Contains spoilers for Season 5 Episode 7, 'No Mans Land'.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

"June, why didn't you kill me? At the information centre, you had a gun. Why Fred and not me?"

June's reply, 'I didn't want to', did not exactly cut it.

Serena observed that Noah, he even looked like Fred. June's reply that that was 'evolutionary', which drew a scoff from Serena. Millions of years of evolution, of natural selection selected out babies who looked like someone else, lest the father kill them.

'Wow,' Serena thought, 'the apostate's views are infinitely more brutal than what they accuse us of. Fathers, killing their babies, as the driver of evolution. And they prefer that?'

It was obvious to June's untrained eye that both Serena and Noah were going to need medical care, if not only for mild hypothermia, but also for dehydration. Neither were good ways for mom and baby to begin - unless one was in an actual manger in the Middle East. Serena reporting that she was hot, even that was her fever talking. Was that the sepsis? Yet another reason to get both of them out of there.

It was both amazing and troubling what June saw morph before her eyes. One of the most powerful Wives of Gilead, it was not just that Serena said it. Serena believed it.

'Jesus Christ', June thought, 'Serena fears that she's that Canadian family's handmaid. Fuck, how quickly Serena herself went through the Gilead checklist. She's not even fighting it. At least Offred, she fought it.'

Serena, she was now a woman of No Mans Land. No future for her in Canada, no future for her in Gilead. All her rights to the south had died with Fred.

If June had learned nothing else, she had learned to listen for Serena's manipulations. What had it been that Rita had said about her? Total narcissist? You knew she was up to something when she became nice?

Yet in trying to convince June to take Noah and leave her, Serena had slipped up.

She had called Nichole, "your daughter". Not 'my daughter', but 'your daughter'. Serena now wanted June to do for Noah what she had done for 'your daughter', not a hint of claim about Nichole for Serena. (A manipulation?)

Noah should be raised by June's husband, Serena said. To teach him not to do what Noah's actual father did. "What I did," Serena added as a mea culpa - June on a hair trigger to spot the manipulation.

Then - Serena started quoting from her book, "A Woman's Place." And why not, she wrote it. She wrote it just before women lost hands for writing anything, even stuff in support of Gilead.

Serena rehearsed the theology - God had sent June to rescue Noah, like an avenging Angel. It was all there, in Serena's book. "Rejoice with him O Heavens, for he will avenge the blood of his children."

Which was more brutal? Evolution or Serena's book? That comparison completely escaped Serena.

What was rocking June? That the once powerful Serena Joy Waterford, regarded her, June, as only an avenging angel. One that Serena needed to acknowledge and bow to, for the sake of Noah. Serena was still full-on-Gilead.

She should have named the kid, 'Moses'. What with the bit about bulrushes and all.

"I'm the Ark, June, I'm the vessel. I've carried my baby. I held him." Serena was saying that her purpose as a human was finished.

June thought, 'Yeh, a damnsight more than you did for Ofclarence, before cutting her baby from her dead body.'

Serena passed Noah to June, saying that it was God's will. "God's will. A vessel."

Those words echoed in June's soul as she walked away with the baby. She thought, 'that's what you thought I was, what we all were!'

June said outloud, "who we were, where we came from, what we wanted….." She turned back to Serena and said, "none of that mattered to you. To any of you." June paused, "I don't care that you're sorry. We mattered. We were… we are people."

June returned to Serena, knelt down to her with the baby, and said, "which is why I'm going to save yours. Because this isn't Gilead." No Mans Land, it had a character already preferable to Gilead!

"And I am not you," June concluded.

"I don't deserve to be saved," Serena said. For the first time since meeting Serena, Wife of Gilead, architect of A Women's Place, June could also not care if this was simply another of her manipulations.

"It's not for you, Serena," June said. "It's for him, Noah."

June said, "Look at him. You are the only person in the whole world that he knows. He knows your voice, he knows your smell. You love him." June gulped, then said, "and me, I saw you. I saw how much you wanted him." So don't give me any of this 'I'm only a vessel' shit.

"You're his mother. That is God's will." Then their catchphrase, "do you understand me?"

DADDY'S GIRL

Hey, dad, yeah it's me, Rose. Are you busy? Yeah, you always say that - you always have time for your little girl. There've been other kids, other girls who've had equally busy dads. Their dads don't make time. Some of them aren't even High Commanders. Me, I have no complaints, dad. I think I'm just understanding how lucky I was - how lucky I am - with you and mom in D.C.

Yeah, how is mom? Really? Not enough marthas? Yes, yes, yes, I promise - I won't cut into mom about her life of privilege. But c'mon, dad, when your complaint is not enough marthas…

Okay, ten minutes? I think I can squeeze in everything in ten minutes. Our martha? Dad, you know how unconventional Nick is. Not your typical Commander, Nick doesn't lord it over this house. This is as much my house as his. Yes, we're aware we have to be careful with appearances.

I've got to ask you something, dad. I know you've always drawn a line with me. You're my dad and you protect me. You look out for Nick. You've described that 'line' very well, and I'm not dumb. What I've discovered about the other Wives out here in Boston, is that no Wives are dumb. 'Wives', they are the real survivors in the harshness that is the worst of our country.

No dad, I am all right. I just have a question for you that you will think crosses the line. Between family and and State.

Okay. Did you countenance the High Criminal Court of Gilead, the HCCG out here in New Gilead?

Dad! I have to stop you. Did you countenance it?

Dad! You realize I'm carrying your grandchild, your first. Did you countenance it!?

Doesn't concern me!? Dad, don't be like that. Not now! It concerns me because it is effecting Nick. I've come to terms with you, dad. I don't think I can do that again, not with my husband.

No, I know. I'm not saying that. Of course I wouldn't force you to choose. I actually DO know that I'm maybe the only Wife in New Gilead who could. That if push came to shove, that I'd be welcome back at home.

But dad, did you countenance it? No, what's done is NOT done.

Okay, I'll wait on the line. Don't be long. - High Commander Wharton was heard talking to an aide, delaying no less than a National Chancery meeting, until this call could be completed. -

Yes, dad, I'm still here. I have to be gone in a few minutes anyway, Nick will be home. I'm doing dinner tonight, we've given the martha the night off.

Rubber hitting the road? Let's start with Naomi Putnam, dad. Don't get me going about Angela Putnam. None of the other Wives know where Angela is, not Grace not anyone. If Grace doesn't know then it's not for knowing.

What's going to happen with Naomi? Please don't do that, dad, don't say it's New Gilead's concern, not yours. When you let Nick and the others convene an HCCG, did you not think that through? About the Wives?

Nick did it right in front of the Wives, dad! Yes, yes, I understand that Putnam had been a repeat offender. But at breakfast!? Nick won't talk about it.

Okay, I get that. Naomi's ownership reverts to the State, I get that. You've taught me well. But these are people, dad!

Look, Nick is here. I have to get going. Dad, I'm going to call you again. This isn't over.

LOSING THE SHACKLES

"Esther, you have to eat."

Aunt Lydia had been through this countless times before. Except this time, Esther was still shackled to a hospital bed, not in the forced-birth room. The scene in front of Lydia was not business as usual, and she was already receiving criticism that the sooner that Esther was moved back to the Red Centre proper, the sooner that someone else - someone cooperative - could get proper medical care.

"Esther….." Aunt Lydia said, which Esther cut off sharply.

"You can call me Mrs. Keyes, Aunt!" Esther told Lydia to mind her station. Not bad for a teenager shackled to a bed!

Aunt Lydia sat in silence for a good while. That had been Janine's suggestion. Let the tension die down.

Aunt Lydia stood. She said, "Esther," pausing to let the girl react if she so needed.

"Esther, there's something you need to know."

At that, Esther turned her head quickly, she'd perfected flipping her hair to cover her face - that was something that her bound hands could not accomplish.

Lydia pressed forward. "Esther, you need to know what happened to High Commander Putnam."

Esther started weeping. Through the hair and tears, Lydia though she could hear the girl say, "if you care about me at all, you won't be talking about him."

Lydia said as matter of factly as she could, "he's dead, Esther. The High Criminal Court of Gilead, they tried and sentenced him. He's dead, dead for what he did to you."

Lydia thought, that that was not entirely true. But Esther, she needed to hear something to turn her around. To prepare her for the duration of this pregnancy.

When Esther turned her head back to Lydia, Lydia stroked the hair off of her face. Below her on the bed, she had rarely appreciated how young her girls were - Esther being particularly young. Already a Wife, already a widow, already pregnant in the Bilhah program. Esther was so young, and had been through so much.

Lydia asked a question she never once had asked a charge of hers. Stroking the last of Esther's hair away from her face, Lydia asked the unfamiliar and strange, "what is it that you want, dear?"

"Me?" Esther said, surprised that she was being engaged so. Her first thought was to be freed from those shackles. But she was mad, mad as hell. The news about Putnam, that barely moved the needle.

"You people," Esther said, "you think I should thank you for executing a pervert. A rapist. All that does, it just brings it back up to zero."

"What do you want, dear?" Lydia said.

"I want an abortion."

IRIDIUM MODEL NUMBER 9555

Aunt Lydia was standing attentively at Commander Lawrence's desk. He was as of yet not there, he was in his martha-less kitchen preparing tea for himself. She had not wanted any, so he made his excuses and promised to return shortly.

Sitting, he apologized to the maven of the Red Centre, the cohort who propped him up, who had probably single-handed kept him from Warren Putnam's fate - probably many times over.

"So, Aunt Lydia," Lawrence said as he got comfortable in his chair. "What can I do for you? I must say it's been rather quiet lately. It's almost not like New Gilead to just be rolling along without controversy."

Aunt Lydia stood there quietly.

So much so, Lawrence said, "Oh shit. What now?"

Lydia said, "I need to talk with your American friend, that agent in the Toronto Consulate."