April 11, 2026

"But as the show gassed on, it also started to feel like zealotry porn: There were only so many fingers you could watch chopped off, only so many gouged-out eyes."

"After a while, the red robes started to look more like cringe cosplay than a pointed protest symbol. When the series finale aired last year, I didn’t bother watching, especially after reading that the titular handmaid, June, never reunites with the daughter she’s spent the entire series trying to rescue.And now we learn why: Because without that loose end, there could be no 'Testaments.' Our new protagonist is June’s teenage daughter, Agnes, who is being raised by a wealthy Gilead family and trained to become a perfect upper-class Gilead wife. Daily, she and the other 'plums' get on a big purple bus and go to the weirdest finishing school in suburban Maryland. Mostly they spend their days learning needlepoint and flower arranging, but sometimes they break up the monotony by ecstatically cheering while watching a petty criminal lose his hand to a buzz saw...."

From "A 'Handmaid’s Tale' sequel answers questions the original forgot to ask/'The Testaments' extends the authoritarian thought experiment that began with Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel by turning focus to the enforcers" (WaPo).

Yikes. Zealotry porn. Are there really so many people who feel drawn to observe bloody amputations? And then they think the show is criticizing other people, not them. Are they titillated... by the amputations and by seeing how terrible those other people are?

Anyway... Daily, she and the other 'plums' get on a big purple bus... sounds like something in a song by Prince. I racked my brain, but all I could think of was "The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began..."


And, yeah, it's "racked my brain," not "wracked my brain." The rack is a torture device.

35 comments:

john mosby said...

So basically it's a docudrama about Iran? CC, JSM

Achilles said...

Liberal women want the hand-maids tail to be true.

They live in a world where they are free to do whatever they want and they take responsibility for nothing.

Deep down they know this is bad for them.

So they vote for rapists like swalwell and clinton and they support shia muslims in Iran even as they beat murder and rape Iranian women.

freedom without responsibility is corrosive to the soul and modern college educated women know they are not really worthy of the freedom they are abusing and they understand the damage they are doing to society.

they are like toddlers screaming for boundaries.

mikee said...

It is posts like this that make me very glad I no longer watch much streaming TV at all, at all.

mikee said...

And musically why did racking your brain not come up with the One Eyed, One Horned, Flying, Giant Purple People Eater from 1958?
youtube.com/watch?v=soU54WfnCRw&t=26

mikee said...

"But as the show gassed on...."
I, for one, note that the quote perhaps demonstrates that the show is intentionally gaslighting the audience. Gas away!

William said...

I like a good decapitacion as well as the next person. GOT is the go to place for beheadings, but they're curiously restrained about the arterial blood spurts. A beheading without an arterial blood spurt is like an egg without salt. I think it could be played for slapstick comedy and thus lighten the mood that always makes beheadings such dour experiences.

Tina Trent said...

John Mosby, yes.

Wince said...

Reminds me of 5th grade, when we all flocked to the movie theater to see "Mark of the Devil" and get our free commemorative barf bag, which was the most popular school lunch bag than year!

"This VOMIT BAG and the PRICE of one ADMISSION will enable YOU to SEE... the first movie rated V for violence... Guaranteed to upset your stomach." (Kinda reads like a Trump tweet -- on a barf bag!)

Low Budget Movie Trailer: Not for the squeamish.

Peachy said...

Progressive women live in their heads. They tell themselves tales and buy into BS that does not match reality - and turn themselves into mentally ill MSNBC head-cases.

Peachy said...

The left's collective insanity - reveals to all who the left really are deep inside.
No wonder they stand shoulder to shoulder with the cruel butchers in the male dominated Islamic supremacist world.

rhhardin said...

It started in the 50s on TV. I think it was Lloyd Bridges, anyway badly hurt or wounded, painfully crawling up a flight of stairs. Followed by another flight, and another, and another. Soon it was time for a commercial break.

It's filler not requiring paying writers.

RNB said...

Margaret Atwood garnered "brave and daring" accolades for an act of literary cowardice: The Republic of Gilead was obviously Muslim Iran (and other woman-unfriendly Islamic societies) but hanging it on the Xians increased her social acceptability considerably.

As for sketching Gilead's culture, Robert Heinlein did it better and in fewer words in "If This Goes On..."

gspencer said...

Atwood wrote a novel, fiction. If ya wanna see the real thing, go to any Muslim country run under the Sharia.

narciso said...

I think ive mentioned that in the past, massive delusion formation is the objective

narciso said...

George rr martin has a lot to apologize for

Michael Fitzgerald said...

And, yeah, it's "racked my brain," not "wracked my brain."

No, it's "wracked" my brain. A rack is a place to hang clothes, dry dishes or meat strips, or tear someone apart. "Wrack" is to struggle with or strain against something.

Tom T. said...

"Titular." Heh-heh.

Ann Althouse said...

“ No, it's "wracked" my brain. A rack is a place to hang clothes, dry dishes or meat strips, or tear someone apart. "Wrack" is to struggle with or strain against something.”

It rack, the torture device.

Look it up. Actually, you can get away with using either, but rack is considered preferred.

Read this: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/rack-vs-wrack

Ann Althouse said...

You’re torturing your brain, not wrecking it.

Jim said...

Periodic amputation of criminals hands is about the only thing that would get me to sign up for cable again.

Jamie said...

There was no way I was going to watch that show. I read the book back when it was new and I was in college, and for me it utterly failed to cause suspension of disbelief. In the present age, I knew it would be yet one more denouncement of a patriarchy that hasn't held sway in the West for decades, but that progressive women seem to see behind every door. Boring.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Remembering distinctly a moment in the movie Le Mans after a crash when a dejected (but in a manly sort of way) Steve McQueen is leaving and admits to someone along the way "I racked it," I searched a transcript on the internet to learn I misremembered and so I asked the internet what it's called when you remember a scene from a movie much better than it actually was and all I got was the Mandela Effect which isn't right at all.

Not even close. Feh.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

Kreutzmann looks like Bill Murray.

RCOCEAN II said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RCOCEAN II said...

When you're a privilaged white liberal/leftists how do you keep from feeling that you're in power, and everyone else is the scrappy underdog? How do you keep from getting tagged like those smug, old-timey women in fur coats in 1930s looking down on the masses?

Well, you create an echo chamber where you're actually the brave progressive fighting something called "The patriarchy". And you read Atwood and fantasize about fighting "facists" and "Bigots" who hate black people - unlike you.

And you get to enjoy being insulated from the economic distopia that others have to suffer with.

RCOCEAN II said...

The use of the word "zealotry" to discuss the enjoyment of on-screen violence and torture seems odd and incorrect.

narciso said...

I read the wiki description and its enough to keep me away (even if i had hulu)

Quayle said...

It’s a world where the only way for them to be righteous is for other people to be wicked. So they spend their lives pointing at, wicked people so they can feel righteous.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

"...zealotry porn"

How can something "feel" like a category the writer just invented?

These handmaid morons studiously ignore the only continuing example of their strawman hate object. Need we ask why?

Lazarus said...

Becoming a "franchise" is a curse. There ought to be a law against that in the entertainment biz.

"Wrack" is listed as a alternate spelling of "rack". It's also used as a synonym (something very like an alternative spelling) for "wreck." "Rack my brain" has always been more common variant than "wrack my brain," but the connection with "wreck" and "wrestle," made me prefer "wrack." Is the connection between "rack" and the torture instrument necessarily a plus or a deciding factor?

Narr said...

Havoc, wreaked.

n.n said...

Subliminal gouging, scalping, decapitation, dismemberment, etc would theoretically have a more empathetic, sustainable Critical appeal in select blocs.

JIM said...

According to the AP style book it should be HandMember person not HandMaid.

Leslie Graves said...

Based on the headline, I guessed that this was going to be about “The Pitt”.

Post a Comment

Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.