This article discusses topics such as rape, violence, and suicide.

The Handmaid’s Tale is nearing the end of its fifth season, and while the escape of June and the Waterfords has turned the narrative focus towards Canada, that doesn't mean that Gilead's atrocities have been left behind or forgotten.

Gilead is a zealous, extremist, totalitarian regime that mistreats nearly every one of its citizens aside from those at the very top (but as Commander Putnam's ignominious end demonstrated, even the elites are never truly safe). As a result, the horrors that audiences have witnessed in this dystopia have been nearly endless.

Updated October 29th, 2022 by Hilary Elizabeth:

It was an incredible relief to see June Osborne finally escape Gilead after many attempts and countless traumas, but as her character arc has demonstrated thus far, that kind of suffering isn't easy to leave behind. And unfortunately, the fact that June left doesn't mean that the brutality of Gilead has ended, and although more and more seem to be fighting back or working toward change, there are plenty of gut-wrenching moments to come for the final season of the series.

The Ceremony

June Osborne during the ceremony in The Handmaid's Tale

The ceremony is obviously one of the most disturbing focal points of the entire series, and there are layers to the horror of this experience. It is an act that is sanctioned by the government and is portrayed as the handmaids doing their "job," but it is little more than legalized rape.

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Gilead doesn't have a habit of treating its citizens with kindness or dignity, but the fact that the handmaids (and in many cases, unwilling wives, as well as the occasional unwilling commander) are subjected to this and treated as if it's a privilege is disgusting.

Janine Loses An Eye

Janine is a scene from The Handmaid's Tale.

When Gilead overthrew the United States and installed an extremist regime, they clearly wanted to establish that they meant business. And one of the ways in which they terrorized the newly-anointed handmaids was to violently punish them for acting out.

Before most of the women even understood what kind of situation they were in, Aunt Lydia decided to make Janine an example for the class and had her eye removed as punishment for her resistance to handmaid training. Janine, as well as everyone with her, was traumatized by the action.

Jezebels

June Osborne and Fred Waterford at Jezebels in The Handmaid's Tale

As is usually the case with the privileged in society, the Commanders don’t actually follow their own rules. The Commanders themselves are able to get around the laws of Gilead. And is usually the case with Gilead, these bent rules oftentimes come at the expense of innocent victims.

As Commander Lawrence so aptly stated to Serena, Gilead doesn't have a place for unusual women, so anyone who can't fit into the strictures of their society typically suffers horrifically as a consequence. In the case of Jezebels, women who misbehaved or didn't acquiesce to Gilead's rule in some way are literally forced to become sex slaves for the higher echelon of male society.

Janine's Death Sentence

The handmaids about to stone Janine in The Handmaid's Tale

The layers of cruelty in this particular scene are hard to grasp. Because yes, forcing the handmaids to execute criminals is gruesome enough on its own, but attempting to get them to kill one of their own is a special kind of psychological torment.

What makes this entire scenario even more absurd is that Janine is being sentenced to death not long after an attempted suicide, which Gilead took heroic measures to help her recover from. The fact that they were willing to invest all of that time and energy just so they could brutally kill her themselves is disgusting.

Hannah's Torture Box

Hannah in The Handmaids Tale

Nearly every moment involving Hannah is downright torture to watch, but this was a particularly difficult scene because it drops all of the moral pretense that Gilead builds around its children.

It comes as no great shock that Gilead would be willing to psychologically torture a child to compel her mother into acquiescing to their demands, but actually seeing Hannah in this situation and with the implication that she has been so indoctrinated by her country that she either doesn't recognize or is afraid of her real mother is heartbreaking.

June's Last Ceremony

June in The Handmaid's Tale episode "The Last Ceremony"

The ceremony is traumatic under the best of circumstances, but when June irritates Fred and Serena in the late stages of pregnancy, they both devise a "ceremony" which is nothing more than a way of punishing June with rape.

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Serena nominally claims that she wants to induce June’s labor, but it's obvious what the true intention is. The scene was exceptionally hard to watch because it revealed the true horror of these ceremonies. June begs for Fred and Serena to stop, and they force her down. Although they attempt to hide behind religion and reason, once again, this scene really drops all the pretense surrounding handmaids and exposes the most repugnant aspects of Gilead society.

The Bombing

Ofglen's Red Center bombing in The Handmaid's Tale

The second Ofglen, better known as Lillie Fuller, was an interesting insight into a different point of view for Gilead, at least at first. Unlike most handmaids, she seemed to be happy with her new position. But that all changed when Janine was sentenced to death.

After being horrifically brutalized for speaking out in defense of Janine, clearly she was traumatized and willing to do whatever it took to hurt Gilead. Lillie became a suicide bomber and targeted the Commanders, but there were many handmaids who were killed in the attack as well.

Janine & Emily Go To The Colonies And Back

Alexis Bledel in The Handmaid's Tale

In Gilead, there is no role for a woman that is a good one. Even the wives deal with a high level of oppression, although they do have some power and privilege. After Emily and Janine are sent to the Colonies to work to death, they are brought back as handmaids after the attack on the Commanders that also kills handmaids.

It was upsetting to see them back in this situation even though life in the Colonies was just as awful in different ways, which really shows that there are very few ways to escape for these women.

Fred Beats Serena

Serena and Fred Waterford in The Handmaid's Tale

Serena is an extremely problematic character who is difficult to feel pity for because she is such a horrific abuser herself. However, Fred's brutality towards her and the situation at large makes this incident far harder to watch.

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Although Fred clearly has no problem with the rules being bent under his supervision, the fact that Serena went around him to allow a female doctor to help a baby upset him to the point where he uses incredibly violent corporal punishment against her. The cruelty of his actions is bad enough, but the fact that he is so enraged because Serena tried to help a child is disturbing.

Eden Is Married Off To Nick

Eden talking outside to Nick on The Handmaid's Tale.

Nick's marriage to Eden was disturbing for a few reasons. Firstly, the driving force behind it was that Fred and Serena noticed that he and June were bonding, and they wanted to make sure that June was as miserable and alone as possible.

Secondly, Eden was a teenage girl and Nick was an adult man, and neither of them were given any choice regarding their marriage. Nearly every moment of their relationship was cringe, but it was particularly difficult to see Nick realize that he was getting married against his will, and the consummation of their marriage was a disgusting scene, even in Handmaid's Tale terms.

Eden's Execution

Nick standing in the audience looking at something horrifying in a scene from The Handmaid's Tale

Despite their outward obsession with children, Gilead considers its citizens to have left childhood very early on, and thus they are more than comfortable subjecting them to many adult things like marriages and executions.

Eden's marriage to Nick was doomed from the start, but her death is nearly impossible to watch for many reasons. Firstly, her teenage Romeo and Juliet fantasy going as far as a willingness to "die for love" really exemplifies how young and innocent she was. Secondly, having so many people witness the deaths of these children is unfathomable. And lastly, it's gutting to realize that Eden was only in this situation to begin with because her father turned her in to the authorities.

The Rings

A handmaid with her mouth wired shut in The Handmaid's Tale.

Given that The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian drama, it's fair to say that most viewers don't expect horror movie jump scares in the series. But even after all the nightmarish things the show has explored, it still managed to shock when it first revealed the handmaids with rings in their mouths.

It was fair to assume that Washington D.C. would be an even more intense version of Gilead, but to quite literally stop the handmaids from speaking or even opening their mouths was an act of state violence that even shocked June.

Eleanor's Death

Eleanor Lawrence in The Handmaid's Tale

Nearly every aspect of Eleanor's story was a tragedy. She was one of the few people in the country and in a position of relative power who seemed to be kind, and her empathy hurt her in the long run.

She desperately wanted to avoid having a ceremony, but Fred convinced Commander Winslow to intervene and ensure that June was raped. The trauma of that experience along with the fear that she would do something to harm the possibility of children escaping led her to suicide, and to make it even more brutal, June knew what she was doing and let it happen in order to keep the plan for Angel's Flight safe.

Emily's Mutilation

Ofglen in a white hospital gown holding her stomach, Aunt Lydia looking on in a scene from The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale television series focuses even more on what Gilead does to people who are LGBTQ+. Everything about Emily’s experience is disturbing, and the fact that her partner was so carelessly and casually hanged was almost more gutting than what happened to Emily afterward.

After watching her girlfriend die, she is genitally mutilated in a sham attempt to change or erase her sexuality. Clearly, this is just meant to be an unimaginably disgusting form of punishment, and as usual, Gilead dresses it up as if it's god's will.

Esther Keyes' Endless Gauntlet Of Torment

Esther Keyes from The Handmaid's Tale.

It was already obvious that women on every echelon of society could be horribly mistreated, but that point was really driven home with Esther Keyes. She began as a wife who had been repeatedly raped by many men in the hopes of getting pregnant, and when she acted out, she was demoted to handmaid duty.

Commander Putnam didn't hesitate to sexually assault this child either, and his rape resulted in a pregnancy. Esther was punished for attempting suicide and Aunt Lydia implied that she may have done something to draw Commander Putnam's attention. It's hard to imagine anyone who has had a tougher go of things than Esther.

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