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I must be a glutton for punishment.
I wrapped up my SVU rewatch. I couldn’t stomach The Office again—too many awkward silences, not enough courtroom drama. So I went scrolling for something to stream in the background while I worked. Something gritty but not too distracting. Something I could “sort of” pay attention to… you know, emotionally destroy myself efficiently.
And then I saw a post on Bluesky mentioning The Handmaid’s Tale series finale.
Right. That show.
I had started The Handmaid’s Tale years ago. Made it through Season 3. Barely. My wife hated it—hated it. Said it was too much. Too bleak. Too real. Every time she walked into the room, she’d make a face like I had just kicked a puppy on screen. Eventually, I gave up. Life was already stressful. Why add dystopian dread to our evening routine?
But now? She’s not watching with me. And I’ve got some white noise-shaped trauma to fill while I edit blogs and answer emails.
So I did what any emotionally reckless person would do:
I erased my watch history and restarted from Season 1, Episode 1.
Big mistake. Huge.
Watching The Handmaid’s Tale right now—smack in the middle of Act 2 of the current American administration—hits different. Like, bone-deep, anxiety-inducing different. The flashbacks in Gilead that once felt cautionary now feel like someone’s holding up a mirror.
Suddenly, every line about “making the world safe again” feels uncomfortably familiar. Every robe, every ceremony, every refusal to call a woman by her actual name—it doesn’t feel like fiction anymore. It feels like a headline I forgot to click. A notification I swiped away.
I’m a Navy vet. I’ve been trained to push through things. I hate quitting. So even though this show makes my skin crawl and my stomach knot, I’ll finish it. I’ll sit with the discomfort because that’s part of the point.
And honestly, I finally understand what my wife was saying all those years ago: This show is brutal in ways that don’t let you breathe.
When The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood was asked if her book could be seen as an “instruction manual for oppression,” her answer was chilling:
“Yes.”
Not even “Maybe.” Not “I hope not.” Just—yes.
The speculative fiction novel she wrote in the 1980s wasn’t meant to be prophecy. But here we are, decades later, and it feels like she cracked open a window into our timeline. It predicted the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. It imagined a future shaped by collapsing fertility rates and manipulated morality.
And then it asked the question no one really wants to answer: What happens when the people in power decide they know what’s best for your body, your family, your name?
There’s nothing subtle about Gilead. But maybe that’s what makes it so effective. It’s not trying to hide the ugliness. It’s forcing you to look.
So yeah, maybe I am a glutton for punishment. But I’m also someone who needs to finish what he starts. And this time, I want to see The Handmaid’s Tale through to the end—not just for the story, but for what it says about our own.
I just might need a light-hearted sitcom afterward… and possibly a therapist.
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