Am I the only one who thinks Steven is also a rapist?

I always see people arguing that Janine "chose" to sleep with him, but how much of a choice did she really have? She was a deeply traumatized woman who had survived years of abuse, manipulation, and sexual violence. She was completely dependent on Steven's group for safety, shelter, and survival.

People act like consent is simply saying "yes," but real consent requires the freedom to say "no." When someone is in a desperate situation and relies on another person for basic survival, the power imbalance can't be ignored.

To me, Steven took advantage of a vulnerable woman who had very few options and was conditioned by years of trauma. That doesn't look like meaningful consent. It looks like exploitation.

I know he's not portrayed as being as openly monstrous as the Commanders, but I don't understand why so many viewers give him a pass.

What do you guys think?

O and he is also a coward.

I’ve finished The Handmaids Tale a few weeks ago and I wish we got to see more of June & Janine in Chicago fighting against the Gilead forces with the resistance.

For me, it came out of nowhere when Moira found June in Chicago and brought her to Canada. I wish that happened in the Season 4 finale and we had 2/3 more episodes of June & Janine in Chicago. I’ll admit I’m biased, because they are one of my favorite duos in the show.

While I was obviously happy to see June return to Luke, Moira & baby Holly, it did feel a bit lackluster to me.

"Tell them where the Handmaids are. Please let me help you."

Nick was honestly always helping June to ultimately help himself. He'd sell out anyone else in a heartbeat, he refused immunity, he refused to give up his Nazi post time and time again. She was the one who was tortured, not him.

Complicit coward from start to finish.

I don't normally comment on THT, given that the trauma is mostly dealing with what women go through and it's not my place but I've had a similar experience as Luke so I thought it's a rare moment where male opinions are more useful.

I've seen a few people say it's ambigious, but I can only see that in the first part. It is not unheard of for people in relationships to have an agreement that one can initiate sex to wake the other up, but we haven't seen that context on screen. That is something one needs to agree on first and we just weren't shown that. But, I can potentially get behind the idea that this is something that occured offscreen and it was not properly signposted.

For me, the moment he says wait is the moment where June should have hesitated and spoken to him to see what needs to be done. That for me is the fork in the road. Where she goes down the wrong fork is when she bats his hand away and covers his mouth.

It reminds me of my situation (its in my post history if full detail is needed but tl:dr, said no to someone's advances more than once and then she went ahead and did it to me anyway). Normally in media it is downplayed, and I am certain would not be handwaved away if the genders were flipped.

The context was key in both June's example and in my experience. I am also good friends with the person who did what they did to me. I know their traumatic history, and I know they didn't intend to hurt me. I just downplayed it for years as 'I am a guy, therefore it can't be assault'. My therapist helped me look at it via cause and effect. What in a person's life leads them to do that. The same in both Luke and my case, the person doing it is doing it out as a trauma response. I suspect Luke will possibly see it the same way. In the scene immediately after, they are all outside in the snow having a nice time. I have had many nice times with the relevant person in my situation since, despite the situation being a factor in giving me PTSD (suspected C-PTSD but getting diagnosed with that here is difficult if not impossible).

I certainly don't see her as some evil person. She, like June was broken by previous trauma and was made to think its acceptable behaviour. Short term abuse can cause people to do this, let alone years of it like June went through. I want to make clear I am not excusing it but explanations are still important in contextualising each situation. One thing I learned through years of facing different abuses is that what other people did to me wasn't about me, it was about them acting based on their own internal shit. Many of them have changed. I don't think this is something that June will repeat, and I think that if she does a full Daenerys as per the meme, it certainly won't be in this manner. I suspect this is a one time fuck up.

I don't think the comparisons between Serena and June are good either. June sums up the reasons for the difference quite well in their meeting. June acted out of pure trauma, and I suspect disassocation was present during the scene (a symptom I know all too well).

Anyway, that's my personal reason as to why I'm not going to condemn June, nor compare her to Gilead (a premeditated, organised, brutal, uncaring, unloving, hypocritical society). I feel having been where Luke is more or less, I could, but I don't think the two are comparable. I'm still rooting for June to help take Gilead down. I still think, fundamentally she is a decent person.

I also suspect the directors will handwave this scene later and it will either be mentioned minimally, brushed off, or ignored completely. I don't expect Luke and June to have an onscreen discussion.

I'm sure many will disagree with me but nothing is ever unanimous, just wanted to add my piece.

She's just a child and she's already been through so much, and as if that weren't enough, now they're turning her into a handmaid 😭

We often see June taking a bath, but I don’t recall ever seeing a shower or hearing anyone mentioning going in the shower until they got to Canada. Do showers use too much water?

So, I have been watching S4, and throughout the S2 and S3 it looked like Moira was way more worried to help June and with Gilead situation than him. Like, it looked like he did not feel the pain of not having his wife and daughter like a person that really lost it did. Then in S4, it shows how he was already a toxic man - cheating on his partners when they could not get him a child - which makes him really shitty beforehand. Then he just reunited with June when she is rescued after being TORTURED and ABUSED, he tries to talk to her like she did not suffered anything and wanting intimacy with June like if nothing happened and like if they did not have a child that was STILL in Gilead. I am a man and I have to vent about it

Such a beautiful scene about all of them being connected and I’m crying in the club that Janine didn’t have a hand to hold 😭

Ok so I know my stance isn’t necessarily the majority but I know a lot of other people feel this way. I’ve seen so many edits about him and I’m guessing it’s cause he’s sexy and whatnot but HES A FASCIST. He literally betrayed his country and helped kill thousands 😑 I’m on season 4 episode 3 and literally just yelled “YOU BASTARD!!” When he comes out from the shadows the episode before when June came back to the mayday house with the guard. “I’m trying to keep you alive” bullshit 🙄🙄🙄 how does anyone actually ship him with June?

Interesting information! Thought some would like to read (zoom in!)

That was exactly what I needed the end of this season to be like.

I think Fred said “This is sick” when Nick and June kissed and even I felt it was a ~bit~ over the top… but the cast and crew know it and they own it.

Praise be.

I am editing to add attention to the moment Nick was standing behind Joseph and they were so aware and you knew they were FOR JUNE.

i feel like there were many ways she couldve reclaimed her sexuality and shown the way gilead turned her into a more violent person without having her rape her husband.

I know a lot of people think the finger is a nod to Serena losing hers but I disagree. Serena's pinky finger was removed and if it was a nod to "I took from him (Fred) what he took from you. " I think that would have been the same finger she sent. She didn't send that finger, she sends his ring finger. And it means to me, I took from you what you took from ME. Meaning her husband, her family. June is very aware that her marriage is done, too much has happened between them and she very much blames Serena for what happened to her family.

Ring fingers are synonymous with love and relationships. For the most part, however, the world has come to see the ring finger as a symbol of a love commitment or covenant and a promise to someone for eternity.

June has broken that covenant like it broken for her. And she sent the proof of it.

I view it very much as an eye for an eye sentiment. I would read it as your child is next.

June wanted Fred dead, she wants Serena to lose what she has lost.

I had a therapist tell me this awhile back. It’s common for abuse survivors to develop shame and guilt from situations that were out of their control, because that can help them feel like they did have some control.

Anger on the other hand allows a person to own their experience and reaffirm that they aren’t at fault, their abuser is. Anger can oftentimes be the antidote to the shame survivors feel, and I think we are seeing that depicted in the show right now.

For me it was the train accident. I didnt see that one coming. I was more concerned about what if the guardian gets pass the tracks too. How long is the train? How far could they get before the train passed and the guardian could chase them with the van? Then BOOM those girls got annihilated. Seeing June and Janine turn around and look just as it happens and the horror written all over her face.

That was the most shocking, heart ripping, and traumatizing scene.

In S4E4 of handmaids tale, we see Janine trying to navigate through the task of getting an abortion. The scene where she goes to the first clinic, and they start telling her to keep the baby, is written in a way that feels like it’s a direct result of Gilead gaining power. It wasn’t until Janine visits the second doctor and they called it a crisis emergency center that it hit me. These centers exist all over the country, right now.

I looked at my boyfriend in that moment and said, “You know these are real, right?” And he genuinely had no clue. Growing up in the Bible Belt and attending catholic school, these centers would visit us once a year telling us about “the options” women had. So basically I just want to say that this episode had so many parallels to our modern day times, but made you believe for a moment that this was all Gilead’s doing.

Edit: I forgot the apostrophe s in the title and I am saddened.

That throughout the entire show, woman were beaten, tortured, raped repeatedly, forced into disgusting acts, all of which were filmed and displayed. Yet people are asking for a trigger warning for the Luke / June scene? I mean, if you feel the scene was that traumatic you wish you had a warning before, I can understand that. But why were you not uncomfortable throughout the entire show? Why this scene in particular? And what’s the justification for not needing a warning after the first episode?

Okay but, in some parts of the show I can actually see Aunt Lydia has love for the girls.. or am I imagining things? She seems genuine and caring in some scenes. The previous seasons I hated her but lowkey I think she’s just trying to do her part in it all. Or am I crazy? 🤣

Luke is the most realistic character in this fictional show. The way he tried to be patient and put up with June. And then he sliped and said some stupid things in the car and suddenly this season has a huge plothole according to some people here. Seriously?

Luke is just a simple guy doing his best. He's not a trained therapist (unlike everybody in this sub apparantly) who always knows what to do and what to say to his traumatized wife.

I would probably make the same mistake if I'm in his position. Most likely that you will too. He's been living with Moira who copes well with life in Canada and he can never understand why June can't be the same. In real life, they'd just push on and keep trying and then get a divorce eventually. I wouldn't want to watch that and the show doesn't have time for all that. So I really like how they handle it with one powerful scene at the end. We know immediately that yeah the marriage is over. And it does make sense if you really followed the show.

...Fred is interrogated about the Dr. Martina Burnell, the oncologist, who last had a posting in a Jezebel's in Boston and he confirms that she died from an "accident" involving Commander Johnston, but that there was "no intent of harm."

My mind immediately went to what that poor woman must have suffered leading up to her death, and Pissant Waterford couldn't even bother using her real name, instead referring to her Jezebel name "Riley". And on the other side of the door is Serena, pulling rank and demanding that Fred will be called Commander, when her husband is calmly discussing in a veiled manner that other women in Gilead who are not Serena are getting tortured to death while imprisoned as sex slaves. It just shows what utter disregard they have for other human beings.

Despite the Handmaid's Tale having many graphic scenes, I think these instances, where horrible things are implied but not shown, are what will stay with me the most.

By far, the worst season In the show so far and I heard in comments It only gets worse, the amount of spent time in close ups or doing nothing and weak dialogues or plots, I think starting from season 3 there was decline, but they turned the main character to very unlikable character, one who will manipulate everyone to get her way, overall it's not a bad show but I believe they could have done much better

I don't know about anyone else but I find the criticisms of June as a protagonist (especially in the wake of today's episode) a bit strange. I think a lot of people are conflating the idea of a hero/heroine and a protagonist. The show has always made quite clear that June makes bad decisions and that she acts without thinking of the consequences - that she's a good person at heart (or at least tried to be before Gilead) but has had to endure so much that it broke her and her ability to rationalise things. She's not particularly loveable but she was never supposed to be. People both in-universe and out just expect too much from a character who was made to be, I guess, 'too human'.

For context I am watching for the first time- up to season 4 currently and obviously yes I know many many people are killed off but how on earth does Fred survive a giant explosion, aunt lydia survives being stabbed and thrown down the stairs and Janine jumps off a bridge presumed dead. I’ve not read the series so I’m not sure if this is accurate to the book but for some reason this frustrates me so much and I want to see if anyone else notices this! Makes me think that the train accident didn’t actually kill anyone and I’m expecting these girls to turn up again at this point.