The Handmaid’s Tale is an ongoing Hulu series that leaves viewers like me transfixed to the screen. The series premiered in April, 2017, and has new episodes every Wednesday. I started watching it a few weeks ago, and I really like it, even though a few parts make me want to scream. 

The world’s fertility and birth rates drop to critical levels because of pollution and STDs. Then a civil war breaks out. It doesn’t show the war happening, just the aftermath. A group of people create a new government where the fertile women are slaves to men called ‘Commanders’  and their infertal wives. Every month the handmaid’s go through a ritual called “the ceremony” where they are forced to mate, while the infertal wives hold their wrists down.

 Many people are murdered everyday because they are gay or lesbian. Some very unlucky people get sent to the Colonies. The Colonies are radiated parts of America where the unwomen, the women who get sent there, are forced to shovel radiated dirt into sacks until they die of exhaustion or radiation poisoning. 

The handmaids lose everything. They lose their husbands or wives, their kids, and even their own name. The whole series revolves around Offred, whose real name is June Osborne. Offred is trying to do what her husband did and escape to Canada. 

Some of Offred’s choices make no sense to me. Why would she stay behind for her daughter, who she isn’t able to visit, when she could escape to Canada and have them rescue her daughter? I don’t have kids myself, but if it’s clear to me that I can’t save my daughter myself, then I would get help for her through a higher power. 

Overall I love the series and I really hope Offred escapes and gets enough firepower to destroy the new government of America. The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the few Hulu original series that I have watched and it’s one of the best.