June is back more determined than ever! The heroine of The Handmaid’s Tale embarks on a war against Serena in Season 5 of the dystopian series. We saw the first episodes.
Warning, spoilers. It is advisable to have seen season 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale before continuing to read this article.
A little over a year after the controversial season 4, the series The Handmaid’s Tale returns with a fifth season, the broadcast of which starts on September 15 on OCS in France. Despite some controversy, the series of Bruce Milleradapted from the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwoodnonetheless remains relevant, even more so today.
As women’s rights are violated in the United States – with the Supreme Court’s revocation of the right to abortion – The Handmaid’s Tale is back at a crucial moment. June’s revolt is more than ever welcome in an uncertain period across the Atlantic after years of the Trump administration, the start of which coincided with the release of season 1 of the series.
Four seasons later, the heroine June (played by Elizabeth Moss) finally took revenge on his executioner Fred Waterford, high-ranking commander of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian state that gives full power to men and enslaves women and reduces them to their marital, domestic or reproductive “functions”.
The fourth season ended with Fred dead, hunted down and beaten to death by June and twenty other servants freed from Gilead and out for revenge. In her bloody madness, June flicked the finger at Serena Waterford, Fred’s wife, and officially declared war on her.
JUNE VS SERENA
After watching the first two episodes of season 5 of The Handmaid’s Tale, we feel that this confrontation between June and Serena is going to be the main plot of these new episodes. As each manages their emotions and traumas, the tension rises crescendo between the two young women, yet miles apart.
June is no longer the same and those around her no longer recognize her, her desire for revenge has consumed her little by little, and all that remains in her heart is the vital desire to find Hannah, her daughter who was taken from her once. ten years earlier when she became a Servant.
Hulu
For her part, Serena has been lonely since the death of her husband Fred. Pregnant up to her neck, she barely has time to grieve when she already has to think of a fallback solution to regain power and hope to find a place of choice for herself and restore her image in Toronto, feeling that the principles from Gilead are starting to make their way to Canada.
The two excellent actresses Elisabeth Moss and Yvonne Strahovski continue to amaze us with their performances and we are excited to see them reunited for a real confrontation in good and due form. Along with their anger and rage, Season 5 will explore the toll their actions and ordeals have on their day-to-day psyches as they try to reclaim their bodies, personalities, and lives.
For these new episodes, the teams of The Handmaid’s Tale continue to use a tried-and-tested recipe with careful production, moments suspended and always sublimated by skilfully chosen music, shocking scenes and very close-up shots on June’s face (which still tend to annoy sometimes).
Still, the strained relationship between June and Serena had been left hanging and it’s high time to dive back into it, and maybe put an end to it? Even if The Handmaid’s Tale continues to keep us spellbound by its major subject and anchored in our reality, we fear a new escalation of violence, sometimes gratuitous, which could taint the subject of the series.
If season 5 continues in a more strategic direction, made up of political low blows and a confrontation on the cerebral field, then the series would break out of its usual pattern and could benefit from a new breath. Without losing its vitality and organic strength, The Handmaid’s Tale would benefit from restoring depth to its secondary characters, who deserve more exploration.