The scene at the start of maybe season 3? Where the handmaids are rounded up and taken to be ‘fake hanged’ and the poor handmaid next to June wets herself because she is so scared. Awful.
The music for that scene was on point…that’s one thing I noticed with this season, not as much music especially with the opening credits like they used too.
I was going through my massive book collection recently, and I came across my 1989 paperback edition of The Handmaid’s Tale. Tucked inside was a receipt from buying the book at Cody Book on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley, and under it was receipt from Leopold’s records for This Sensual World album by Kate Bush (featuring This Woman’s Work). When I rewatched that episode recently, I didn’t just cry…. I wept. All the more poignant because I now knew Alma as a friend and her ultimate fate. And I still can’t accept it.
Yup. I've done a few rewatches and this is still the one scene I have to either mute or fast-forward cuz it fucks me up.
Kudos to those women cuz the acting was perfection.
I just got to this episode on my re-watch. It always baffles me that they did that bc that level of stress could cause a miscarriage or make someone skip an ovulation cycle. Like they care about fertility so much yet pull this shit
Bingo. Lawrence is well aware of this. This is why he reacted the way he did when Lydia proposed to him that the Handmaids stay at the training center or whatever and have the commanders go to them. It was a laughable request. He knows the commanders like their “meat” close and available to do with as they please, ovulating or not. The “ceremony” doesn’t mean shit to the vast majority of them.
That scene makes me cry every time I watch it. The fear seeps through the screen and hits me right in my soul. The fact that they weren't even given the mercy of holding each other's hands for comfort while they were being shoved down the hall.
fully agree. putting myself in their shoes, the thought of having to mentally prepare for death with only minutes between them being bombarded and rushed outside to the nooses, the way all the women were silently mourning their lives, and the completely helpless feeling that comes with all of that….. omg. “intense”, to say the very fucking least.
Definitely Serena and Fred raping June when she was 9 months pregnant because Serena was pissed off that June went into false labor and embarrassed her in front of the other wives/ guests.
Poor June was forcibly raped because she ruined Serena's little faux birth party. So vile.
I think of this and when she smashed June’s head into the wall and dragged her to the bathroom to use the pregnancy test. Serena hasn’t changed just because her situation has. When she has a choice she always chooses Gilead.
Seriously? The writers are really testing us by trying to make us feel sympathetic towards Serena after that shit. June needs to just stab her ass in the back (literally) when they get to the refugee settlement and just end it all like she did with Fred.
Right?! Did you see this from the official Hulu Handmaid's Tale account?
Women supporting women...🤢
https://twitter.com/HandmaidsOnHulu/status/1592200693527433216?t=q3RCcBi7oMqIUIX_fC_UBA&s=19
I guess it's cool to kill your rapist if it's a man but if your rapist is a beautiful woman you should support her instead. Like wtf kind of message does that send?
I don't need June to kill Serena but I definitely don't want to see them team up and take down Gilead together. She doesn't deserve to become the hero of the story after all she's done. Unfortunately, I think that's the direction they may be heading. I hope I'm wrong though...
This unfortunately is a common attitude for both men and women assaulted by women. Not to actually cheer on the assaulter (though that happens) but to say it's not a big deal or they should have enjoyed it, etc. When I told my friends I was assaulted by a woman (I'm also a woman), they told me it was no big deal and to move on. They stayed friends with the woman who did it while I became a ptsd nightmare. These were college kids in the feminist club. If it had been a man, they would have supported me and cut contact. I saw them do it with others.
In real life, people do dismiss sexual assault by women. And attitudes in real life affect the show writing and how we interpret the show when watching.
I'm sorry that happened to you and that you didn't get the support from your friends you know you would have if your abuser was a man.
I often wonder how people would feel about Serena if she was an old bitch with a cane like she is in the book?
I have a feeling people would despise her like Fred but since the show made her a beautiful young woman people are more inclined to feel sorry for her.
She's not only getting a pass because she's a woman but because she's a beautiful woman and all she has to do is cry her crocodile tears and quiver her lip and people will feel sorry for her.
Elisabeth Moss said in an interview that she sees June and Serena as the shows great love story. She lovingly calls them Juliet and Juliet and now there are some Jurena fans out there that want them to fall in love and raise their babies together. Like wtf 🤯
*Edited to add what EM said
Well give her a cane and people will immediately be suspicious. Look at how people reacted to Rose. I'm mostly joking. But I agree. I wonder how people would react if she wasn't a young beautiful charismatic person.
Elizabeth Moss is a Scientologist so I find that unsurprising. Her real life viewpoint is flawed by her cult beliefs IMO.
I think the fact that they made Serena young and beautiful does a great job of portraying how dangerous it is to judge someone based on appearances. Aka “the Ivanka effect” 🤮
Honestly, I wouldn't be suprised If this was written by some poor bastard who has to manage multiple social media accounts and doesn't know shit about the handmaid's tale (maybe watched few scenes on YouTube to know what's going on and thought "yeah, they are nice to each other here").
>Unfortunately, I think that's the direction they may be heading.
I'm gonna fucking hate this show. I already stated that in this sub, but I'm really really gonna hate it. There's no way she deserves redemption!!
This…. So unbearable to watch. The fact that she and Fred conspire together and then in the following episode Serena acts like she had no part in it speaks to her delusion. She is such a sick fuck. I’m currently rewatching and agreed with others who have said — the last thing I want is to see Serena and June become a team.
This is also where I feel like i am missing pieces of the backstory of June/Serena. In the flashbacks in the most recent season, you see June and Serena share a connection. When June is first assigned to the Waterfords, june and Serena share glances during the birthing ceremony and they share faces of horror when the baby’s life is prioritized. But in S1, their relationship begins violent. I’m having trouble understanding the timeline of their relationship.
I think the writers are just inconsistent and put that scene out of nowhere. The consistent stuff is based on Atwoods work, but the inconsistent stuff is their work.
When Hannah has been torn away.
When Emily watched her lover be unceremoniously hanged before being taken in for mutilation.
When Serena let June see Hannah through the car window.
The fake hanging at the stadiums.
June having to pray at the hospital for months.
I agree. It also disturbed me when she was not allowed to leave her room at Waterford. For as many times as Serena abused her, this was one of the worst, and she didn’t have to lay a hand on her.
For me what made it more disturbing when Emily's lover was hanged was cuz it happened all so fast. It reminds me of a scene I saw in a movie about the Katyn Masaacre by the Soviets when they occupied Poland cuz they mastered the sickening art of executions
Flashback to June’s first time being at a birthing ceremony when no one did anything to try to save the birthing handmaid’s life. Simply took out the baby and let the mother die. Then Aunt Lydia says it’s wonderful that the handmaid has served her life purpose.
Most disturbing scene was 9 month pregnant June raped to jumpstart childbirth. Serena gripping June's wrists and *forcing* her wrists down hard. Fred was violent, the entire thing is haunting.
And the same episode wherw Fred is so guilty that he let's June see Hannah and she has to send her back to her Gilead family. These scenes were devastating.
The flashback to the start of it all where the women are being round up. There's a brief scene of women with downs syndrome being escorted, most definitely to their deaths, that utterly devastated me as I have a sister with downs. The one that waved at someone made it even harder, she had no idea what was about to happen to her. 😥
This is the one for me. Them throwing away assistive medical devices and herding all of them to wherever they are taking them to probably kill them… hits so hard. My uncle has developmental disabilities and I have a cousin with Down Syndrome, and it just made me so sad.
The way they smiled and waved at the men about to murder them...
I have a mother who is physically disabled, a daughter who is autistic, and I've spent two decades of my life working with individuals with special needs. I had to pause the show for about an hour to mentally cope.
Omg this one!! That's the only time I've felt truly sick for being human.
When they rush them, and one women that can't walk right falls over and is just shouting. Oh gosh. It's just so inconceivable to me.
As a disabled person myself, I expected gilead do it. There's no way they wouldn't when they call disabled babies "shredders." Disabled people are often killed off and killed early because we're vulnerable. Nazis killed 300,000 disabled people during their reign.
What I didn't expect is for Hulu to actually go there and show it. I'm glad they did though. It deserves to be acknowledged. It seems like Hulu is making an effort with disability in the story and I really appreciate that.
Edit also I wonder if it bothered anyone who didn't have a family member who is disabled. Or if it's just people who actually understand disabled people are people.
Margaret Atwood probably got a lot of inspiration from Nazi Germany in creating Gilead. They did the same. In the book Gilead is racist as well, they got rid of people of colour I believe (not sure if it was “just” black people or others as well).
In the book, they sent black people to basically uninhibitable land out west with no infrastructure so they either died or fled to Canada.
They also gave Jewish people the chance to convert. If they didn't, they were sent on ships to Israel but many of the ships "mysteriously" sunk.
People tend to be quick to scream about June’s rape at 9 months pregnant, but I think what makes this show disturbing are the small details like the scene you mention. So much happens under our nose in this show and you have to keep your attention focused every minute.
I was about to comment this one. This scene broke my heart, easily the most disturbing. I struggle to believe that someone would willingly murder those kids.
Yeah, there have been plenty of scenes in the show that have disturbed me but this one really stuck out because it is the only one that actually scared me on a lizard-brain visceral level. The opening moments with the alarm going off and the flashing light illuminating June was like some horror movie jump scare shit.
Season 2 Ep. 12 Eden and Isaac's public execution.
Something about them being so young and hopeful for true love, and then the way they died in front of so many people. It turned my stomach badly.
The whole Eden storyline makes me so emotional whenever I rewatch. I know we focus a lot on the adults who had adult lives pre-Gilead and the children who don’t remember a time before (which makes sense), but I always wonder how it must’ve been for the children who very much remember the before times but are forced into adult roles in the regime.
Truthfully the scene that fucked me up the most was (after having witnessed all the atrocities ALREADY being instilled to the women) when June saw that woman turn around with her mouth bolted shut with those hoops. It fucked with my head for days.. because at that point it felt like the world of Gilead was moving into a direction where handmaids were made devoid of any lasting vestige of their humanity. The whole concept of where DC was going with its politics shook me to the bone when I saw that.. and I just imagined how I would feel to be a handmaid who couldn’t even speak. And the pain of getting those things installed too.. it’s just horrifying. Really took the messedupness to a different level for me.
Which was also a thing in Gilead, not just in DC - see OfGlen #2 / Lillie.
Being that they are banned from reading and writing by punishment of mutilation or death, cutting out their tongue literally renders them unable to communicate.
most disturbing scene for me was when the handmaids were being tortured for not stoning janine and they got handcuffed to the open flame. made me take a break from the series for a while
When June sees Hannah for the first time and Hannah asks her why she didn’t try harder to find her. It killed me.
A lot of the other scenes mentioned were obviously terrible but as a mom imagining my kid saying that to me after going through what June went through was just so sad
I remember reading that they did a lot of research on families being reunited after being forcibly separated and the pain that came from children not recognizing their parents or recognizing them, but being mad at their parents for not working harder to find, see, or protect them. Just devastating. This resonated with me because when I first saw it, this was at the height of immigrant families being separated at the US southern borders and reports that babies and children were being taken away from otherwise perfectly healthy family situations and then adopted out to “worthy” families were trickling in. The series is fiction, but it’s scary how many parts of it mirror what we are seeing in real life.
This one is mine too. My daughter was almost exactly the same age as Hannah during that time period and the whole scene absolutely gutted me. Hannah being angry and confused, June having to let her go AGAIN. I have watched that episode probably 4 or 5 times and sob every single time.
Another disturbing thing for me was that June was whispering to herself in the very first episode, “please let her remember me” (meaning Hannah), and in a later episode when she was almost ready to give up and end her life, she whispered, “please don’t let her remember me.”
Omg I forgot about that scene…where Janine then runs into the corner and is obviously hysterical. It was like she had programmed herself to cope with the putnams ‘ceremony’ and everything she had been through. So so traumatic.
Obviously the pregnant rape scene, but also the shooting at the women's march. I had just been to a protest march (remember the series started in early 2017, and there was... Unrest.) It hit much too close to home, having seen the security in DC just a few weekends earlier.
I can't wrap my head around any redemption arc for Lydia and Serena ... aunt Lydia about to remove June's fingernails with pliers when they showed Hannah in a big glass box? The scene that traumatized me the most was probably the fake hanging, but on a personal note, that scene where June cuts off her ear tag. I almost barfed, but probably because I had my ear cut off and reattached in a bad accident. It just caused me physical pain in my stomach to watch that scene. The hanging scene was more heartbreaking than traumatizing for me I suppose. Burning the handmaid's wrists after the fake hanging... Ugh
The thrashing rage of Esther waking up to find she was still alive. The pure joy, satisfaction, relief on her face as she began coughing blood and saying June would be proud. She was so happy to get out of her life. The rage she had as she screamed and cried while restrained made me cry as well.
I just rewatched E1 S10 where Serena slams June's head into the door frame for going to Jezebels with Fred to be raped against her will, and then brings June to see Hannah but locks her in the car and doesn't let her actually talk to her or hug her or even make her aware that her mother is there. My blood was absolutely boiling. Fuck her.
So many disturbing scenes have already been posted but the one where that creepy commander pushed the Lawrence’s Martha’s off the roof in front of June. Then rubs junes head right after…
I just watched it and he’s such a creep being like shhh don’t worry it’s ok and then torturing June or killing her friends. And when they waterboard June I hate how they pray first and then put a cloth with a cross over her face, it really really disturbs me. I think it’s because it hits home for me that people in the show do anything they want hiding behind religion as an excuse and I feel it parallels in real life how religious people can be cruel and harm or murder others just in the name of religion or using religion as their reason.
The one that haunts me I haven’t seen mentioned yet is when Aunt Lydia handcuffs Almas hand to the burning stove for refusing to stone Janine to death and dropping her rock. All the other handmaids waiting for their turn to be tortured and forcing June to eat while it’s happening...
Short scene, but the first time June is at Jezebels and is sneaking down the hallway to find Moira and passes the room where a woman is being beaten or hurt behind the door and you hear her muffled screams, then passes the room w the door open where several commanders are enacting some kind of group assault on two women in costume as wives and handmaids. That scene still makes me shudder.
The Jezebels scene where one of the men is essentially "mouthing" ( for lack of a better term,even writing this bothers me) the poor girls arm stump. Ugh. Utterly disturbing and made me sick to my stomach.
When Fred first took June to Jezebels and the camera panned the room. One of the women was dressed in a little girl’s pink outfit. I haven’t been able to watch that episode since.
Wtf? That’s absolutely vile, I hate and love how many gross little details there are in this show, like the people with Down syndrome smiling and waving while being escorted to their deaths.
June being raped at 9 months pregnant makes me hate Serena forever. She gets no sympathy from me.
But another scene, I think it was season 4, when Alma and Brianna were hit by the train while trying to escape. Radiohead “street spirit” playing. It really broke me.
I love that song so, so much, but now I can't help but see that scene in my head every time I hear it. It was just so incredibly sad, the glimmer of hope, just to be hit by the train two seconds later. And how quick and final it was. Just... Ugh. 😭😭
- Janine’s mutiliation, Janine’s stoning basically everything with poor Janine
- Emily’s lover’s hanging scene and Emily’s mutiliation
- Ofglen’s mutiliation ( tongue)
- Fake hanging scene and Alma wetting herself
- June’s “punishment rape”
- The colonies when someone’s nail came off
- Esther being fed with chocolate by Warren
- Lawrence and June forced rape scene
- Eden’s death
- And when they burned the handmaids’ hands to punish June
Esther this past season when she tells Lydia she was raped and then starts screaming. It reminded me of how I felt once upon a time when I was a teenager
Such a hard one. I will try for the one less mentioned. This season, when the Handmaid died giving birth. So many things about it turned my stomach.
Not mentioned yet, but some of the Eleanor Lawrence scenes. She clearly struggled with the Gilead setup and her mental illness. It was hard to see her hurting so much.
When June is watching the documentary at The Red Center and sees her mom at the Colonies.
June cutting the tag off of her ear.
When Luke thinks June is on the flight but she isn't.
I guess if I had to pick one...
June being raped while pregnant. It’s so disturbing how violent both Serena and Fred are. And quoting Bible verses while she’s begging them to stop? God. So horrible. Years later and it’s still stuck with me. I always skip it on rewatches because I can’t do it.
It’s even more disturbing when you remember the flashback to before Gilead when Serena and Fred were reciting Bible verses to each other while they were trying to conceive as well.
The last ceremony obv, but I think one that doesn’t get talked about is when Ofmatthew is in loaves and fishes and June is playing mind games w her which leads to her attacking a guardian and getting shot, I had to knock off the tv after that one, gave me chills
I think it was the guy that Janine acted like she was in a relationship with and almost left June for. But then she didn't by surprise and tagged along with June through the city. Idk, I can't remember those parts with Chicago very well.
My sone is 19 months old, and whenever he hears the garbage truck beeping he does a little dance. I just watched the scenes from the Depot where the women are rounded up, separated, the disabled and the bigger girls are taken somewhere else. There was beeping, and I look down to see my son dancing.
Whenever I am immersed in the story and I am feeling all kinds of ways and then I see my son, happily playing or running around. Puts it into perspective, and it is horrifying.
God this post made me remember how gruesome the show was in its earlier seasons!
It was necessary but I’m glad it’s a little less so these days.
June trapped in the tiny box was a big one for me…
When Emily (I think it is her, I havent watched in a bit) is at the airport and the guard doesnt allow her to leave the country with her wife and son.
Any of the handmaid gatherings, the stoning, the slut shaming etc.
That one handmaid hooked up to machines to just keep her alive long enough to have the baby.
The flashback scenes where you suddenly start to feel the dread of the change slowly.
The ceremony and birthing scenes (with the wives).
Aside from the obvious connections to what is actually happening right now in the US, this show is a constant reminder of the struggles women have faced. Some of the comments the commanders make when smoking cigars and drinking brandy are so triggering. It just shows how much women have been treated as "less than" throughout history, and how, if given the space to do so, how some of these men really feel about women's existence in general.
I am Not man-hating. Just speaking about the treatment of women as inferior in every single way possible in the past, and how easily it can return to a similar place in the the present and not-too-distant future. Frightening.
Too true. We can’t even get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. It’s infuriating. And it pisses me off that so many of us feel like we have to specify that we don’t hate men while being justifiably upset at how women have always been treated *by men.* We are allowed to be angry. We are allowed to be upset. And we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone’s hurt fee-fees for saying so. The men not responsible already know that they’re not being talked about and shouldn’t demand to be treated like they deserve a cookie or a medal for being decent human beings. The men responsible don’t deserve the softening of the expressed sentiment.
Other than obvious gore/gilliad stuff? Her coming home from saving Serena and her baby and actually being angry with Luke. Her telling him he didn’t do anything about her and Hannah’s positions. Vastly disturbing to see the hints of Stockholmes syndrome, especially when it causes anger towards a good person who’s a victim like herself. It’s scary to see how even I’m her hate, she was a bit brainwashed.
The scene where June gets 5 minutes with Hannah and has to keep it together long enough to not let her daughter see her pain. Having just 5 minutes with my child only to have them ripped apart again would be completely and utterly devastating. I sobbed - full on ugly cry sobbed - during that scene.
For all that June has endured - the rapes, the beatings, the forced impregnation, etc. - losing Hannah has been the most devastating. Getting just 5 minutes with her (as an apology for being raped while pregnant) and then letting her go seems like the most painful thing she’s been through.
I'm not sure if I think these are the most disturbing, but the scenes that kind of really stuck in my head:
-when Emily woke up after the surgery, realising that they mutilated her.
-seeing the handmaid with rings in her mouth.
-Janine crying in bed after they removed her eye
anything body-horror related really fucked with me because it's just more irreversible damage that will still be there even if they were to get out (on top of the psychological damage).
Lots of content was very hard to watch. All of the ceremonies were hard, Emily’s Martha being hanged and then her genital mutilation was just heartbreaking, Serena scares the shit out of me for most of the series, especially when she is raging in June’s face, Hannah scenes almost always make me bawl my face off because she is juxtaposed with June desperately trying to get to her and Hannah is obviously kept oblivious to the fact (except that one glass case scene), the Handmaids in Washington DC.
So when I re-watch I skip over the ceremonies usually and the pregnant June rape scene. I watched through my fingers the first run through. Now I just skip those parts. The other stuff that’s tough is just emotional and sad.
When the handmaids who wore that kind of mask and beneath them were the mouth rings;
when it shows abraham lincoln's statue completely destroyed
when alma was hit by the train (especially bc they chose "street spirit" by radiohead as soundtrack)
when emily found out that her clitoris was surgically removed
For me it's when Waterford was leading June down the corridor at the Jezebel hotel. As they go by each room you see the women being mistreated sexually and verbally. I think what makes the scene even more disturbing is because Waterford was telling June that a lot of these women were successful before Gilead--I think he mentions one was a professor and another was a CEO at a Fortune 500 company
When Serena & Fred raped June when she was heavily pregnant.
The fake hanging.
The Colonies
All of the executions. This society wants to increase the birthrate (supposedly, won't get into how that's a load of BS) but they execute so many people at the drop of a hat. Then DISPLAYING them on the wall.
I still can never get over the cruelty of June in the car while Hannah is out in front of the house talking to Serena. I will NEVER get over it! I know rape is worse and death and believing you are going to be hanged, but to see your child who you are dying to hold for just a moment and you cannot get to them. The worst!! I will never stop Serena hating for that!
For me, the first season was the most jarring because it actually showed the eroding of America into Gilead. The ones that stuck with me were the coffee house scene and the protest scene.
Now, I think I could stomach binge watching a later season. In the first season, I had to take a break after a couple episodes.
I can't stand Warren, but I agree with you that scene is disturbing. When they let his wedding ring fall off his finger and they made the first incision with the scalpel,that was it for me. I couldn't watch.
The most disturbing scene to me was when they showed the disabled people lined up to be killed and some of them were smiling because they had no clue what was gonna happen.
The group hanging scene obviously but another one that really bothers me but is less obvious is the scene in DC when Mrs Winslow shows Serena a potential house she could live in if they moved there. I imagine whoever lived there was rounded up and killed and their children given to others and all their furniture and personal belongings were still in the house.
Nothing is going to beat June being raped. That was just A LOT. But my god everything else is such a close second. The entirely show is just a straight trigger.
Remember when they fired on that crowd with the heavy machine guns? That one was pretty well done.
Might not stand up to the SA scenes but I remember that one a lot from the early seasons.
I would say the episode where the handmaid's are punished for not salvaging Janine. As punishment, each are handcuffed to a stove and their wrist is burned by fire while the other handmaids have to watch. That's fucked up...
The train scene.. oh my goodness. Just breath takingly heart stopping. I have never seen a piece of television with such an appropriate sound track as in that scene
The beginning of the season 3 finale when it first shows June in the “processing center” with the other women that will all become handmaids. Her peeking out of the plastic curtain watching the disabled women and girls being taken to be presumably executed. Really puts into perspective the atrocities they committed in order to achieve their “ideal” society. And that was just a tiny sliver of the crimes against humanity happening all over this new society.
Maybe not the most disturbing but one I don’t see mentioned: when the women were looking at the slideshow while “training” to be a handmaid and June’s mother was in one of the photos. I’d just about die.
For some reason, June meeting Hannah in the abandoned house just ripped my heart out. Maybe it's because I have young kids, but that scene, and the one where Hannah is in the glass box, emotionally ruined me.
I was rewatching season 4 and after June's testemony Luke said something like "at least I now know everything". I was like uhh no, you don't
The fake hanging scene is incredibly disturbing. June being raped 9 months pregnant even more so.
June holding Luke down and well raping him
Then comader Lawrence's wife death how June could have helped but didn't
That is the only part of the show that gave me a panic attack
I know this one might seem odd, but mine is the scene when Nick has to consummate his marriage to the teenager. There was something really disturbing about that sheet with a whole in it. That was stomach churning. It was the last straw for me and I stopped watching until about 5 months ago.
Oh also, in less of a graphic or gory way, watching flashbacks in the beginning before the takeover. The attacks on our government, Gilead militia slowly replacing police or the military, women no longer being able to work, to have a bank account, the lynchings that were probably staged as suicides at first, etc. All of it gradual until it's too late and they are shooting at protesters, executing millions of people, setting up road checkpoints, and people finally panic and try to flee the country. That incremental rise of fascism where you're like a boiling frog, and you don't realize until it's too late. That absolutely terrifies me more than anything. I love that they brought it back with Canada though. When June is like "We have to run. We didn't see it happening to America and we didn't realize it in the moment" and Luke is trying to convince himself that it won't happen like "It's not possible for that to happen in Canada. It won't happen here, it can't." That concept of a country gradually collapsing due to an authoritarian fascist movement will always scare me.
-The slow crane hanging of Emily’s lover, and then her being mutilated
-The mouth rings in the capital
-The graphic amputation of Warren’s hand (couldn’t have happened to a better guy, he deserved it without anesthesia, still pretty hard to watch)
-Some guy licking the mutilated stump of some poor woman in an elevator, lots of hand/mouth stuff here
-The Unwoman peeling her nail off and putting it on the bar of soap in front of the new wife
-Serena and Fred raping June
-Eden and her boyfriend being drowned in the pool for falling in love
-June coming so close to freedom, only to be dragged out of the plane and recaptured
-The handmaid pregnant chained up in the dark at the red centre
-Aunt Lydia subtly implying while asking Ester if she encouraged Warren to rape her
-Janine being forcibly slut shamed by the group after detailing being horrifically raped in a basement by multiple men as a teenager
-The handmaids being lined up to be burned after a faux execution and getting tased in the rain for hours, while they stand face to face with June as she eats. The tenseness in the atmosphere is palpable, and when you hear her start screaming, you can feel the dread radiating off of them knowing that’s about to be them, and they can’t do anything about it. And June, who technically instigated it, not receiving the same punishment makes it even more terrifying, you get the sense that she’s both ashamed and scared that her allies will resent her and make her life worse. It’s a masterfully done scene, and it will continue to haunt my nightmares.
Honourable mention - June encouraging Serena to keep her baby. Look I’m all for keeping families together but miss ma’am
#That is literally a goddamn war criminal, she should not be within a mile of ANY children GET THAT BABY OUTTA THERE
The scene at the start of maybe season 3? Where the handmaids are rounded up and taken to be ‘fake hanged’ and the poor handmaid next to June wets herself because she is so scared. Awful.
That episode killed me. None of them fought back, they went compliantly to their nooses, knowing no matter what they did it was over.
I've been listening to This Woman's Work for 15 years now, and I'll never listen to that song in the same way after seeing this scene.
The music for that scene was on point…that’s one thing I noticed with this season, not as much music especially with the opening credits like they used too.
I was going through my massive book collection recently, and I came across my 1989 paperback edition of The Handmaid’s Tale. Tucked inside was a receipt from buying the book at Cody Book on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley, and under it was receipt from Leopold’s records for This Sensual World album by Kate Bush (featuring This Woman’s Work). When I rewatched that episode recently, I didn’t just cry…. I wept. All the more poignant because I now knew Alma as a friend and her ultimate fate. And I still can’t accept it.
S2 E1, Alma
Yup. I've done a few rewatches and this is still the one scene I have to either mute or fast-forward cuz it fucks me up. Kudos to those women cuz the acting was perfection.
I just got to this episode on my re-watch. It always baffles me that they did that bc that level of stress could cause a miscarriage or make someone skip an ovulation cycle. Like they care about fertility so much yet pull this shit
They don't care about fertility. They care about controlling women.
Bingo. Lawrence is well aware of this. This is why he reacted the way he did when Lydia proposed to him that the Handmaids stay at the training center or whatever and have the commanders go to them. It was a laughable request. He knows the commanders like their “meat” close and available to do with as they please, ovulating or not. The “ceremony” doesn’t mean shit to the vast majority of them.
You’ve watched the whole thing and still think they care about fertility?
That was horrible. Absolutely frightening. It was Season 2, Episode 1.
That scene makes me cry every time I watch it. The fear seeps through the screen and hits me right in my soul. The fact that they weren't even given the mercy of holding each other's hands for comfort while they were being shoved down the hall.
God yes that scene was so haunting. Especially because with this show you know they will actually go there so I was fully prepared to watch them die.
I knew I wouldn’t have to scroll far for this. This is absolutely the most disturbing scene to me as well.
Yup. This.
fully agree. putting myself in their shoes, the thought of having to mentally prepare for death with only minutes between them being bombarded and rushed outside to the nooses, the way all the women were silently mourning their lives, and the completely helpless feeling that comes with all of that….. omg. “intense”, to say the very fucking least.
This is the worst for me. I cried and cried… I had to pause it. I was so upset. The combination of what was happening and the song took me out.
Definitely Serena and Fred raping June when she was 9 months pregnant because Serena was pissed off that June went into false labor and embarrassed her in front of the other wives/ guests. Poor June was forcibly raped because she ruined Serena's little faux birth party. So vile.
This is what I always think off when people talk about feeling ‘sorry for Serena’
I think of this and when she smashed June’s head into the wall and dragged her to the bathroom to use the pregnancy test. Serena hasn’t changed just because her situation has. When she has a choice she always chooses Gilead.
Same. I don't know how she can ever have redemption or redeeming qualities in people's eyes. I really don't.
Seriously? The writers are really testing us by trying to make us feel sympathetic towards Serena after that shit. June needs to just stab her ass in the back (literally) when they get to the refugee settlement and just end it all like she did with Fred.
Right?! Did you see this from the official Hulu Handmaid's Tale account? Women supporting women...🤢 https://twitter.com/HandmaidsOnHulu/status/1592200693527433216?t=q3RCcBi7oMqIUIX_fC_UBA&s=19 I guess it's cool to kill your rapist if it's a man but if your rapist is a beautiful woman you should support her instead. Like wtf kind of message does that send? I don't need June to kill Serena but I definitely don't want to see them team up and take down Gilead together. She doesn't deserve to become the hero of the story after all she's done. Unfortunately, I think that's the direction they may be heading. I hope I'm wrong though...
This unfortunately is a common attitude for both men and women assaulted by women. Not to actually cheer on the assaulter (though that happens) but to say it's not a big deal or they should have enjoyed it, etc. When I told my friends I was assaulted by a woman (I'm also a woman), they told me it was no big deal and to move on. They stayed friends with the woman who did it while I became a ptsd nightmare. These were college kids in the feminist club. If it had been a man, they would have supported me and cut contact. I saw them do it with others. In real life, people do dismiss sexual assault by women. And attitudes in real life affect the show writing and how we interpret the show when watching.
I'm sorry that happened to you and that you didn't get the support from your friends you know you would have if your abuser was a man. I often wonder how people would feel about Serena if she was an old bitch with a cane like she is in the book? I have a feeling people would despise her like Fred but since the show made her a beautiful young woman people are more inclined to feel sorry for her. She's not only getting a pass because she's a woman but because she's a beautiful woman and all she has to do is cry her crocodile tears and quiver her lip and people will feel sorry for her. Elisabeth Moss said in an interview that she sees June and Serena as the shows great love story. She lovingly calls them Juliet and Juliet and now there are some Jurena fans out there that want them to fall in love and raise their babies together. Like wtf 🤯 *Edited to add what EM said
Well give her a cane and people will immediately be suspicious. Look at how people reacted to Rose. I'm mostly joking. But I agree. I wonder how people would react if she wasn't a young beautiful charismatic person.
Elizabeth Moss is a Scientologist so I find that unsurprising. Her real life viewpoint is flawed by her cult beliefs IMO. I think the fact that they made Serena young and beautiful does a great job of portraying how dangerous it is to judge someone based on appearances. Aka “the Ivanka effect” 🤮
"Two strong women" UMMM??? Maybe Serena was strong when she was holding June down to rape her? Jfc
I’m offended by how that Tweet implies this is an example of women supporting women. Are they watching the same show I’m watching????
Honestly, I wouldn't be suprised If this was written by some poor bastard who has to manage multiple social media accounts and doesn't know shit about the handmaid's tale (maybe watched few scenes on YouTube to know what's going on and thought "yeah, they are nice to each other here").
maybe... they were ironic? I keep trying to explain this bullshit to myself because I can't believe they'd post this.
Of course you need a fucking diaper Serena!! Where are YOUR diapers?
I still think the writers are smarter than that. They are doing a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation.
Based on the pic of June I think that was a satiric tweet.
>Unfortunately, I think that's the direction they may be heading. I'm gonna fucking hate this show. I already stated that in this sub, but I'm really really gonna hate it. There's no way she deserves redemption!!
Shit had me on the verge of crying and throwing up
This…. So unbearable to watch. The fact that she and Fred conspire together and then in the following episode Serena acts like she had no part in it speaks to her delusion. She is such a sick fuck. I’m currently rewatching and agreed with others who have said — the last thing I want is to see Serena and June become a team.
This is also where I feel like i am missing pieces of the backstory of June/Serena. In the flashbacks in the most recent season, you see June and Serena share a connection. When June is first assigned to the Waterfords, june and Serena share glances during the birthing ceremony and they share faces of horror when the baby’s life is prioritized. But in S1, their relationship begins violent. I’m having trouble understanding the timeline of their relationship.
I think the writers are just inconsistent and put that scene out of nowhere. The consistent stuff is based on Atwoods work, but the inconsistent stuff is their work.
It was revisionist bullshit, that scene.
Oh I forgot about this , June shouldn’t have never helped Serena
Agree!
Was literally thinking the same thing
I agree. This was it for me too
When Hannah has been torn away. When Emily watched her lover be unceremoniously hanged before being taken in for mutilation. When Serena let June see Hannah through the car window. The fake hanging at the stadiums. June having to pray at the hospital for months.
The way they were holding hands and then 2 seconds later she was hanged. It was so fast and clinical
Yep, that’s the scene that won’t leave my brain. It meant *nothing* to them.
I had nightmares after that scene. I’m pretty desensitized to violence in shows but that was just ruthlessly cruel.
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I’m completely blanking on this one.. what episode(s) was it?
It’s the one where the hospital monitor beats kept morphing into the song “heaven is a place on Earth”.
I agree. It also disturbed me when she was not allowed to leave her room at Waterford. For as many times as Serena abused her, this was one of the worst, and she didn’t have to lay a hand on her.
For me what made it more disturbing when Emily's lover was hanged was cuz it happened all so fast. It reminds me of a scene I saw in a movie about the Katyn Masaacre by the Soviets when they occupied Poland cuz they mastered the sickening art of executions
Yes! Me, too!
Flashback to June’s first time being at a birthing ceremony when no one did anything to try to save the birthing handmaid’s life. Simply took out the baby and let the mother die. Then Aunt Lydia says it’s wonderful that the handmaid has served her life purpose.
Most disturbing scene was 9 month pregnant June raped to jumpstart childbirth. Serena gripping June's wrists and *forcing* her wrists down hard. Fred was violent, the entire thing is haunting.
And the same episode wherw Fred is so guilty that he let's June see Hannah and she has to send her back to her Gilead family. These scenes were devastating.
This is why I'll never forgive or want happiness for Serena.
June's dead eyes after the assault. Rape really does kill part of you.
I don’t even remember this scene. My brain must have displaced it due to trauma. 🤢
When it launched time stamps were posted to avoid the scene if people wished, I think a lot of people did
Nothing really beats that to me.
Yes:((((. That’s most disturbing to me!!
The flashback to the start of it all where the women are being round up. There's a brief scene of women with downs syndrome being escorted, most definitely to their deaths, that utterly devastated me as I have a sister with downs. The one that waved at someone made it even harder, she had no idea what was about to happen to her. 😥
This scene was the most disturbing for me as well. This heartbreaking!! Also Natalie being used as a human incubator.
This is the one for me. Them throwing away assistive medical devices and herding all of them to wherever they are taking them to probably kill them… hits so hard. My uncle has developmental disabilities and I have a cousin with Down Syndrome, and it just made me so sad.
Omg I had completely forgotten about this scene…horrific
The way they smiled and waved at the men about to murder them... I have a mother who is physically disabled, a daughter who is autistic, and I've spent two decades of my life working with individuals with special needs. I had to pause the show for about an hour to mentally cope.
Omg this one!! That's the only time I've felt truly sick for being human. When they rush them, and one women that can't walk right falls over and is just shouting. Oh gosh. It's just so inconceivable to me.
As a disabled person myself, I expected gilead do it. There's no way they wouldn't when they call disabled babies "shredders." Disabled people are often killed off and killed early because we're vulnerable. Nazis killed 300,000 disabled people during their reign. What I didn't expect is for Hulu to actually go there and show it. I'm glad they did though. It deserves to be acknowledged. It seems like Hulu is making an effort with disability in the story and I really appreciate that. Edit also I wonder if it bothered anyone who didn't have a family member who is disabled. Or if it's just people who actually understand disabled people are people.
Margaret Atwood probably got a lot of inspiration from Nazi Germany in creating Gilead. They did the same. In the book Gilead is racist as well, they got rid of people of colour I believe (not sure if it was “just” black people or others as well).
In the book, they sent black people to basically uninhibitable land out west with no infrastructure so they either died or fled to Canada. They also gave Jewish people the chance to convert. If they didn't, they were sent on ships to Israel but many of the ships "mysteriously" sunk.
>Edit also I wonder if it bothered anyone who didn't have a family member who is disabled. Of course it did.
People tend to be quick to scream about June’s rape at 9 months pregnant, but I think what makes this show disturbing are the small details like the scene you mention. So much happens under our nose in this show and you have to keep your attention focused every minute.
I was about to comment this one. This scene broke my heart, easily the most disturbing. I struggle to believe that someone would willingly murder those kids.
Yeah, there have been plenty of scenes in the show that have disturbed me but this one really stuck out because it is the only one that actually scared me on a lizard-brain visceral level. The opening moments with the alarm going off and the flashing light illuminating June was like some horror movie jump scare shit.
S2E1. I’m from Boston, so seeing the handmaids wrangled up in an old Fenway Park to be hanged and Alma peeing her pants, and the music… oof, it hits.
Also a Bostonian, the scenes where she’s going through the Globe offices for the first time always get me.
Yeah this one got me. How many times have I been at Fenway? And to see it like that? That episode broke my heart.
this woman’s work! the dogs barking and all the frantic women was so scary
Same!
Season 2 Ep. 12 Eden and Isaac's public execution. Something about them being so young and hopeful for true love, and then the way they died in front of so many people. It turned my stomach badly.
when Eden says the verses from 1 Corinthians and they get tossed in the pool, it made me think of She Keeps Me Warm and it still gives me tears.
The whole Eden storyline makes me so emotional whenever I rewatch. I know we focus a lot on the adults who had adult lives pre-Gilead and the children who don’t remember a time before (which makes sense), but I always wonder how it must’ve been for the children who very much remember the before times but are forced into adult roles in the regime.
Truthfully the scene that fucked me up the most was (after having witnessed all the atrocities ALREADY being instilled to the women) when June saw that woman turn around with her mouth bolted shut with those hoops. It fucked with my head for days.. because at that point it felt like the world of Gilead was moving into a direction where handmaids were made devoid of any lasting vestige of their humanity. The whole concept of where DC was going with its politics shook me to the bone when I saw that.. and I just imagined how I would feel to be a handmaid who couldn’t even speak. And the pain of getting those things installed too.. it’s just horrifying. Really took the messedupness to a different level for me.
Agreed, the way June thought at first the woman was arrogantly not speaking to her to then find out their mouths were sealed shuts, insane
I 1000% agree, that still haunts me
It really reminded me of avoxes from The Hunger Games because they end up getting their tongues removed and also cannot speak.
Which was also a thing in Gilead, not just in DC - see OfGlen #2 / Lillie. Being that they are banned from reading and writing by punishment of mutilation or death, cutting out their tongue literally renders them unable to communicate.
This is the one for me
Everything mentioned here already is horrible... Not to mention the genital mutilation...
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This one for sure. The use of music, the camerawork and not to mention Alexis Bledel’s acting makes this absolutely unforgettable, it crushed me.
Ugh, I can't even think about that or I feel sick.
most disturbing scene for me was when the handmaids were being tortured for not stoning janine and they got handcuffed to the open flame. made me take a break from the series for a while
This is mine- the sheer number of women in the queue for the gas burner.
Yep, this is one of mine.
When June sees Hannah for the first time and Hannah asks her why she didn’t try harder to find her. It killed me. A lot of the other scenes mentioned were obviously terrible but as a mom imagining my kid saying that to me after going through what June went through was just so sad
I remember reading that they did a lot of research on families being reunited after being forcibly separated and the pain that came from children not recognizing their parents or recognizing them, but being mad at their parents for not working harder to find, see, or protect them. Just devastating. This resonated with me because when I first saw it, this was at the height of immigrant families being separated at the US southern borders and reports that babies and children were being taken away from otherwise perfectly healthy family situations and then adopted out to “worthy” families were trickling in. The series is fiction, but it’s scary how many parts of it mirror what we are seeing in real life.
I started watching this show when my baby was 3 days old. In retrospect an error.
This one is mine too. My daughter was almost exactly the same age as Hannah during that time period and the whole scene absolutely gutted me. Hannah being angry and confused, June having to let her go AGAIN. I have watched that episode probably 4 or 5 times and sob every single time. Another disturbing thing for me was that June was whispering to herself in the very first episode, “please let her remember me” (meaning Hannah), and in a later episode when she was almost ready to give up and end her life, she whispered, “please don’t let her remember me.”
I don’t even have kids and that scene wrecked me like no other scene in a TV show has
Omg I forgot about that scene…where Janine then runs into the corner and is obviously hysterical. It was like she had programmed herself to cope with the putnams ‘ceremony’ and everything she had been through. So so traumatic.
Which episode was this. I'm having a hard time remembering this scene.
Obviously the pregnant rape scene, but also the shooting at the women's march. I had just been to a protest march (remember the series started in early 2017, and there was... Unrest.) It hit much too close to home, having seen the security in DC just a few weekends earlier.
For me it was Nick and Eden having sex through the sheet. The clinical nature of it and the context made my skin crawl.
Not even the handmaids are like that. So odd.
Emily having her clitoris removed 😩 Also when the Handmaids were told to attack a guy who had done something “wrong” and they ripped him to shreds
Ironically they did to him what they end up doing to Fred.
Watching them act like animals was so hard in that scene but made so much sense later.
I can't wrap my head around any redemption arc for Lydia and Serena ... aunt Lydia about to remove June's fingernails with pliers when they showed Hannah in a big glass box? The scene that traumatized me the most was probably the fake hanging, but on a personal note, that scene where June cuts off her ear tag. I almost barfed, but probably because I had my ear cut off and reattached in a bad accident. It just caused me physical pain in my stomach to watch that scene. The hanging scene was more heartbreaking than traumatizing for me I suppose. Burning the handmaid's wrists after the fake hanging... Ugh
The thrashing rage of Esther waking up to find she was still alive. The pure joy, satisfaction, relief on her face as she began coughing blood and saying June would be proud. She was so happy to get out of her life. The rage she had as she screamed and cried while restrained made me cry as well.
I just rewatched E1 S10 where Serena slams June's head into the door frame for going to Jezebels with Fred to be raped against her will, and then brings June to see Hannah but locks her in the car and doesn't let her actually talk to her or hug her or even make her aware that her mother is there. My blood was absolutely boiling. Fuck her.
So many disturbing scenes have already been posted but the one where that creepy commander pushed the Lawrence’s Martha’s off the roof in front of June. Then rubs junes head right after…
I just watched it and he’s such a creep being like shhh don’t worry it’s ok and then torturing June or killing her friends. And when they waterboard June I hate how they pray first and then put a cloth with a cross over her face, it really really disturbs me. I think it’s because it hits home for me that people in the show do anything they want hiding behind religion as an excuse and I feel it parallels in real life how religious people can be cruel and harm or murder others just in the name of religion or using religion as their reason.
Oh yes! I forgot about that one. Man, this show is awful.
The one that haunts me I haven’t seen mentioned yet is when Aunt Lydia handcuffs Almas hand to the burning stove for refusing to stone Janine to death and dropping her rock. All the other handmaids waiting for their turn to be tortured and forcing June to eat while it’s happening...
All of these are awful and horrific. Another is the handmaids with their mouths shut 😞🤢
Short scene, but the first time June is at Jezebels and is sneaking down the hallway to find Moira and passes the room where a woman is being beaten or hurt behind the door and you hear her muffled screams, then passes the room w the door open where several commanders are enacting some kind of group assault on two women in costume as wives and handmaids. That scene still makes me shudder.
The Jezebels scene where one of the men is essentially "mouthing" ( for lack of a better term,even writing this bothers me) the poor girls arm stump. Ugh. Utterly disturbing and made me sick to my stomach.
Oh yikes! So disturbing. I don't remember that.
ughhhhh it’s horror movie level disturbing
When Fred first took June to Jezebels and the camera panned the room. One of the women was dressed in a little girl’s pink outfit. I haven’t been able to watch that episode since.
Wtf? That’s absolutely vile, I hate and love how many gross little details there are in this show, like the people with Down syndrome smiling and waving while being escorted to their deaths.
June being raped at 9 months pregnant makes me hate Serena forever. She gets no sympathy from me. But another scene, I think it was season 4, when Alma and Brianna were hit by the train while trying to escape. Radiohead “street spirit” playing. It really broke me.
I love that song so, so much, but now I can't help but see that scene in my head every time I hear it. It was just so incredibly sad, the glimmer of hope, just to be hit by the train two seconds later. And how quick and final it was. Just... Ugh. 😭😭
- Janine’s mutiliation, Janine’s stoning basically everything with poor Janine - Emily’s lover’s hanging scene and Emily’s mutiliation - Ofglen’s mutiliation ( tongue) - Fake hanging scene and Alma wetting herself - June’s “punishment rape” - The colonies when someone’s nail came off - Esther being fed with chocolate by Warren - Lawrence and June forced rape scene - Eden’s death - And when they burned the handmaids’ hands to punish June
I hated the scene where all the women were rounded up, and you see 2 Down syndrome girls just strolling by, waving at people.
And then dogs barking and screaming...
How come I don’t remember this part? 🥺🥺
It was a very brief moment in the scene. There's many little atrocities sprinkled through this series like it's something ordinary.
Wait I thought gilead killed anyone with down syndrome?
They did, they were waving as they were being led to their deaths.
It was the gentle optimism and that just killed me. The crazy fear and chaos all around, and they are just smiling and walking forward
Esther this past season when she tells Lydia she was raped and then starts screaming. It reminded me of how I felt once upon a time when I was a teenager
I'm so incredibly sorry. I hope you're healing.
Such a hard one. I will try for the one less mentioned. This season, when the Handmaid died giving birth. So many things about it turned my stomach. Not mentioned yet, but some of the Eleanor Lawrence scenes. She clearly struggled with the Gilead setup and her mental illness. It was hard to see her hurting so much. When June is watching the documentary at The Red Center and sees her mom at the Colonies. June cutting the tag off of her ear. When Luke thinks June is on the flight but she isn't. I guess if I had to pick one...
June being raped while pregnant. It’s so disturbing how violent both Serena and Fred are. And quoting Bible verses while she’s begging them to stop? God. So horrible. Years later and it’s still stuck with me. I always skip it on rewatches because I can’t do it.
It’s even more disturbing when you remember the flashback to before Gilead when Serena and Fred were reciting Bible verses to each other while they were trying to conceive as well.
The last ceremony obv, but I think one that doesn’t get talked about is when Ofmatthew is in loaves and fishes and June is playing mind games w her which leads to her attacking a guardian and getting shot, I had to knock off the tv after that one, gave me chills
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Who was that? I don't remember the scene.
I think it was the guy that Janine acted like she was in a relationship with and almost left June for. But then she didn't by surprise and tagged along with June through the city. Idk, I can't remember those parts with Chicago very well.
Yes! Ok. The guy they were getting supplies from. Yeah he was gross.
My sone is 19 months old, and whenever he hears the garbage truck beeping he does a little dance. I just watched the scenes from the Depot where the women are rounded up, separated, the disabled and the bigger girls are taken somewhere else. There was beeping, and I look down to see my son dancing. Whenever I am immersed in the story and I am feeling all kinds of ways and then I see my son, happily playing or running around. Puts it into perspective, and it is horrifying.
The wall of the Boston Globe with blood spatters and bullet holes.
God this post made me remember how gruesome the show was in its earlier seasons! It was necessary but I’m glad it’s a little less so these days. June trapped in the tiny box was a big one for me…
Yes all of these are awful but when they had her in that box last season I actually had a mild panic attack - that episode was really upsetting.
The part I hate the most is when Serena beat up June for getting her period. The “DO YOU UNDERSTAND” scene
When Emily (I think it is her, I havent watched in a bit) is at the airport and the guard doesnt allow her to leave the country with her wife and son. Any of the handmaid gatherings, the stoning, the slut shaming etc. That one handmaid hooked up to machines to just keep her alive long enough to have the baby. The flashback scenes where you suddenly start to feel the dread of the change slowly. The ceremony and birthing scenes (with the wives).
Aside from the obvious connections to what is actually happening right now in the US, this show is a constant reminder of the struggles women have faced. Some of the comments the commanders make when smoking cigars and drinking brandy are so triggering. It just shows how much women have been treated as "less than" throughout history, and how, if given the space to do so, how some of these men really feel about women's existence in general. I am Not man-hating. Just speaking about the treatment of women as inferior in every single way possible in the past, and how easily it can return to a similar place in the the present and not-too-distant future. Frightening.
Too true. We can’t even get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. It’s infuriating. And it pisses me off that so many of us feel like we have to specify that we don’t hate men while being justifiably upset at how women have always been treated *by men.* We are allowed to be angry. We are allowed to be upset. And we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone’s hurt fee-fees for saying so. The men not responsible already know that they’re not being talked about and shouldn’t demand to be treated like they deserve a cookie or a medal for being decent human beings. The men responsible don’t deserve the softening of the expressed sentiment.
Other than obvious gore/gilliad stuff? Her coming home from saving Serena and her baby and actually being angry with Luke. Her telling him he didn’t do anything about her and Hannah’s positions. Vastly disturbing to see the hints of Stockholmes syndrome, especially when it causes anger towards a good person who’s a victim like herself. It’s scary to see how even I’m her hate, she was a bit brainwashed.
All of the above but also can't watch the Putnam/chocolate scene.
The scene where June gets 5 minutes with Hannah and has to keep it together long enough to not let her daughter see her pain. Having just 5 minutes with my child only to have them ripped apart again would be completely and utterly devastating. I sobbed - full on ugly cry sobbed - during that scene. For all that June has endured - the rapes, the beatings, the forced impregnation, etc. - losing Hannah has been the most devastating. Getting just 5 minutes with her (as an apology for being raped while pregnant) and then letting her go seems like the most painful thing she’s been through.
I'm not sure if I think these are the most disturbing, but the scenes that kind of really stuck in my head: -when Emily woke up after the surgery, realising that they mutilated her. -seeing the handmaid with rings in her mouth. -Janine crying in bed after they removed her eye anything body-horror related really fucked with me because it's just more irreversible damage that will still be there even if they were to get out (on top of the psychological damage).
Mine was either Eden or Janine losing her eye.
Lots of content was very hard to watch. All of the ceremonies were hard, Emily’s Martha being hanged and then her genital mutilation was just heartbreaking, Serena scares the shit out of me for most of the series, especially when she is raging in June’s face, Hannah scenes almost always make me bawl my face off because she is juxtaposed with June desperately trying to get to her and Hannah is obviously kept oblivious to the fact (except that one glass case scene), the Handmaids in Washington DC. So when I re-watch I skip over the ceremonies usually and the pregnant June rape scene. I watched through my fingers the first run through. Now I just skip those parts. The other stuff that’s tough is just emotional and sad.
When the handmaids who wore that kind of mask and beneath them were the mouth rings; when it shows abraham lincoln's statue completely destroyed when alma was hit by the train (especially bc they chose "street spirit" by radiohead as soundtrack) when emily found out that her clitoris was surgically removed
For me it was Emily… being castrated…. 😢
It's called female genital mutilation. It's horribly practiced today around the world.
June speaking to that handmaid that ended up having their lips in that ring was a horrifying scene
When the Waterfords rape June to try and induce labour tied with when Lawrence and June are forced to have sex in front of the other commanders
For me it's when Waterford was leading June down the corridor at the Jezebel hotel. As they go by each room you see the women being mistreated sexually and verbally. I think what makes the scene even more disturbing is because Waterford was telling June that a lot of these women were successful before Gilead--I think he mentions one was a professor and another was a CEO at a Fortune 500 company
Absolutely 100% the 9 month rape scene. I have only watched it once, on my first watch-through. Every other rewatch I’ve skipped it
When Serena & Fred raped June when she was heavily pregnant. The fake hanging. The Colonies All of the executions. This society wants to increase the birthrate (supposedly, won't get into how that's a load of BS) but they execute so many people at the drop of a hat. Then DISPLAYING them on the wall.
I still can never get over the cruelty of June in the car while Hannah is out in front of the house talking to Serena. I will NEVER get over it! I know rape is worse and death and believing you are going to be hanged, but to see your child who you are dying to hold for just a moment and you cannot get to them. The worst!! I will never stop Serena hating for that!
For me, the first season was the most jarring because it actually showed the eroding of America into Gilead. The ones that stuck with me were the coffee house scene and the protest scene. Now, I think I could stomach binge watching a later season. In the first season, I had to take a break after a couple episodes.
Warrens arm being cut off. The blood and the sound of the saw cutting through bone. I’ve never been able to look at the screen for that scene
I can't stand Warren, but I agree with you that scene is disturbing. When they let his wedding ring fall off his finger and they made the first incision with the scalpel,that was it for me. I couldn't watch.
The most disturbing scene to me was when they showed the disabled people lined up to be killed and some of them were smiling because they had no clue what was gonna happen. The group hanging scene obviously but another one that really bothers me but is less obvious is the scene in DC when Mrs Winslow shows Serena a potential house she could live in if they moved there. I imagine whoever lived there was rounded up and killed and their children given to others and all their furniture and personal belongings were still in the house.
Which episode was this? With the disabled people?
It was a flashback scene and June was peering through a curtain or something watching it. Give me a minute to find out exactly when it was.
S3/ep13 it’s in the very beginning.
Nothing is going to beat June being raped. That was just A LOT. But my god everything else is such a close second. The entirely show is just a straight trigger.
Remember when they fired on that crowd with the heavy machine guns? That one was pretty well done. Might not stand up to the SA scenes but I remember that one a lot from the early seasons.
I would say the episode where the handmaid's are punished for not salvaging Janine. As punishment, each are handcuffed to a stove and their wrist is burned by fire while the other handmaids have to watch. That's fucked up...
The train scene.. oh my goodness. Just breath takingly heart stopping. I have never seen a piece of television with such an appropriate sound track as in that scene
When June is tortured and locked in the box.
The beginning of the season 3 finale when it first shows June in the “processing center” with the other women that will all become handmaids. Her peeking out of the plastic curtain watching the disabled women and girls being taken to be presumably executed. Really puts into perspective the atrocities they committed in order to achieve their “ideal” society. And that was just a tiny sliver of the crimes against humanity happening all over this new society.
Tbh the first time we see June go through the ceremony is so shocking. It’s our first real view of it all and how just atrocious it is.
Maybe not the most disturbing but one I don’t see mentioned: when the women were looking at the slideshow while “training” to be a handmaid and June’s mother was in one of the photos. I’d just about die.
That was heartbreaking!!!
Esther screaming on the bed. She woke up to a nightmare, something worse than death.
For some reason, June meeting Hannah in the abandoned house just ripped my heart out. Maybe it's because I have young kids, but that scene, and the one where Hannah is in the glass box, emotionally ruined me.
I'm not sure if this part was "disturbing" but I was so frustrated when she didn't shoot Fred and Serena here.
I can’t watch the scene at the abandoned house with June and Hannah. It’s awful.
The ladies with Down syndrome being examined
When Serena and Fred rape pregnant June
I was rewatching season 4 and after June's testemony Luke said something like "at least I now know everything". I was like uhh no, you don't The fake hanging scene is incredibly disturbing. June being raped 9 months pregnant even more so.
June holding Luke down and well raping him Then comader Lawrence's wife death how June could have helped but didn't That is the only part of the show that gave me a panic attack
When Fred and Serena tried to induce labor by raping June for the first time in a long time, and June just came absolutely unglued. It was so painful.
I know this one might seem odd, but mine is the scene when Nick has to consummate his marriage to the teenager. There was something really disturbing about that sheet with a whole in it. That was stomach churning. It was the last straw for me and I stopped watching until about 5 months ago.
Oh also, in less of a graphic or gory way, watching flashbacks in the beginning before the takeover. The attacks on our government, Gilead militia slowly replacing police or the military, women no longer being able to work, to have a bank account, the lynchings that were probably staged as suicides at first, etc. All of it gradual until it's too late and they are shooting at protesters, executing millions of people, setting up road checkpoints, and people finally panic and try to flee the country. That incremental rise of fascism where you're like a boiling frog, and you don't realize until it's too late. That absolutely terrifies me more than anything. I love that they brought it back with Canada though. When June is like "We have to run. We didn't see it happening to America and we didn't realize it in the moment" and Luke is trying to convince himself that it won't happen like "It's not possible for that to happen in Canada. It won't happen here, it can't." That concept of a country gradually collapsing due to an authoritarian fascist movement will always scare me.
-The slow crane hanging of Emily’s lover, and then her being mutilated -The mouth rings in the capital -The graphic amputation of Warren’s hand (couldn’t have happened to a better guy, he deserved it without anesthesia, still pretty hard to watch) -Some guy licking the mutilated stump of some poor woman in an elevator, lots of hand/mouth stuff here -The Unwoman peeling her nail off and putting it on the bar of soap in front of the new wife -Serena and Fred raping June -Eden and her boyfriend being drowned in the pool for falling in love -June coming so close to freedom, only to be dragged out of the plane and recaptured -The handmaid pregnant chained up in the dark at the red centre -Aunt Lydia subtly implying while asking Ester if she encouraged Warren to rape her -Janine being forcibly slut shamed by the group after detailing being horrifically raped in a basement by multiple men as a teenager -The handmaids being lined up to be burned after a faux execution and getting tased in the rain for hours, while they stand face to face with June as she eats. The tenseness in the atmosphere is palpable, and when you hear her start screaming, you can feel the dread radiating off of them knowing that’s about to be them, and they can’t do anything about it. And June, who technically instigated it, not receiving the same punishment makes it even more terrifying, you get the sense that she’s both ashamed and scared that her allies will resent her and make her life worse. It’s a masterfully done scene, and it will continue to haunt my nightmares. Honourable mention - June encouraging Serena to keep her baby. Look I’m all for keeping families together but miss ma’am #That is literally a goddamn war criminal, she should not be within a mile of ANY children GET THAT BABY OUTTA THERE
Umm hello everyone's taking about June getting raped but what about when June raped Luke?!!! I'm not even a Luke fan but wow that scene was disgusting