started when the world faced a crisis of infertility so the fertile women in gilead have been rounded up and put in the red robes as handmaids this handmaid's tale is the story of june who we meet in season one as offred which is of fred because she's the property of her commander fred waterford he and his wife serena being unable to get pregnant it's their handmaid's job to bear children for them and sojune is forced to take part in the ceremony a government-mandated god-approved rape so it's an awful life for handmaids and they can't even trust each other because any of them could be true believers that are spying for the secret police the eyes and so their conversations are nothing but these pious platitudes blessed be the fruit praise be but one day june and her walking partner emily decide they can trust each other in fact emily's like hey i'm with the resistance mayday your commander fred waterford's real high up there see if you can start like spying on him and soon an opportunity presents itself when he invites her in to play scrabble this is super illegal because women aren't allowed to read but you know the rules don't apply to commanders so things are looking up june's made contact with the resistance and now has a mission but the very next day emily's been replaced they didn't find out she's with the resistance just that she's gay which is very illegal in gilead and emily's disappeared but june continues her scrabble games with fred he starts opening up to her in fact he almost seems like a nice guy until it becomes apparent that being nice to her is just a sick power trip for him and he's a disgusting pig soon he gets bored of scrabble and takes her out on the town to the brothel jezebels an unofficial funhouse for high-ranking commanders but this is good news for the resistance who has a package there june can pick up so she has to pretend to be into fred so he'll take her back and more good news working at jezebel's is moira june's best friend from before the fall so with moyra's help june gets the package out but it's not a bomb or anything it's a stack of letters written by women all over gilead telling the truth of how bad it is here and as for moira she decides it's time to escape and makes it to the safety of canada now let's meet mrs waterford fred's wife serena who sometimes is very nice to june but other times is incredibly cruel more than anything though she really wants a baby and when jun doesn't get pregnant she finally admits it might be fred's fault so she has a secret very illegal plan to make june try with another man and she has in mind their driver nick who's a generally nice guy and jun and nick can't say no here serena has all the power over them so they go through with it but later june sneaks down there like hey boy i'm ready to take my sexual autonomy back let's do it because we want to and so june and nick get it on with some passionate consensual sex now like most drivers nick does in fact report to the eyes but he's no true believer he's just doing what he has to do to survive and he and june truly fall in love but by the way june had a family before gilead her husband luke and daughter hannah during their escape june got caught but luke did make it out to canada and we check on him once in a while but tragically their daughter hannah was also captured she's been placed with another family and jun is never allowed to see her again but now serena's plan worked and jun is pregnant when a handmaid has a baby she gives it up to the host family and is immediately reassigned now handmaids are trained and overseen by the ants and the leader here is aunt lydia a real nasty person who's a gilead true believer this one woman janine wouldn't submit so aunt lydia punished her severely by taking her eye and it kinda broke her now janine's taking her baby back and threatens to jump off the bridge with it didn't think she talked her down but no she just handed the baby over and now she jumps janine survives the fall but now she's gonna be executed by having the other handmaid stone her to death but jun's like no way not one of our own so she drops the rock sorry aunt lydia and all the other handmaids join in yeah they're standing up for each other and so season one ends with a moment of empowerment tez handmaids are sticking together but as season two begins the punishment is severe it's like hey you thought your life was bad before we can make it even worse but the ringleader june is being spared the worst of the punishment because she's pregnant but aunt lydia is like don't get too comfortable if you misbehave there's still ways we can punish you so june's back on her best behavior for now there's some excitement at her checkup when a nurse leaves her key to escape yes nick has arranged an escape plan to get her to canada but long story short it doesn't work one of the many many times june almost escapes nick covers up his involvement in fact for his loyal service to gilead he's rewarded with a way too young wife long story short gilead has horribly brainwashed her and she thinks it's her fault that nick won't sleep with her and she ends up falling in love with one of the other guards but that's very illegal and they're both put to death in the public swimming pool fred and serena waterford take a trip on a diplomatic mission to canada basically the whole world denounces gilead but i mean it's still got america's military so they can't do too much about it and they do need to trade serena befriends an agent of the american government in exile more on him later the canada crew moira and luke do what they can to protest in fact nick finds luke like hey jun's alive she's okay relatively and he gives him the package of letters from gilead so luke and moira put it on the internet and now the whole world denounces gilead even more later nick's able to arrange a meeting between june and her daughter hannah yeah mother daughter reunited although briefly but just that nick's called away and june finds herself unsupervised near the canadian border yes it's time to escape but oh no what's this the baby's coming right now and june gives birth by herself a beautiful baby girl she can't trek through the snow with a newborn so june comes back and serena waterford's got her baby nicole now commander waterford's big project is building a fancy new red center but one of the handmaids doesn't like that smuggles in a bomb and blows that place up unfortunately fred survived but he's out of commission for a while but this is bad news because in gilead a commander can go from top dog to executed for treason real quick and bring his whole house down with him so serena says he's still working from the hospital but really she's doing the work and forging his signatures she brings in june to help because she was an editor and so for a while the women are running the show now back at the start of the gilead movement the waterfords were a team in fact serena was the rock star until the movement shifted to be more about oppressing women and serena found herself no longer part of the decision making and now in the world she helped create the book she wrote in support of gilead it's illegal for her to read but when fred gets back instead of thanking his wife for covering for him he's real mad and decides to punish her so serena's had enough she gathers up a bunch of commander's wives like hey we're loyal to gilead but we deserve to be treated a little bit better and so in a bold act she pulls out a bible and reads a passage but the men of the council were not moved by her bravery and in fact they punish her according to the law and cut off her pinky serena has often been june's greatest enemy but now june hopes she can find an ally in her now by the way we know about handmaids but infertile women of low status work as domestic servants called martha's one night there's a fire down the street and the waterford's martha rita is like hey june this is a distraction we're getting you and the baby out unfortunately serena catches her but jun's like hey you just saw how awful gilead is you can't possibly want to raise a daughter in this place and serena's just in the right mindset to agree she lets baby nicole go so the martha network helps june escape it's like wait here there's a truck to canada coming but first we gotta go check in on the colonies yeah the colonies are a threat to where you could be banished to apparently some part of america got nuked and uh people are sent here to clean it up and die and one of the women banished here was june's first friend emily but in the explosion at the red centre a lot of handmaids died so they need to replace mints congrats emily you're a sex slave again but her new commander is joseph lawrence who's a grumpy professor type and he's like look we don't do the ceremony here and this house is actually kind of chill aunt lydia though is not chill so one day emily grabs a knife and stabs her yeah knocks her down the stairs amanda lawrence is going to help her escape so is jun's waiting for the canada truck now her friend emily's coming with but at the last minute june decides she's staying behind what you know yes her daughter hannah is still in gilead though and june's decided she's not leaving without her june staying behind to help with the resistance and this is a good time as any to make fun of the fact that 90 of the show is june dramatically staring at the camera so now jun comes back like hey i got the baby to canada serena though is still in some kind of mood she decides to burn her house down june's like yeah girl i get it let that mother burn so the waterford house is toast june gets transferred to a new commander she's no longer of fred she's now of joseph unfortunately though he's not actually a part of the resistance which he tries to convince me he should do more to help but he's like yo there's only so much i could do he doesn't much care what you get up to though as long as it doesn't cause him trouble so some of martha's like to meet up here to talk resistant stuff and jun's like yo girls i'm in now emily and baby nicole did make it to the safety of canada she meets up with jun's husband luke and her best friend moira like hey guys you're the god parents of this baby now remember right before she escaped emily stabbed in lydia and pushed her down the stairs but aunt lydia survived she's a tough old bird and her brush with death did not make her any nicer if anything she's worse than ever now there's bad blood between the waterfords serena's still mad at fred for not fighting for when they cut off her pinky but when serena sees a video of baby nicole in canada she regrets her decision to let her go she wants her back so they start the propaganda campaign asking canada to return her to her home they travel to the capital of gilead old washington dc with the washington monument turned into a big cross and so working on this with commander waterford is high commander winslow he's a real top dog and he's living the gilead dream he's got like a dozen kids by a dozen different handmaids this makes june try to reason with serena like hey you can't possibly want to raise a daughter in this place but serena's baby crazy she's like yeah i kind of do though these two have a big fight in front of the destroyed lincoln memorial june's hoping serena would be an ally for her but that ain't gonna happen so with her husband fred fighting so hard to get their baby back things get better between them they make up but he's lying to her they've decided to keep baby nicole over there because it gives him a lot of political leverage now newly stationed in the capital is driver nick who's been promoted to a commander himself he and june are briefly reunited but he can't really use his newfound powers to help they're shipping him off to the front of chicago to brutally quash the rebellion there yeah he's just in too deep so back in the boston area a friend tells june where her daughter hannah goes to school june goes to mrs lawrence for help but she's a reclusive shut-in she's got some mental issues including high anxiety but june convinces her to go for a walk and befriends her enough that she's like yeah let's go find your daughter but with children so rare and valuable schools are heavily guarded june can't even see her just scares her across the wall to avoid future incidents they now transferred hannah far away even commander lawrence doesn't have the files but this ordeal's made june realize that she was being selfish thinking only of her own daughter all the handmaids have kids around the area and jun's got a new mission she wants to get them all out but soon after they get some visitors on ritual night yeah the higher-up's thinking suspicious that not a single one of his handmaids have ever gotten pregnant they're here to watch ensure he does the ritual and so we thought june's days of being ritualistically raped were over but it's happening again he's like yo i'm so sorry about this but she's like hey you made this world now you gotta live in it the silver lining though after this he's all in he's getting his wife out and gonna bring some kids with him so they put it out through the martha network to see how many are interested in helping smuggle kids if they send muffins it means yes and we got 52 muffins luckily the resistance has a plane coming in to deliver supplies so june's got to go back to the brothel jezebels to convince the bartender who's running the plane to load it up with kids before he sends it back out but she's recognized by commander winslow and though she comes up with a pretty good lie for why she's here by herself there's no way she's getting out of this without having sex with him but no she decides to fight back this time grabs a pen and stabs him with it then boom kills this guy june's gonna be in big trouble though luckily housekeeping's here to help and luckily the next day there's a bigger news story that overshadows his disappearance serena finally realized fred was intentionally keeping nicole over there for political reasons so she's been talking to the american cia to back channel a deal to give up fred in exchange she can live in canada have visitation with baby nicole but fred's like yo serena ain't innocent either she got immunity for anything that the laws of gilead forced her to do but remember she went outside the law to force jun and nick to have sex so she could take their baby though they had a consensual relationship later that first time they couldn't say no so serena raped them and she's getting justice too meanwhile mrs lawrence is doing worse than ever and one night june finds her overdosing oh she's gotta run and get help but wait if they call an ambulance that'll bring more attention on this house than ever and operation children escape is only a week away and so june has her walter white breaking bad moment she leaves the room and pretends she didn't see anything and so finally the big day is here and under the cover of night the marthas bring the kids under their charge to the house and so they journey through the woods make it to the airport but no why is there security here jean's like hey i'll distract them you take the kids around the other side but janine's like nah girl handmade stick together and all the women are throwing rocks to distract him and the antigens leading this guy away through the woods and oh she gets shot but when he goes to grab her the boot pistol blam gets him and the plane flies away the plan worked over 50 children safely in canada luke gets the bad news that his wife june is not on the plane but the bittersweet news that she organized this whole thing she's a hero and as for june she's okay the bullet just clipped her and the other handmaids are there to help but now this group of about a dozen handmaids are extremely wanted on their run but they make it to the safe house it's a country estate in the middle of nowhere so not many visitors commander keys has gone senile he has no idea what's happening so it's his young wife mrs keys who's happy to host some resistance heroes and you might think a commander's wife has had it better than the handmaids but she has not she's also been raped by her husband and all the guards in the area in fact they capture one of them so june strings them up and it's like alright girl you could kill him it's like yeah girl get that revenge but also june should you have let the 14 year old do it it's complicated i guess pretty soon june sneaks over to a nearby estate to meet with their mayday contact the fugitive handmaids can't stay in any one place for too long so she's got another safe house lined up for him but in the meantime this house is a giant party brothel for high-ranking military commanders jun's like yo while we got him all here we should kill him mrs keys being a country girl knows which berries are poisonous puts it in the liquor at the party house yeah drink up commanders yeah june just winning all over the place until back at the house oh what no the eyes found them and leading this mission the new commander of the eyes it is nick it's like hey june sorry i'm gonna do what i can to protect you but i can't stop this so june's brought to the serious prison where she's reunited with aunt lydia who's very mad at her the other handmaid's moved on before they got there so they're gonna torture june to find out where they are finally though they bring out the big guns yes it's june's daughter hannah but she was very young when she was taken away and it's been like five years she barely remembers her mom she's scared of this creepy lady this is heartbreaking for june it basically destroys her but still to protect her daughter she gives up the other handmaids before she leaves though nick managed to arrange a rendezvous for them and she runs up and these two start smooching i mean as a top commander he was complicit in her torture but like also he still cares about her and wants to protect her and she knows from their past relationship that he is a good guy he's just doing what he has to survive in gilead just like the rest of them so i don't know it's complicated so she's back in red it's handmade time again but they get stuck at a train crossing and the guard's like hey i'm gonna go out and take a leak and it's an incredible tense scene as without talking all these women realize that the only person guarding them right now is aunt lydia so oh june grabs her they're making a break for it if they get across the tracks in time they'll have a huge head start got a pretty good shot at freedom come on run for it oh no too late hit by a train out of all those minor character handmaids we've gotten to know and love over the course of the series it's only june and janine who survive these two decide their best bet is to hop a train headed for chicago remember that's the front where the resistance is still fighting and luckily this train is ambushed by the resistance so june and janine off to the war zone of chicago now back in gilead commander lawrence is in big trouble because it was his handmade june who helped all those kids escape so at first they're going to execute him but he's still the smartest guy they've got in terms of macroeconomics and international relations so they decide to keep him alive as a consultant he's like look to improve diplomatic relations we need a ceasefire on the chicago border to allow humanitarian aid in but the other commanders don't want to listen to him meanwhile aunt lydia after letting those handmaids escape she's being pushed out forcibly retired so she goes to see commander lawrence and demands to be reinstated she's like hey i've got all sorts of blackmail on you about stuff you've done that's not legal in gilead but commander lawrence is like hey i have no power here anyway but do you have blackmail on the other commanders indeed she does so these two use that to get aunt lydia reinstated and commander lawrence officially back in power unfortunately though right before the ceasefire they've decided to do one final bombing run oh no june run girls june is shell-shocked but alive and luckily the humanitarian aid's coming in right now and in fact the first one here who finds june is her old best friend moira and so it's finally happening after three and a half seasons of torture in gilead june has finally made it to canada she joins up with the canada crew all her friends she helped escape gilead including her baby nicole and she's reunited with her husband luke who is overjoyed that she's finally free and by the way janine also survived the bombing and there's another new handmade here it is the young mrs keys esther lester's like no way i'm not giving in things can't get any worse but janine's like yo girl look at my eye things can get much worse so for now esther's on her best behavior blessed be the fruit and all that and sojun enjoys living in a free society again but being in gilead all these years has left its mark she went through so much trauma it's gonna take time to adjust at the gilead support group for women who made it out moyers of the thought that hey we gotta move past our drama but jun's kind of like why should we move past it we should get angry and all the other girls are kinda with her now remember also in canada are the waterfords fred and serena but soon serena gets some very surprising news she is pregnant last season these two had an actual tender moment where they got it on but how is this possible serena was thought to be infertile and fred was also thought to be infertile it's a miracle i guess serena still rightfully hates fred but now they've got a bigger problem because june osborne is here to testify against them so june tells her story to the world basically doing a full seasons 1-3 recap so serena decides they need to present a united front so they make a deal fred tells the international community everything they could possibly want to know about the inner workings of gilead in exchange for immunity yes commander waterford is going to walk free and as you might imagine june is not happy june goes to the american fbi agent tuella like hey i've got a better offer for you she set up a meeting with commander lawrence and now that fred's talking they really want him back before he can spill more gilead secrets they're willing to trade for him 22 prisoners women that were in the resistance and tuella's got to admit saving all of them is worth more than fred's intel and so just as commander waterford thinks he's free it's like sorry man change of plans they take him back to gilead where he's certainly gonna be put to death nick brings him out into the woods but he's not killing him cause june osborne is here in person and she's not alone she brought all the women of the support group with her and she's like you better run and yes commander waterford running for his life getting to experience just a taste of what these women have been through pretty soon they catch him and finally june has him in her power they beat him to death and though it's extremely violent there's nothing complicated about this one he got what he deserved it probably will be complicated for serena though we'll see how she reacts actually june sends her a package with fred's finger oh so after violently beating a man to death june goes on home and doesn't bother taking a shower for luke this might be too much he was all good with him getting sent to gilead and executed but june doing it herself in such a brutal way i mean that's a lot and june recognizes this in fact she says i'm gonna go and that's where the handmaid's tale season 4 comes to an end if you like this recap hit that subscribe button for more of the best recaps of tv and movies [Music]

Channel: Man of Recaps

Views: 493,944

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Id: OsQoGB-kyzo

Length: 17min 46sec (1066 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 04 2022