Season 5 Episode 8 - MOTHERLAND Rating: B-

A solid entry into season 5 as it draws to a close (2 more to come), yet there were clunky parts. For instance when June was coaching Serena on how to return to the Wheeler house, even as a Handmaid, it was understressed in the dialogue just who Serena Joy Waterford was. Yes, Serena was at an all time low - but it took June to remind her about her talents at manipulation, learned as a Wife. The bottom line? Like what June was struggling with, despite the cost, Serena had to be located where Noah was. Serena just had to swallow hard, remember who she was, and survive - as handmaids do.

It wasn't so much what even Emily had once told June, "just apologize, they love to be forgiving." June had tailored her advice to suit Serena's skills, Serena should spend her time plotting her escape - but spend that biding her time on site.

What was missing, was Moira's signature line. They should have had June leaning into Serena and saying, "keep your fucking shit together." With what Serena was now dealing with - Handmaids had no luxury to fall apart. "Welcome to the club, sister. I don't want to hear complaints."

Also the scene between June and Rita on the front porch - that had once obviously been meant for Alexis Bledel, before her departure. Rita's dialogue could have been far, far better written. THT is losing a golden opportunity in not developing Rita more.

And what's with Moira? Like Rita, her character is once again presented as a cardboard cutout of who she once was. Where's Esther? Where's Naomi? Where's Janine?

What did the episode get right? Get it? 'Right'! Alt-right! Canada in the 2020s is right now developing its own versions of populist politics, where Canadian symbols are being hijacked by the anti-immigration, anti-refugee anti-progressive, anti-woke crowd. I live here, I've seen it. It's now making its way into THT scripts.

Contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

"Captain," Tuello said to him with urgency, "the President herself will be in Anchorage watching the operation as it unfolds."

Operation Neptune Spear had been the template. Yet the vast majority of the guys who had trained for that, DEVGRU (aka. Seal Team Six, Red Squadron) had remained in the lower-48. They were now under the command of Gilead's federal Guardian forces. Tuello guessed that all the operational files from Neptune Spear in the Pentagon had been destroyed, but one could never be sure.

Then again, back then the killing of Osama bin Laden had made the news! Everyone knew about it.

Tuello did not wish to be seen as a nag. But repeating the operational importance to the captain made him appear to be one. It made it appear that Tuello did not have confidence that the military knew how to do their jobs.

"It's vital," Tuello said, then repeated into the handset, "it's vital that you get in and out with stealth, and with minimal collateral damage. The political risks involved with this are legion."

The American military, they were not very much concerned with politics - except that their depleted numbers - the defections to Gilead - had had a devastating impact on morale on those who remained. The captain often thought that this period had been harder than it must have been in Russia in the early 1990s. That was when the Soviet juggernaut, the Red Army, had been disassembled - where Russian Colonels at that time were selling off parts of their uniforms in markets and airports so that their family could eat - one had sold his hat. That had gone to a retired Canadian couple traveling through Vladivostok, who had regaled their family in Vancouver with the prize!

The captain said to Tuello, "stealth is everything. And it's not what you think." He reiterated his concern that if the plan to rescue Hannah Bankole went south, this could end up being the largest live-fire exchange, "between Americans" since the Civil War of the 1860s.

Tuello tried to remind the man that the Guardians guarding Hannah Bankole, that they were not Americans. "The American Commander-in-chief," Tuello countered, "is in Anchorage."

The captain said silently, "we went to war with those guys. They once were our brothers, our sisters."

"Well, then," Tuello observed, "the operation won't go south, will it? You won't be crashing your stealth Black Hawks will you?"

"Very funny, Mr. Tuello, very funny. But we do have one of Cairo's grandpups coming along. Those Belgain Malinois are great with kids. The bonus? They can smell enemy ground forces a quarter-mile away."

Tuello paused, knowing that it was fruitless to pepper the guy with the thousand unknowns. Tuello then summarized things with a quote from RuPaul Charles, "don't fuck it up."

"If we do, sir," the captain observed, "it's our asses in a Gilead prison. Then again, I've never met Lieutenant Stans. I hope to keep it that way."

Tuello envisioned the international news if Gilead was able to broadcast a major American/Gilead firefight - within a Wives school filled with pre-teens! If there was a body-count, that would be a PR disaster that might sink the USA altogether.

Gilead just may parlay that into replacing the USA at the UN. Yes, there were political risks.

All to keep June Osborne in Canada.

THE POLITICAL RISKS

After his call to the American military, Tuello sauntered over to Rachel Tapping's office. He neither knocked, nor asked permission to sit. He just sat across from her, both of them quite silent, neither looking at the other.

"So, tell me again, Mark," Tapping opened, "why are we doing this?"

"This is not the time to ask, Rachel," Tuello said, looking at his shoes and taking some lint from the side of his pants. "They're ramping up. It would be the President, she now has sole authority to call it off. If she waits an hour, then not even she can abort."

There they sat. For the next few hours, they had little to do, other than monitor. Tuello's smartphone in his pocket, it had the Bankole/Osborne house on speed dial.

"That DVD," Tapping asked, "was it ever traced?"

"NSA says it is inert. The meta-data, it is pristine. No evidence, none, of deception."

Tapping said, "those guys and gals, the ones raiding a Wives' school 150 miles behind unfriendly lines…. their lives are depending on the rump of the NSA."

Tuello said, "ever has it been thus." He paused, then stood. "I'm going to check in with Osborne. I'm telling you, Rachel, we cannot lose her to New Bethlehem. We simply cannot. If she goes, Little America here in Toronto, it will empty."

"Of all people," Tapping said, "out of them all, why in God's good green acre, would June Osborne go back there? All it would take is for her to be in New Bethlehem, then someone puts a bullet in Joseph Lawrence's head…., then all bets would be off…." her voice tapered away.

Tuello turned on his heel to go to his office, he said as he left, "and I'm afraid I know just the guy who would do it."

"Jesus Christ," Tapping said, "what a soap opera."

HEMP FARM, BARRIE, ONTARIO

Rita and Sylvia settled in with their muffins and lattes. Rita was curious as to what Sylvia had thought of the whole experience, while at the same time not wishing to be seen 'pushing religion' on to her. The two of them, they'd just settled in at a coffee shoppe after Sunday morning Mass.

Knowing that the question was going to come, Sylvia said after a sip, "I can see why you do it. Why you go. It gives some sort of stability. I mean, this is a fucked up world, I can see why someone would want to lean on that."

Rita cringed a little, she said, "I hope it isn't a crutch. That's not why I go, it's not why it's important to me."

Sylvia said, "man, this is awkward. I want to be respectful, I really do. It's meaningful to you, that's all that counts."

Rita laughed a bit then said, "and…"

Sylvia put down her coffee and said, "you know, I really don't need a 75-year-old virgin telling me, a middle-aged lesbian, how to live my life!"

Rita looked at Sylvia and said, "look, it's the 75-year-old priests who aren't virgins, they're the ones to watch!"

That was what Sylvia liked about Rita. She had few illusions. It had been Rita who had told Sylvia that Gilead, that it had not been about religion at all. Rita had said, 'all those years in the Waterford house, the only Bible verses we ever heard were the ones that The Commander had memorized, the ones that propped him up as the head of the house. That's not the religion I ever knew.'

At that Sylvia's phone rang, and she had developed a bad habit of frantically searching for it at the slightest sound. This time, Sylvia's compulsion was rewarded.

"Unknown caller."

Sylvia quickly engaged the call, the silence after her own, "hello" confirmed who it was on the other end.

Rita listened intently as Sylvia eventually said, "Em, I know it's you. I just need to know that you're okay."

The voice on the other end confirmed it, that she was okay.

Early in their relationship, at times like this Sylvia would just fill the air with her own verbosity, confusing Emily's silence with permission to speak. Sylvia now had learned the hard way to let Emily find her own way through the silence.

Finally, a perplexed Sylvia heard Emily say, "please don't come up to Barrie. We're already gone. Me and Lily left hours ago. We have a truck, and a narrow window to get back across the border. With our 50 packages. It's just coming up."

Sylvia silently gasped, "you're coming north in a truck?"

Emily said, "no, no, no, we've long since left. Left Barrie. We're just about to cross, cross back to Gilead, the whole place back there is now dismantled. We'll be in place in Gilead by morning."

Sylvia said through tears, "you know I love you, Em. Oliver, he misses you so much." The more personal the comments, Sylvia knew, the more silent the conversation would become. But Sylvia had to get those two things in, regardless.

Sylvia asked, "what's going on, Em?"

Emily said, "look, Lily needs the phone. It'll be something big. You'll hear about it. We've spent the last month preparing. There's 50 of us who've volunteered. If even 15 get through, we can bring Gilead to its knees."

Sylvia pleaded, "with what? What's going on?"

Emily closed with, "I just needed to say goodbye, Syl. Please remember how much I love you."

As the call disengaged, Sylvia yelled into the phone, "Em! Em!"

Rita put her hand up to Sylvia's, the one with the phone. Rita gently guided the hand to the table in front of her.

UPON RETURN FROM NEW BETHLEHEM

Nick could smell dinner as he walked into the house, hanging his coat neatly on its hook. He'd not yet been able to discern the difference between Rose's cooking and the martha's.

Turning into the kitchen he spied Rose at the stove top, stirring a pot. He walked up behind her and planted a kiss.

She responded, "I've just talked with Dad, Nick." Nick asked what they were talking about.

Rose said without looking up, "strangely, it was about Eleanor Lawrence. Joseph Lawrence's wife, the one who died."

Nick said, "Me, I wasn't around for that. I was in Chicago. It was a huge shock, for everyone."

"Yeah, that's what dad said." She continued stirring while Nick went to sit down at the table.

She said, "Dad claimed that her death played a role in the trafficking of those 86 kids, the one that your June conspired about. He said that even through all of that, that it had taken its toll on Eleanor, knowing who her husband was. Not the subversive stuff, she actually liked that side of him. It was knowing what her husband was capable of doing for Gilead, the really ugly stuff that he, himself devised. The worst of this country."

She turned off the heat to the pot, covered it, then turned to face him wiping her hands on her apron.

"Nick," she said, "do I have to worry about what you've become? For Gilead?"