The Handmaid’s Tale Review: After (Season 2 Episode 7)

As Moira searches for information about her missing girlfriend on The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2 Episode 7, “After,” a confusing and disappointing twist undermines an otherwise powerful story.

Since The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2 is no longer relying solely on the events that transpire in Margaret Atwood’s book — told entirely from June/Offred’s perspective — viewers get to travel beyond the walls of present-day Gilead and learn more about the other characters who inhabit this dystopian world.

Viewers don’t know much about Moira outside the confines of her close relationship with June, but “After” begins to construct a back story for her character. In the present, word of the bombing has Moira concerned for June’s safety, which also motivates Moira to confirm the fate of her girlfriend, Odette.

In The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1, Moira is portrayed as tougher, more adaptable, more in control of her emotions than some of the other primary female characters. She isn’t mutilated, she doesn’t have a child taken from her and whatever mistreatment she endures during her time at Jezebels has yet to be explored, which is why it may feel to viewers like Moira gets off easy.

It’s only during season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale, Season 2 that viewers begin to understand that every woman in Gilead endures her own brand of torture, and each finds her own way of coping with the emotional and psychological ramifications.

It’s surprising to learn that Moira is a mother, having served as a surrogate for a British couple prior to the war. Her sole motivation in doing so is to secure a better place for herself financially. This plotline is disappointing because Moira was the only female character whose suffering wasn’t tied somehow to either the loss of a child or the inability to conceive one.

Procreation is a biological imperative in this world created by Atwood, but even in today’s society, women with children tend to make those without them feel excluded.

They’ll often boast about the incredible bond that exists between mother and child; a love that people without kids can’t possibly comprehend.

By making Moira a mother, is she supposed to be more relatable? Is it impossible that she couldn’t fathom the horrors endured by Handmaids because she hadn’t carried a baby in her womb? That’s what the writers seem to be saying when they slip in her pregnancy as almost an afterthought.

Moira dismisses June’s warning that she may become attached to the baby. Moira chooses to focus on the physical discomforts of pregnancy. She lashes out at June because she feels alone. She hands off her baby as promised but not without wistful regret.

This becomes a no-win situation. Moira’s a mother. She did this incredibly generous thing by giving a couple a baby who couldn’t have one of her own. But she can also be viewed as a Handmaid for hire, a woman who made the choice to do what others are now being forced to against their will.

The pregnancy holds even more significance for Moira because it’s how she meets her girlfriend, Odette, who is her doctor. This is the story that really scrapes away Moira’s smartass, gruff exterior.

As she spends days looking through binders full of photos of the unidentified victims of the war, her walls come down, and when she finally sees the pictures that confirm her worst fears, she responds with an anguish that resonates with anyone who has ever lost someone. It’s by far, one of the most genuinely emotional moments of the entire series.

Diluting the importance of Moira’s girlfriend with the pregnancy, intermingling her memories, insisting the two can’t be extricated reinforces the fallacy that a woman isn’t whole unless she’s experienced motherhood, even for a brief period.

Eradicating the pregnancy altogether and simply focusing on Moira’s connection with Odette would have been even more powerful and true to what viewers already know about the character. This departure is confusing.

In an otherwise incredibly empowering episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, Moira is reduced to a woman defined by her reproductive choices, which is disappointing indeed.

What did you think of this episode of The Handmaid’s Tale? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Handmaid’s Tale airs Wednesdays on Hulu.

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