The Handmaid’s Tale 3 arrived with the power of a blazing fire: I write the review of the first three episodes of the new season broadcast on TimVision practically simultaneously with the United States. An amazing TV series, unique, evocative, capable of grabbing you and never letting go anymore thanks to the magnificent interpretation of Elisabeth Moss that I already loved in the other cult series Mad Men. I will avoid spoilers as much as possible but it is clear that something of the plot of the episodes I will have to say. The Handmaid’s Tale, conceived by Bruce Miller, is based on the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The series is an award-winning Emmy and Golden Globe. We are in Gilead, in the not too distant future, so the United States is now called after a coup d’état has supplanted democracy and the organization of society. Pollution and diseases were destroying the birth rate, women are largely afflicted with infertility. In Gilead, where religion becomes the State in the most orthodox way possible, at least for those who created it, the founding nucleus of society are the families led by a commander, a wife who cannot give him children, and they are assigned a maid.
There are two types of freedom: freedom of and freedom from. In the times of anarchy there was the freedom of. Today there is freedom from.
Dressed in a red tunic that has become the symbol of this TV series, the maids are trained by the “aunts” to do their best job, which is to give birth to a child. Such as? In an atrocious ritual shown in the first series in all its shocking violence. The maids are raped by the head of the family on the double bed with his wife holding the maid between her legs as a continuation of her body. We have learned from the first season to hate and be horrified by that society where women can no longer read, write or perform any profession.
With the eyes of June, later called Difred (and now Dijoseph) based on the man to whom it is assigned, in the first two seasons of The Handmade’s Tale through flashbacks we know the story of these women who over a short period of time must adapt to giving up their own identity, often to their husbands and children. To freedom. Everything has happened in the first two seasons, we have suffered, held our breath, held a grudge behind the white sailing headgear that hides us. “There was a time when women could choose”, is the voice of June to say in these first episodes of the new season, in which we finally see sparks of rebellion while characters, like that of Serena, the wife of the first commander of June, lives a crucial step in her personality. Collapsing certainties, lives that claim dignity and voice and power to decide for themselves. The Handmaid’s Tail 3 is a series to see, review and listen to. With those magnetic eyes from Moss that pierce us to give us hope.
