June is where we left her last week: completely defeated.
It’s telling that we get no voiceover in this episode.
June has been demeaned so significantly that she can’t bring herself to even think for herself.
Credit: George Kraychyk/Hulu
She weighs June, measures the size of the baby, considers her mental state.
Serena’s clearly growing tired of the check-ups.
And the mood, it’s no secret even to Serena, is insufferably grim.
June’s in no position to gossip with her about other handmaids.
She’s not interested in bickering or undermining Serena.
Now, she has no reason to punish or scold June.
She’s being driven mad by it.
Serena does act out in another way, however.
Over breakfast, she sits on the opposite end of the long table from the Commander.
He kindly ignores her various niceties.
And he seeks to do something about it.
But then it becomes clear.
They’ve unknowingly wandered into a marital ceremony.
Nick appears uneasy, even heartbroken, and June manages to express a human emotion again: sadness.
She cries from above and makes eye contact with Nick.
It’s an ugly moment, and Serena’s toxicity is in full view hereshe delights in the spectacle.
Early in the episode, while on the toilet, June sees she’s bleeding.
Her face stays blank upon the realization.
Later, she’s soaking in a bathtub full of blood.
She maintains her routine after, however, carrying on like nothing’s wrong.
Rita notices she’s weakening, but June maintains her composure so as not to arouse suspicion.
And when she returns from the Prayvaganza, June struggles up the stairs, still evidently bleeding.
A light does shine through eventually, however, in Janine’s unwavering faith in God.
She tries to see the good in an unimaginably bad situation, which drives Emilya hard realist crazy.
“We come here.
We die,” Emily tries explaining.
And the same, at long last, goes for June’s arc this week.
Even more stunning: the baby’s survival.
Serena goes to get the doctor when she wakes up, leaving June alone with her child.
“You’re tough, aren’t you?”
And then, we see June come back to lifeshaken, perhaps, by her own toughness.
“I will not let you grow up in this place.
I won’t do it.
Do you hear me?”
June tells the baby.
“I’m going to get you out of here.
I’m going to get us out of here.
I promise you.”
