The Handmaid's Tale Season 4: Dystopia Turns To Slasher

The fourth season of The Handmaid's Tale kicks off on the streaming service more.tv on April 29. The creators took the novel of the same name by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood as a basis for the series. True, only the first season was filmed according to the book, and then the plot was built based on the imagination of the scriptwriters.

To begin with, let's recall the storyline. In the not too distant future, people are faced with a serious problem: fewer children are being born in the world. In addition, religious fanatics are taking over power in the United States. They renamed the country the Republic of Gilead and established their own order there, based on cruelty and complete disregard for human rights.

Those who did not have time to escape to Canada were executed, and women were forbidden to work and lead an independent life. The society was divided into castes, and a few fertile girls were forced to give birth on pain of death for important officials and their wives. Such wretches are called maids in Gilead society.

A scene from the 4th season of the series "The Handmaid's Tale"

Among the servants is a completely ordinary woman June Osborne, who, during the coup, together with her husband Luke and daughter Hannah, tried to escape, but halfway through, she caught the eye of spies. Luke subsequently managed to escape, but June was caught, took her daughter away from her, dressed in a red uniform and given to the family of Fred Waterford. However, the girl could not get used to the new role and constantly thinks how to get out of captivity.

Caution, the following text contains spoilers for the events of the second and third seasons.

In the second season, June becomes pregnant and tries several times to leave Gilead, but fails. But she manages to take her newborn girl out of the country. She herself remains to save the older child.

After that, the heroine is transferred to a new patron - Commander Lawrence. He helps her get several dozen children out of Gilead. The operation is successful, but June herself again cannot get out. This concludes the third season.

The first episode of the fourth season immediately begins in Gilead, where the wounded June is found by the fugitive handmaidens. They carry the woman out of the forest and take care of her. Having recovered, the heroine leads the resistance. And she and her friends even manage to harm the visitors of the Jezebel brothel, where girls who are objectionable to the regime are sent.

But then June is again caught and tortured to reveal the place where her allies are hiding. Meanwhile, the heroine's Canadian friends have to face the unintended consequences of her decisions.

Instead of memorable visual solutions - a series of dark scenes

Compared to the first seasons, the visual presentation has changed a lot. When the series was just beginning, the authors tried in every possible way to emphasize that the audience was facing a dystopia. Therefore, there were many geometric shapes in the frame, straight lines, clarity and symmetry. The color style was also pleasing: in Gilead, the inhabitants are divided into castes, and the red robes of the maids, like the turquoise outfits of the wives, stood out as a bright spot against the general gray-black background.

No less impressive were the bird's-eye scenes in which the maids walked in formation. These mesmerizing shots once again emphasized that the actions of the inhabitants of Gilead were staged, as if in some kind of eerie theater.

However, starting with the second season, the series began to gradually change. The scenes filmed from above became less and less. They were replaced by close-ups of faces. The color solutions did not remain the same either: now there were not so many red robes in the frame, but there was more dust, darkness and dirt.

Finally, in the fourth season, the creators came up with such a dark visual series that the silhouettes of the characters are barely visible on the screen. Compared to the old episodes, it even seems that the new episodes were specially filmed in some terribly dim rooms in order to annoy the audience.

Although, if you think about it, you can find an explanation for this: because of the coronavirus, the fourth season was created in very difficult conditions. There could not be many people on the site at the same time. Perhaps that is why there is so little air and open spaces in the series, and there are very few actors in the frame.

"Torture porn" and senseless violence

Back in the first season, it was full of bloody and violent scenes. For example, one of the heroines (albeit behind the scenes) was deprived of her eyes, and the other was punished for disobedience with genital mutilation. But all this was justified, because it was required to convey to the audience that in Gilead people were really treated harshly, without unnecessary sentimentality.

Only the authors, it seems, do not know the measure at all and go to great lengths to show the suffering of the main character. Ultimately, The Handmaid's Tale turned into a horror series openly relishing violence, torture, and mutilation.

The hope that in the new season the writers will do without "torture porn" evaporates at once. Because the first episode begins with the girls cauterizing June's open wound with something like a hair curler.

Most of the third episode was generally given to the cruel interrogation of the heroine. The problem is that when there is so much senseless violence on the screen, the suffering and death of the characters is simply devalued and does not evoke the same emotions as before. It's getting harder and harder to empathize.

It comes to the ridiculous: in one of the episodes, the background characters are simply hit by a train. This is because, according to the plot, June and her friend must travel together.

Same plot twists and invulnerable June

At the end of the first season, I wanted to believe that the heroine is suffering for a reason and her misadventures will end sooner or later. But with each new episode, the situation only became more acute, and the position of the heroine became more and more hopeless. Moreover, the development of the plot took place according to the same scheme: June tried to escape from Gilead, but over and over again she was stopped. Sometimes it even happened several times a season and under the most incredible circumstances.

In the fourth season, the authors seem to loosen their grip a little, so that the characters even manage to emerge victorious from time to time. But waiting too long makes June's joy that at least something went according to plan to zero. Moreover, immediately after this, the heroine again comes across. And this only causes annoyance: "Yes, how much you can already!"

The world of Gilead is obviously fantastic, but it was the gloomy realism that made it frightening. Now the latter has given way to outright implausibility. Here June somehow miraculously survives after a terrible wound, after which she is immediately grabbed and tortured. But after being tortured, she is in good health and ready to fight. Then the heroine, along with her friend, walks inside a huge water tanker. But, getting out of there, he feels quite good.

In general, now the girl resembles action heroes: in the literal sense, she does not drown in water, and does not burn in fire. Maybe the writers were trying to say in this way that women are capable of a lot. But this is understandable. But sympathizing with this unkillable heroine is much more difficult than the weak and vulnerable June from the first season.

By the fourth season of The Handmaid's Tale, the authors finally gave up on social drama and made a very implausible slasher out of the series. Watching it is not only unpleasant because of the repulsive scenes, but also boring, because visually the world of Gilead has become completely dark and expressionless. And cruelty is now shown only for the sake of cruelty - and this is the most offensive.