Wow. What a week to return to the horrifying world of Gilead, where a non-pregnant Offred has been locked in a room for weeks by a super pissed off Serena Joy who apparently never took a sex ed class before the regime change. To recap our last recap, Offred is a Handmaid aka fertile sex slave. Ofglen/Alex Bledel got her clit chopped off for being gay (still not over it), Mr. Waterford likes to play scrabble, and Crazy-Ass one Eyeball Janine is getting crazier by the minute. Also, the President fired James Comey and Twitter is freaking out.
Wait, is that real life or The Handmaid’s Tale? I keep getting those two things confused…
Episode 4: Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum
We open on Offred still trapped in the bedroom. She realizes that whoever was Offred before her was also trapped in said bedroom, and she carved a message into the wall, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum,” or “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” Cue a thousand girls with Betty Page bangs getting this tattooed on their wrist.
Offred flashes back to a time Moira carved “Aunt Lydia sux” into a bathroom stall because I guess Moira is actually a 12-year-old boy in detention.
Cut to Mr. Waterford surfing the web.
Serena Joy: I heard an Aunt escaped the Red Center and fled to Canada and now she’s telling reporters all about how shitty Gilead is. Thoughts?
Mr. Waterford: Fake news.
Rita the Martha finds Offred lying on the floor and flips out thinking Offred is dead.
Rita: Omg!!! Are you okay?
Offred: Chill I’m just being dramatic so people will notice me.
Given that it is Ceremony Day, Serena Joy allows Offred to go to the doctor. Offred is just stoked to get out of her weird bedroom. It goes without saying that life must be pretty fucking bad if the highlight of your day is a trip to the gynecologist. That’s where Offred is at rn.
Aaaaand the gynecologist turns out to be a total fucking creep who “offers” to try and impregnate Offred himself. The fuckboys are truly thriving in this dystopia.
Fuckboy Doctor: Hey so, if you’re interested, I could totally have sex with you right now.
Offred: Can I see your face?
Offred: Hard pass.
We also get another key piece of information (apart from the fact that this doctor is a fucking skeeze). Like most things, the infertility plague might not be women’s fault at all, and is actually probably due to infertile men. But nobody is allowed to talk about it because it is literally illegal to call a man sterile.
Again, the fuckboys thrive.
Flashback to Offred and Moira chillin’ at the Red Center. They steal an Aunt’s attire and attempt an escape. And they almost get away with it too, if it weren’t for those pesky Eyes! Moira and Offred get separated, and that’s the last time they ever see each other.
As we now know (thanks Janine), Moira is dead because she got sent to the colonies and her skin fell off. It’s unfortunate.
Cut to Mr. Waterford, who can’t get it up because he and Offred haven’t played scrabble for a while. Serena Joy offers to give him a hand job, but he declines.
Nobody in Gilead ever wants a hand job, apparently.
Offred is back in the closet again, trying to figure out what she can do to get Mr. Waterford hard again. The answer, as always, is Scrabble.
The two resume their late night Scrabble sesh, and Offred convinces Mr. W to spill the tea about Nolite te Bastardes girl.
Offred: So…what happened to the Offred before me? Just out of curiosity.
Mr. W: Oh, she killed herself. I feel pretty bad about it, actually. Hence the Scrabble.
Offred: Noted.
Episode 5: Faithful
Mr. Waterford and Offred are officially Scrabble buddies. Offred notes that they appear to be flirting, and he likes it. Is Mr. Waterford cool? Maybe.
Mr. W presents Offred with an old raggedy-ass copy of Cosmo, which would be a pretty shitty gift in any world other than Gilead, where all magazines had been destroyed.
Offred Interior Monologue: I used to buy these at the airport!
Audience: Same.
Offred casually peruses an article called, “10 Ways To Tell He’s Into You” and notices that #1 is that he “brings you little gifts.” Is Mr. Waterford catching feelings? I guess that depends on if #2 is, “he reads you Bible verses before having sex with you while his wife is in the room.” If it is, then I think there’s a pretty good chance Mr. W is harboring a crush.
Flashback to Offred meeting her hipster husband for the first time, who strikes up a conversation with Offred (whose name is still June at this point) over her Tinder profile pic. Very casual.
Offred/June: Do you think this pic works?
Hipster Husband: You look invincible.
Offred/June: Yeah but do I look hot tho?
Return to present day, where Rita is back to being a bitch. Hot(ish) Nick is also there, and keeps looking at Offred in a very guy-at-a-bar-who-is-trying-to-get-your-attention way.
Honestly, for a person who is trapped in dystopian sex slavery, Offred’s love life is poppin’ off.
Then Serena Joy shows up and starts her whole fake friendship routine, asking Offred if she wants to hang in the garden. Like everything that has to do with Serena Joy, we know shit is going to get fucked up. And boy does it ever.
Serena Joy: So, I was thinking, you know how my husband can’t get you pregnant? Well maybe you could start having sex with other people. Nick, for example.
Offred: Um what?
Serena Joy: Great. Glad to hear you’re on board.
Cut to the Handmaids doing their daily grocery shopping. Crazy-Ass One Eyeball Janine is still there, and still doesn’t get that her baby belongs to somebody else now. Bish ain’t never gonna learn.
Offred looks around for an excuse not to have to talk to Janine anymore, who just used the term “hater” like she’s Taylor Swift or something.
But look! Omg! It’s Ofglen/Alexis Bledel! She’s back at the grocery store and not even dead!
Of course, we all already know the horror that has befallen Ofglen, but Offred doesn’t, so she approaches her all like:
Offred: Omg! Ofglen! Girl where you been at?
Ofglen: I’m Ofsteven now and I can’t have any friends.
Offred: Cool Cool. What was the name of that resistance thing? I’ve been thinking that’s something I could get into.
Ofglen/Ofsteven: Mayday. Now please stop talking to me I’ve been through some shit.
Next thing we know, New Ofglen is here acting like a total narc. She pulls Offred away from Old Ofglen/New Ofsteven/Alexis Bledel and reveals that she may, in fact, be the only woman in Gilead who actually finds life as a Handmaid to be an improvement.
New Ofglen: Listen up. I used to get fucked behind a dumpster so that I could buy Oxycontin. Now I have a house. I’m not gonna let you fuck this up for me.
Offred: Um…TMI?
Flashback to Offred and hipster husband on a date. They make plans to get a hotel room and bone consensually. Offred is like, “lol, memories.”
Hipster Husband: So could I come surprise you at work?
June/Offred: No I need 48 hours notice and time to shave my pussy. But then yeah.
Cut back to Hot(ish) Nick and Offred, who are having sex in a shack as per Serena Joy’s wishes.
Offred & Hot(ish) Nick: Hey Serena you don’t actually have to be here for this cuz it’s not like, an official ceremony.
Serena Joy: Nah I’m gonna watch.
Once again, sex is happening, and nobody is into it. You know how you can tell when somebody isn’t into sex? When they can’t stop staring at the gun on the counter.
Serena: How do you feel? Do you feel pregnant?
Offred: You don’t just feel pregnant 30 seconds after a man cums.
Audience: Omg she said cum.
Now it’s time for The Ceremony-Ceremony, meaning that Offred is going to have to have weird sex with Serena Joy in the room for the second time in one day. Man, being a handmaid is—no pun intended—a pretty raw deal.
The Ceremony is all going normally until Mr. Waterford starts looking longingly into Offred’s eyes, and touching her gently and shit. It is clear that he has caught feelings.
Offred: Hey can you not act like you enjoy fucking me in front of your wife? Thanks.
Mr. Waterford: But like, what are we?
Mr. Waterford and Offred get into a conversation about feminism and the role of women, predictably, Mr. Waterford doesn’t fucking get it. Then Mr. Waterford reveals that he was part of the court that decided to de-clit-ify Ofglen, so if at any point you were thinking Mr. Waterford might be cool, then sorry, but you played yourself. Mr. Waterford is actually the biggest fuckboy of all.
Wr. Waterford: We wanted to make the world better.
Offred: You cut my friend’s clitoris off.
Mr. Waterford: Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some.
Audience: Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump
Overwhelmed by it all, Offred pukes in the sink, and it is that exact moment when Hot(ish) Nick shows up and they have an awkward post-hookup chat.
Offred: So now that we’ve fucked, can you tell me if you’re an Eye?
Hot(ish) Nick: Oh uh…about that…yeah…I am…also like…what are we?
So Hot(ish) Nick is a spy. Noted.
Cut to Offred and Narc Ofglen back at the grocery store, which is basically the club for Handmaids.
Narc Ofglen gets distracted by some flowers, and Offred goes to talk to Old Ofglen/Ofsteven/Alexis Bledel.
Offred: Hey, I heard about your clit. Very unfortunate.
Old Ofglen/Ofsteven/Alexis Bledel: Yeah I’m like, pretty pissed about it actually.
THEN OFGLEN GOES FUCKING ROGUE AND STEALS A FUCKING CAR AND STARTS DRIVING AROUND!!!!!!! LIKE LITERALLY JUST DRIVING AROUND IN A CIRCLE!!! WHAT?!?!
Crazy-Ass One Eyeball Janine fucking loves it. She’s laughing her ass off the whole time and screaming “THIS IS MY FUCKING JAM!!!!!!,” even when Old Ofglen just straight up drives over a bunch of people and their bodies explode all over the place.
And that, my friends, is why you never cut a lady’s clitoris off. You never know what she might do.
While everyone else looks on in horror, Offred finds this whole thing very inspiring. Nothing like watching a lady with no clitoris run over a bunch of dudes with a car to turn you into a radical feminist. Now she knows exactly what to do about the whole Nick-is-a-spy thing: fuck him into silence.
Offred: *takes off her bonnet*
Audience: Oh shit, it’s about to get sexy.
Nick and Offred fuck again but like, for real this time, and sans Serena Joy. Offred even gets on top, as if to say, “Fuck the patriarchy!!!” But like, literally.
Safe to say, our girl Offred is up to something. I highly doubt she just wants Nick’s D. She’s probably planning her own death-by-car scenario, but in this case, the car is Offred’s vagina.
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