This article contains spoilers For the first three episodes of season 6 of “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
The third episode of season 6 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is called “devotion”, and we have seen how devotion to religion can become toxic when Gilead forces women to sexual slavery. But some of the most faithful characters are starting to question their own devotion or the devotion of others. In the previous episode, “Exile”, Commander Lawrence barely joins dinner prayers. Serena later asks that he kneels and says hers. He repeats the same prayer of Serena from another night, making her question what pushes him to create a new Bethlehem if it is not God. He replies that it is God or not, he cannot prove or refute it. “And as they wrote in the musical of the” Mormon’s book “, that’s a bit of what God was going, right?” He is drying sharply. It is always shocking when there is a popular cultural reference in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, reminding us that their version of America was ours before it turns into a totalitarian nightmare.
Advertisement
The line “Book of Mormon” comes from the optimistic yellow “The entirely American prophet” where Elder Price, a devoted Morte missionary, describes his beliefs. Mormons consider America in the 1800s as biblical times, and when Joseph Smith discovers golden plates, God asks him to simply copy them to ordinary paper. While Joseph approaches his death, he dramatically asks God why he lets him die without showing people the plates. “They will have no evidence that I was telling the truth or not,” he sings. This idea of his disciples needs to have faith and to believe without seeing is “a kind of what God will do”. The religious satire of the creators of “South Park”, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, says a lot about what is currently happening with the characters of this show as the adhesion by vice that Gilead slowly loses part of its strength.
Advertisement
Commander Lawrence also makes fun of religious extremists
Commander Lawrence would love “Mormon’s book” because he has always been distant from religion. He often makes sterile remarks in his deep and laconic voice on the officials of Gilead, calling them “religious nuts”. In “Dear Offed”, he educated Lydia with the real objective of the servants: they must remain “accessible” so that the commanders “do what they want and remove their rocks. They are pious men; they need a little fold”. In “Pigs”, he observes alive, “Gilead does not care about children. Gilead cares about power. Fiders, old values, homemade bread-it’s just the means until the end. It is a distraction and a window.” It is perfectly aware of how religion can be twisted in extremism to control, manipulate and change the minds of others. This is how he can exploit believers for his own personal gain.
Advertisement
Trey Parker and Matt Stone laugh at the oppressive rules of Mormonism as Commander Lawrence does with the Christian fundamentalists of Gilead. He would clearly get a kick of the way Mormons would type in their trauma (such as repressed homosexuality or the death of a sister) in “Town it off”. In “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”, the dancers disguised as giant coffee cups are manifestations of the anxieties of Elder Price about sin. To sneak a donut as a child is equivalent to Hitler and sends you directly to hell to burn for eternity. The exaggerated sun of the Mormons when he threw racist and fantastic beliefs, such as acceptance only of blacks in 1978 and the idea of having your own planet in the beyond, would devote the commander Cynique Lawrence. The serious but biting humor of musical corresponds perfectly to the spirit and the natural role of actor Bradley Whitford as a non-crushing.
Advertisement
Handmaid’s story characters wake up to Gilead’s brutal realities
In “The Book of Mormon”, the largest price for the greatest eyes is filled with religious doubt after seeing the disease, poverty and famine with which the Ugandan are confronted. In his opinion, they have no faith because, essentially, God said “you there”. It is only when he sees brother Cunningham connecting to them through his humorous and empathetic sermon – with imaginative biblical facts of “Star Wars” and “The Lord of the Rings” sprinkled – that the older price begins to understand that faith should come from a real place of well -being for others, rather than asserting them according to strict commandments or a fear of going to hell.
Advertisement
We are starting to see the Inklings of similar epiphanies with Aunt Lydia in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, when she discovers that the Janine who has been suffering for a long time is a Jezebel. Ann Dowd, who obtains her own spin-off, generally gives a ruthless but which is now heartbreaking, her mouth trembling with despair. She demands that Commander Lawrence explains why the servants, who should be revered for their “sacred service” to bear fruit (and that she has devoted countless times to rigid training) are so badly treated. She is starting to see that Gilead’s puppeters do not really care about children, or the service provided by servants. Serena also seems to vacillate on a similar awakening. She remembers discussions with her father about her budding book career, and seems bitter that her knowledge and public skills were torn from her as a silent and obedient woman.
Advertisement
This small reference to the provocative and hilarious musical “The Book of Mormon” could refer to the great ideas of this last season: the questioning of faith and the progressive dismantling of power structures, all leading to the possible reversal of Gilead.
The new episodes of season 6 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” hit Hulu on Tuesday.
