“Blessed be the fruit,” pause. “May the lord open.” This is how Offred (Elizabeth Moss) and many other handmaids greet each other. Fast forward to the sex scene between Offred and Nick (Max Minghella), everything else in the show is pretty much distorted. With a 95% ratings on Tomatoes, The Handmaid’s Tale is adapted from the book called The Handmaid’s Tale by Canadian author and environmentalist Margaret Atwood. The novel, although written in ‘85 is timeless due to its popular ideas of feminism, anti-feminism, and gender equality.
So in The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred, the other handmaids, the commander (Joseph Fiennes), his wife(Yvonne Strahovski) and their friends live in a dystopian world. At first, the show with its monotonous setting gives you a Giver vibe except unlike in The Giver, in the Republic, only the women are enslaved whilst the men rule ruthlessly. Episode 1 starts with Offred being captured by the army of the Republic so that she can produce babies for people like the commander’s wife who expresses her gratitude by secretly calling the handmaid sluts. Unsurprisingly, being called a slut is one of the least problems of the handmaids as they occasionally are forced to have sex with the commander while his wife holds their heads. Even worst, the handmaids are under constant surveillance, but hey, every once in awhile they get to publicly stone a bad person, usually a man who ends up having sex or raping another handmaid. So at the moment, in the Republic of Gilead, there is nothing exciting happening, except a silent, resolute, and gradual underground revolution against the dictatorial regime.