Name: The Handmaid's Tale season 5 episode 5
Director: Eva Vives
Released: 2022-10-05T09:30:00

Episode 5 (Fairytale), of The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 sees June and Luke try to sneak in and out of No Man’s Land to gather intel about Hannah.

Recap

The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 episode 5 kicks off with June dreaming about Hannah when she is jolted out of her sleep by the vibrating phone.

It’s Lily on the other side, informing June about a Guardian ally who will be sneaking across the border with some crucial intel on Hannah’s wife-school.

Luke, Moira, and June head off to the base where Lily informs them that the ally couldn’t come through due to the heightened border security.

Luke decides to go to the ally himself and June tells him she’s joining along. The two eventually meet up with the guardian ally who’s a teenage boy named Jaeden.

He was also separated from his parents in his childhood and the parallel with Hannah really strikes June and Luke.

Jaeden informs the couple that Hannah is not out of school yet which means she’s safe and won’t become a wife as soon as she remains in school.

Giving the couple a transient peace of mind, a chance to slow dance, and some beer, Jaeden escorts them back inside the border. However, tragedy strikes when he inadvertently steps on a landmine.

The mine goes off and Jaeden’s right leg is decapitated; June and Luke try to stop the bleeding; the other alerted Guardians come running and June tells Luke to escape.

The couple tries to flee but the guardians catch them and pull them away in opposite directions before the episode rolls the credits on the cliffhanger.

However, way before the episode’s end, Serena’s story moves forward and amid her flashbacks of the Gilead days, she goes about her new routine inside the Wheeler mansion.

At the call, she proposes to Lawrence and Putnam a new idea that’ll change their look to the rest of the world. Instead of their policies, Serena wants to turn the information centre into a fertility centre.

The idea is great and Lawrence is impressed, but not Putnam, who shuts her down after telling her that the pitch would be taken into consideration. Serena continues to get shut down by several other men later on.

The Wheeler house lets her meet with the women who praise her and marvel at her unborn baby. On the other side, she has essentially been rendered a prisoner within the mansion’s confines.

Later on, Mr Wheeler meets with her and politely declines her wish to resume work and access a cell phone. However, he does make sure she takes proper rest and medication for the baby’s well-being.

Review

The Handmaid’s Tale reminds viewers that moments of peace and comfort are only temporary refuges amidst a perennial series of hurt, pain, and casualties.
June and Luke have separated once again, and their fate is dangling off a cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Serena continues to feel constricted and imprisoned even outside Gilead.
It seems as if Serena’s arc is headed to a similar fate of a handmaid like June’s, with the Wheeler’s being too keen on her baby on not-too-keen on the Waterford’s freedom.
Lawrence’s plan to make a “new Bethlehem” seems to be a very obvious set-up for the finality of The Handmaid’s Tale as it carries within it a great potential for the ultimate violent revolt.
A tightly paced affair, The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 episode 5 almost flies by and serves as a great entry in an already great instalment thus far.