Away_Ad8907 t1_ja7q8xn wrote
The Handmaid's Tale. It's indulgent, more and more often shallow and dull, and spins its wheels ad infinitum. It has a tenuous handle on its own inconsistent worldbuilding. It undermines key thematic underpinnings of the text with oversimplification, contrived shuffling of plot-armoured characters across the chess board and undercooked efforts to appear intersectional or relevant. Arcs and plots have remained static and stale for some time now.
But it still delivers a few truly excellent scenes a season, the best of those being the ones that contain a compelling or cathartic character beat expertly performed by its talented ensemble, opposed to the jaw-dropping traumas it's known for. And for as much of a traumatic slog as it can be, it mines a surprising amount of comedy out of June and Serena's completely fucked up dynamic, and I'm essentially only still watching to see those two characters interact. Strahovski and Moss pull the best performances out of each other, too.
IndyRevolution t1_ja976b4 wrote
Main issue with Handmaid's Tale is that it feels like there's no driving force in the writer's room. They will start on plotlines and then immediately abandon them an episode later and characters who are set up to be huge players disappear with no explanation. It just seems like they wanna cover a bunch of bases at once and can't actually decide on what the season's "about" (This is the issue I had with the Candyman reboot movie as well).
ChanandlerBonng t1_jabe3rl wrote
My issue with The Handmaids Tale is that every season, the first 7 or 8 episodes, nothing happens except long drawn out closeups of Elizabeth Moss.... and then the final two episodes are OH MY GOD THAT WAS AWESOME I CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT SEASON LET'S GOOOO!!!!
.... and I fall for it every time.
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