selenak

For All Mankind 5.09:

As I guessed, our gang of revolutionary heroes on Mars is forced to team up with Irina (and Governor Oleg, err, Lenya) as Irina makes her move to prove she can deliver by providing intel on the impending M6 sent commando to retake the station. Aleida is about as thrilled regarding this prospect as expected, but since Irina's information gets verified very quickly, and as they don't have any other potential allies left, it happens. This is also where it turns out there was a reason why when the Governor was introduced at the start of the season, the show made a point of giving us his cv, including the fact he used to be a cosmonaut as a younger man, because for the grand climax of the episode, he teams up with Camilla Boyd ont his episode's dramatic space mission to blow up the landing platform on the Golidlocks asteroid as a countermove to the impending Earth sent invasion. They pull this off despite a desert storm over Mars endangering their take off, but because this show is tricky this way, and last episode we had Dev order his people to blow up the agradomes on the assumption that no one will be there, only to severely hurt several people and kill one, this time it's our heroes' turn because the mission of Earth marines which includes Silvio from the pilot who used to be bff with Alex and Lily as well as Avery, granddaughter of Gordo and Tracy, daughter of Danny, has sent a recon mission to the asteroid in advance of the rest of the force planning on going for Mars and they're just there to be blown up along with the platform. Avery makes it out alive, though drifting in space; Silvio does not. I'm assuming Avery will get picked up by Boyd and Lenya (unless there are other survivors from her team after all), but that means much as Dev is responsible for the people injured and killed during the agrodome blow up, now there is also blood on our heroes' hands. And given the Marines were explicitly told BEFORE not to use lethal force when dealing with the "Marsies", undoubtedly that will contribute to them being presented as evil terrorists back on Earth.

(Lilly's clearly intending to record people to counter that message, but will that work in the face of now actual dead soldiers?)

Meanwhile on Titan, we get another exercise in moral ambiguity as Walt goes on a guilt trip for his supposed failure while Kelly, who knows it wasn't his failure but her intentional sabotage, is about to confess when he asks her to take over as Commander (since he regards himself as endangering everyone else with his supposed failure). This is a temptation she can't resist, and so she takes over as commander instead of telling him the truth, soothing her conscience by making sure he also particpates in the quest to track down those life signs. This show being this show, this definitely means Walt will uncover the truth at the most inconvenient moment and will feel doubly betrayed, even gaslighted, because Kelly listened to his ramblings and apologies all the while knowing he was innocent. And yet: given this was her life's goal and has been for so many years, would have been realistic if she had told Walt the truth at this point instead? Not really.

With all these potential bombs ticking, we're set for impending doom and last minute rescue, methinks. Also, the entire "Boyd and Lenya go to the asteroid" sequence crossed over with "Marines including Avery and Silvio search the Asteroid" scene was another superb action-in-space sequence like last week's landing on Titan. Yay! (And also, OMG how terrible for all the characters!)

The Testaments 1.08:

Given we're nearing the finale and in regards of the book plot - and it's not a lengthy book - are still in the first third to half of the book, I take it a second season is guaranteed? If so, I'm not complaining, because everything the show added to the tale is interesting, fleshes out the characters and is well played. If not, I am complaining, because the plot of the book itself would be completely doable within a miniseries.

Speaking of the book, I find it fascinaing how they remix, and not in a bad way, certain plot elements to make this more of an ensemble tale. More about this when I get into book-spoilery speculative territory in terms of what I think will happen on the show below. For now: what the tv series does very well is combine characters and let them bounce off each other that do not have this interaction in the novel (that I can recall, at least), and this episode is a good example of how the characters gain by it. In it, we get the new combination of Shulamite and Daisy. Shulamite in the first few episodes has been the resident mean girl/queen bee ; in the last episode, we saw her protective of a friend, hinting at more depth; now, in this episode, we see her interact with Daisy who is a relative stranger and to whom she owes nothing, and yet, against clichéd expectations, when she catches Daisy getting her period - about which Daisy, not having grown up in Gilead but now knowing what it means there, is horrified, since becoming either a wife or a handmaid is definitely not on her to do list - , Shulamite though frustrated and embarassed that it still hasn't happened for herself does listen to Daisy's desperate request not to tell the Aunts; Shulamite only tells Agnes so Agnes can provide Daisy with some direly needed hygienic articles. Moreover, Shu opens up about why she is so fixated on getting her period - beyond the usual effect of Gilead education, that is -, and now comes across not as a high school trope cliché but as a three dimensional being. And because the show, like Margaret Atwood herself, is good at coupling dystopia with the occasional black humor, Daisy wanting to return the favour by giving Shu the sex ed lesson the Aunts withhold from her only to find Shu thinks she's kidding her/pulling a fast one with all this "swimming upwards" stuff about male semen is both hilarious and, if you consider the reason why Shulaminte doesn't believe it, infuriating. Not least because it's not that long ago women being kept in such ignorance deliberately was the norm in most parts of the globe. (And there are people not just in fiction eager to bring that back.)

(Margaret Atwood always said, re: "The Handmaid's Tale" that nothing that happens in it to women hasn't been practiced in some part of the world in the past or then-present. The situation hasn't improved.)

Speaking of things happening not in a dystopia but here and now: The Agnes part of the episode goes back to what happened with Becka's father Dr. Grove the Dentist, as Agnes discovers she's not the only one whom Dr. Grove has sexually molested; she finds Hulda in despair because Grove did the very same thing to her and didn't even bother with anaesthesia this time (presumably because Hulda's parents are less high on the social scale than those of Agnes). Agneis is horrified but also sees an opportunity here; as her post-Gilead narrative voice calls herself a shitl, her Gilead era yoiung self encourages Hulda to tell the Aunts but doesn't say the very same thing happened to her. Predictably, Aunt Vidala basically tells Hulda she's been imagining things and orders both girls to never tell anyone about this ever again. Poor Hulda goes to pieces; Agnes consoles her but still can't bring herself to say the truth, though she later does make a second attempt by going directly to Aunt Lydia, who basically responds with a variation of "Vengeance is mine, says the lord, and good things come to those who can wait", which Agnes' post Gilead narrative voice says gave her nothing back then but later made her realise Lydia was signalling to her that Grove would be dealt with. (Book-spoilery Speculation about what happens to Grove in the book and how I think they might somewhat change this in the show based on this and the final scene betwen Agnes and Daisy in this episode below.) As if all of this isn't bad enough, Agnes also has her Garth-related dreams furtherly crushed in this episode when Becka announces s he's picked Garth and they're celebrating their engangement party. (Which provides the opportunity to Grove to menace both Hulda and Agnes with insinuations while he's at it.) By the time the episode ends, she no longer can contain herself and finally does burst out with the truth - to Daisy. Who reacts like a good ally and looks very determined indeed to do something about this.

Book

Spoiler

Territory

From

Here

Now, in the novel, Aunt Lydia after finding out what Dr. Grove did deals with Grove by making one of the other Aunts who is very loyal to her accuse Dr. Grove of rape. This works as letting the girls testify would not have because a) the Aunts are life long celibates and thus have no marriage prospects to lose, and b) they're the few women with actual social standing and some authority who will be believed over a non-military guy like Grove. He then gets killed off in typical vicious Gielead fashion. Also, in the book as far as I recall the other victim who makes Agnes realise he's being doing this serially and foe along time isn't Hulda, it's his own daughter, her friend Becka. I already mentioned in an earlier review that I think incest is the one thing show!Grove is not gulty off (otherwise Becka a few episodes back wouldn't have told Agnes so earnestly her father would help her, Agnes), and so that part of Becka's plot has been given to Hulda instead, presumably because Becka instead gets the engagement with Garth who doesn't exist in the book. (Well, a guy named Garth does exist, but only in Daisy's Canadian backstory, not in Gilead.) And also, and here I am guessing, because if Becka herself has not had this experience, there is a good reasonw hy Agnes does not/cannot confide in her about this, beyond the current Garth disaster, I mean. So since the show will have to end on a big dramatic note without having the book finale at its disposal yet, I think Lydia will still arrange something in the show as well, but not before Daisy takes it upon herself to act as well. There will probably be another mix and mingle of book elements. My first thought was that Daisy instead of an Aunt will be the one accusing Dr. Grove, but I can't either see this working or Daisy being naive enough to believe any Gileadean authority would believe a Pearl Girl over a man. However, Daisy has had that chat with Agnes' adopted father, Commander MacKenzie, where he asked her whether Agnes was happy, and in this episode, we've seen Commander McKenzie coming across as having mixed feelings about the whole marrying off his teenage daughter to Weston the creep thing. So what I could see Daisy believe might work is tell MacKenzie about Grove and hope he, who is the more powerful Gilead man, would deal with Grove. However, Daisy would then find out McKenzie decides it's easier not to believe her and that instead she's about to be sent to the Colonies, become a handmaid or suffer another unpleasant fate, which is when Lydia intervenes with the book plot, i.e. having another Aunt frame Grove. But also with the other thing Lydia does in the book, which is signalling to the girls that there is one way they can escape wifedom and handmaid-dom, whichis "having a religious calling" to become an Aunt instead. With season 2 then finding those of our heroines who survive as Aunts-in-training. (Which Agnes already is in the book when Daisy encounters her for the first time.)