Thoughts on Handmaid's Tale and Roseanne

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT. If you have not watched all of Season 2, spoilers ahead.

Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid's Tale

The Internet abounds with jokes about The Handmaid's Tale, Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's classic dystopian novel, actually being a documentary. The show which just concluded its second season and received 20 Emmy nominations, provides progressive liberals a satisfying opportunity to dump on Trump by comparing its totalitarian vision of Gilead, a future America, to the Donald's administration. "Look, aren't Commander Waterford and his terrible wife Serena Joy just like those bad old Trump supporters," we say to ourselves, as an act of consolation for having to tolerate such a racist jerk for a president. For a moment, we feel our anger and frustration relieved. It was such a thrill to see Waterford and Serena kicked out of Canada and reviled by protestors after the letters from captive handmaids were downloaded. Waterford and Serena's expressions of shame were what we want to see on our Trump-loving countrymen's faces when and if he is ever exposed for the vile creature he is. But then it's back to reality.


The first season pretty much follows the novel with Season 2 taking us further. It's been kind of frustrating since in order for the story to continue, Offred or June, the Handmaid or state-sanctioned baby machine of the title, must remind in captivity. So the lather-rinse-repeat story arc has been June escapes, she is recaptured, tortured, tries to get away again, is captured again, and so on.

Sidenote: Something has really been bothering me. In the third episode of Season 2 ("Baggage") June, on the run from Waterford's hated house, is in an airplane about to take off from Wooster, Mass. to the promised land up north. Accompanying her is her secret lover Nick, Waterford's driver, but also an undercover operative for the Gileadean government--an "eye." Just as the plane is about to leave the ground, right-wing storm troopers shoot it up, kill the pilot, wound Nick, and drag June from the craft. In the next episode, Nick and June are back at the Waterfords. I can understand the Gilead government covering up June's escape by saying she was kidnapped by force, but why is Nick back in the house without a scratch on him? OK, he's a spy for the upper echelon of Gilead, keeping tabs on the Waterfords. But he was caught red-handed trying to escape with a valuable handmaid. It doesn't make sense that he would not be executed or at least severely injured.

The season ends with a baffling series of events and June remains in Gilead, presumably to join the resistance and get her older daughter Hannah out. Season 3 will not be seen until 2019 and perhaps by then, there will be a Democratic-controlled House and maybe Senate (although probably not the latter). I am hopeful that occurs.

With regard to the disastrous (for America) Helsinki summit, Trump is obviously acting with an eye towards his own financial interests. He wants to build and develop real estate in Russia once his presidency is over and Putin can make that happen. You wanted a businessman as president, you got one. He acts like a businessman--no ideology beyond the marketplace, whoever benefits my portfolio the most, that's the guy I follow. Forget helping our allies, protecting NATO countries, that's out the window. So I'm hoping the voters in the middle who still are OK with Trumpy--but not his crazy base--are thinking, "I'm OK with Trump's economic policies since it's helping my stocks and I still have a job. I don't really care about his tweets, his Playboy porn stars or his racist rants. But he's getting out of control a bit with this kowtowing to Putin. So we need a Democratic Congress to keep him in line."

The cast of the Roseanne Reboot before Roseanne got fired.

The only other TV show besides Handmaid's Tale to reflect our national dysfunction has been the departed Roseanne. I had seen all but the last of the ten episodes ABC aired before Barr released her late-night racist tweet against Valerie Jarrett. I was not one of those Dems refusing to watch it because of Barr's Trump-love. The depiction of a blue-collar family divided along political lines might actually have been an accurate mirror to our times. But Roseanne destroyed herself with her crazy tweets and rants. Funny that Trump has said uttered worse things and he hasn't been fired yet. Now the series will be go on without its star as The Conner Family in the fall. There is no word on how they will deal with her character's absence. She'll either be dead or in rehab for her pain-killer addiction--like Nurse Jackie.

The ironic element of the Roseanne series was Roseanne--both the actress and the character--were ardent Trump supporters, but still in favor of diversity and equality. Roseanne Barr was swearing Trump was good for jobs and the country while Roseanne Conner supported social justice causes and never addressed the split. On the show, she supported her Muslim neighbors (Ok, after she acted like a bigot and assumed they were terrorists) and has a black granddaughter and a gender-fluid grandson. Her leftist sister Jackie never really confronted her about Trump unfairly targeting Muslims, accusing black NFL players of disloyalty for protesting discriminatory police practices, and eliminating protections and inclusion for the LGBTQ community. The first episode was the only one to address politics and it will be interesting to see if any of these issues arise on The Conner Family. Probably not.