Whereas the first season finale of The Handmaid’s Tale was constrained by the ending of the book, which leaves June stepping into an unknown future inside that black van, the Season 2 ending comes with a lot more breathing room. After spending two seasons building and expanding upon the world of Margaret Atwood’s book, the writers are now free to take some big, status quo-altering swings, and this week’s exhilarating finale, "The Word" absolutely delivers on that count. Serena’s powerful moment of rebellion and even more powerful moment of sacrifice! Emily literally stabbing Aunt Lydia in the back! Commander Lawrence revealing himself to be (maybe) a mensch! And perhaps most importantly of all, June smacking Waterford in the face! Reader, I cheered.
Here are seven moments to note from The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 Episode 13, "The Word."
1) Despite Eden’s untimely death, she left behind an impactful legacy.
To add grotesque insult to injury, this 15-year-old child Gilead killed will have no grave marker, while her body will be used as animal feed. And her own father is the one who turned her in, a revelation that leaves June visibly stunned. But Eden still gets to play a major role in the finale, thanks to something June finds in her belongings: a copy of the Bible, covered in Eden’s own notes and annotations. “She was trying to understand God,” June cries to Serena, who doesn’t outwardly seem affected, calmly dismissing this as yet another of Eden’s sins.
June demands to know how Serena’s going to keep her daughter safe, and when Serena replies that Nicole will grow up as a good, God-fearing child who “obeys his word,” June snaps: “She cannot read his word.” Serena knows she’s right. Gilead wants all of its citizens to be deeply religious, sure, but not at the expense of women’s intellectual subjugation and powerlessness. No matter how carefully Serena raises her, Nicole will never be able to have any nuanced understanding of faith—which is clearly a huge part of Serena’s identity—and she will never learn to read or write. Having lived in denial for this long, Serena finally has to confront the question of what kind of life her daughter can ever have in Gilead.
2) June, Nick and Holly had their first moment as a family.
And it’s heartbreakingly sweet! I have done a full 180 on Nick this season—I didn’t trust him at all for a long time and didn’t want June to either—but then that extraordinary sex scene in the Boston Globe offices happened, and their chemistry became breathtaking to me. Whether you’re on the June/Nick train or not, this scene is pretty moving: after having to endure the visit from Eden’s father, Nick comes to June visibly shaken, and she comforts him before leading him over to meet Holly for the first time. This is probably the closest to openly emotional Nick has ever been on the show, which is not saying a lot, but the tenderness and intimacy between them here is… a lot, in the best way.
3) Serena starts her own kind of revolution—and pays the price for it instantly.
Having had a glimpse of the future her daughter can look forward to in Gilead, Serena is finally pushed over the brink to revolt, but in a very subtle and shrewd way. She organises a group of wives, all of whom quietly share her concerns, to go before the Council—a room full of old, white men who find her mere presence hilarious—and formally request an amendment to the laws of Gilead that would allow children to learn the Bible. The Council, including Fred, patronizingly promise her that they’ll consider her proposal, but Serena’s not quite ready to be dismissed. She pulls out Eden’s Bible, eliciting gasps, and begins to read the passage that explicitly links the word of the Bible to the existence of God, illustrating how hypocritical it is for any Christian society to forbid its citizens to read scripture.
Though “allowing children to read the Bible” doesn’t really do much to address the key problems with Gilead (like, say, the ritualistic rape and enslavement of women), and though Serena remains a complicit monster, this is an incontestably brave moment. She knew there would be consequences—but what she didn’t anticipate is how willing her husband would be to give her up. Just like Eden’s father, he’s more than happy to step aside and let Serena be dragged away to her fate; as Commander Lawrence helpfully reminded us last week, the punishment for reading is to have a finger removed. Fred being a craven sociopath incapable of love or compassion, it’s up to June to sit with Serena afterwards and hold her non-mutilated hand, as Serena brokenly tells her, “I tried.” Serena thought she was protected, despite how much this regime has already taken away from her. She finally has to confront the reality that she is barely any safer than June.
4) The long-awaited June/Waterford smackdown is finally here.
It comes in two parts, just to really stretch out satisfaction. After Eden’s father leaves, June asks Fred what he’ll do when they come for his daughter (no ambiguity here—Fred would sell her out in a goddamn heartbeat!) Fred slaps her for her insolence, and in return June hauls off and smacks him right back, and it’s glorious! The physical altercation is brief, but the real smackdown comes after Serena’s mutilation, when June is openly disgusted that Fred let it happen. Far from even pretending to be contrite, he has the nerve to try and manipulate June yet again, telling her that if she’s “obedient,” he’ll bend the rules so that she can stay in the house and be near her baby. She pauses for just long enough to make you wonder if she’s going to play along. But then:
"Go. Fuck. Yourself. Fred."
I feel blessed by this scene. Waterford seems unfazed and just doubles down on his manipulation by offering June more visits with Hannah, but June is done playing his games, Scrabble or otherwise.
5) Emily’s vengeful rage simmers over in the most dramatic fashion yet.
Emily’s first ceremony with Commander Lawrence doesn’t go according to plan, the plan being Emily concealing a knife in her robes and stabbing him to death during the act. Lawrence abruptly tells her the ceremony isn’t happening, with a disgusted “No, I’m not doing that with you.” Given that the Ceremony is the whole point of having a Handmaid, this is just one more tally in the column marked, "This Guy Is A Little Off." But Emily still has the knife, and when Aunt Lydia comes by to call her perverse and degenerate, she snaps. “It’s as if I cut out your tongue,” Lydia says angrily when Emily refuses to speak, and this spectacularly cruel and unwise jab may cost Lydia her life, because as soon as her back is turned, Emily stabs her.
And this is not a spontaneous moment of violence that Emily regrets; at least not immediately. She doesn’t just stab Lydia, but throws her halfway down the stairs, then kicks her all the way down to the ground floor and stamps on her a few times for good measure. It’s only after she’s been locked in her room by the house’s horrified Martha that the weight of what she’s done seems to hit her—after a moment of pure joy, Emily begins to cry and hyperventilate, and Alexis Bledel remains just extraordinary in this role.
Later that night, Commander Lawrence whisks Emily out of the house and into his car with an ominous, “What are we going to do with you?” Her immediate punishment is having to endure Lawrence’s road trip music ("Walking On Broken Glass" is the show’s latest jarringly placed pop track!) and kooky dancing in the driver’s seat, but when she begs him to turn off the early ‘90s playlist, he does. And within a few minutes, we finally find out what’s up with Lawrence. This guy is a little off… because he’s secretly part of the revolution and is setting Emily free!
It’s not clear whether Lawrence has been a double agent all along, or has been swayed by Emily’s plight in particular—the latter doesn’t make a lot of sense, but his saying “I’m getting myself in deep shit” suggests this might be his first rebel rodeo. Let’s hope we see more of Bradley Whitford next season, because the emotional/hilarious one-two punch of “Godspeed” and “Have a nice life! Keep away from drugs!” makes Lawrence feel suddenly indispensable.
6) Serena finally gets a moment of grace.
Serena has become the most compelling and dynamic character on the show, even as she has become arguably less sympathetic than ever—holding down June as she’s violently raped is a point of no return, morally speaking. But when the Marthas suddenly—in a slightly irritating Deus Ex Machina way that doesn’t feel particularly earned—arrange for June to escape Gilead, Serena does the unthinkable and lets June take baby Nicole with her. “She cannot grow up in this place. You know she can’t,” June tells a weeping Serena, who for the first time acts like a real mother and puts her child’s needs first. Her sole purpose in life has been to get a baby no matter the cost, but with her own safety so clearly in jeopardy, Serena can no longer pretend that her child will be any safer.
June makes a similarly self-sacrificial decision for her own daughter, opting to stay in Gilead to try and find Hannah instead of getting in the escape van with Emily and baby Nicole. This is an incredibly frustrating turn, and feels like one dictated by storytelling necessity more than character—wouldn’t June have a better shot at getting Hannah out if she comes back with reinforcements? And isn’t June bound to be sent directly to the Colonies for giving a baby away? I get that it’s hard to write Season 3 without June in Gilead, but this ending did not really work for me.
7) Where does this leave everyone?
The Marthas’ coup—seemingly in tandem with Nick and some other rebel Guardians—leaves the structure of Gilead feeling more fragile than it ever has before. While there’s still no sign of that Canadian/British military invasion, it’s clear that those in power have lost their grip for at least a short time. Nick is effectively holding Waterford at gunpoint in the house, and how many Guardians besides him may be doing the same with their own commanders? Did the execution of Isaac help to stir up a revolution among their ranks? And for that matter, is Aunt Lydia dead? We don’t hear a word about her fate after the stabbing, but at the very least she’ll be out of commission for some time, which is a huge blow to Gilead in itself. (Let’s be real: she’s pretty much holding the thing together.)
Between the guard she ran over, the wife she poisoned at the Colonies, and now Aunt Lydia, Emily is racking up quite the body count, which is going to add a whole new layer of complexity to her post-Gilead storyline next season as she tries to recover. Having killed three people, however deserving those three people might objectively be, Emily is very, very far from the woman she was before. What does redemption look like for her?
And even if things essentially return to normal in Gilead after this, will the Waterfords face any consequences for letting their baby be taken? Considering how scared Serena was that they’d be put on the wall for losing their Handmaid a second time, and her recent rebellion, they have reason to worry. And now that her baby is gone, there’s absolutely no way June’s going back to the Waterford house. Judging by that vaguely superhero-esque final shot, in which she flips up the hood of her robe like a vigilante Red Riding Hood, June is on a whole new mission: ostensibly to find Hannah, but maybe also to channel some of Emily’s vengeful spirit. All in all, there is a lot to obsess over during the hiatus!
