The Handmaid's Tale

With a different commander we have a new dynamic. We also got the Boomtown Rats singing I Don't Like Mondays, which was left-field. Much needed are these spots of light amid the darkness.

A furious and emboldened June embodies an entire resistance movement. She and her fearless fellow handmaids validate the rage of women who not only feel disenfranchised but targeted, and the characters fight back.

If not much sunnier, not as relentlessly grim as the second, while June is slowly, methodically, morphing into the Robo-June we know she must become. So far, so good.

Season 3 hits a series of familiar notes. ... When season 3 does venture into unfamiliar areas, it retreats quickly.

While the writers have successfully created an atmosphere of dread and uncertainty that echoes that of the show’s characters, the withholding of catharsis can be wearying. Like society itself, the series resists progress at its own peril.

The new season is more propulsive and watchable, although it doesn't quite reach the heights of that first moving season. But "Handmaid's" regains its footing by setting off on a new path.

Moss’ stalwart turn is more than enough to keep viewers’ rooted in June’s struggle. The set design, costumes, lighting, and more formal elements also burst with life, guiding the eye wherever it needs to be and providing a more active experience than the scripts would by themselves. Even with all these valuable attributes, “The Handmaid’s Tale” bites off more than it wants to chew.

Basically there’s still enough going on in The Handmaid’s Tale to keep it reasonably compelling, even though it’s harder to ignore the sound of the ticking clock that strongly suggests this narrative needs to turn harder in some new directions, and soon.

The six new episodes are littered with elements to admire and respect when you aren't bogged down in feeling like a show that once appeared to have a lot to say is no longer participating in the conversation on the same level.

[The third season] sustains many of the qualities that first made the show such a talker (and award winner), with memorable performances and a fascinating vision of government oppression and cruelty in the name of God. ...The bad news is that the first half of this season (six episodes were made available for this review) often lapses into the realm of the deadly dull, making long and redundant loops around its original premise and revisiting already established resentments and animosities between characters.

What’s strange about “Handmaid’s Tale” three seasons deep is that it keeps hammering home its greatest hits to the detriment of the possible new avenues it could explore. ... Bledel remains a standout as she portrays Emily’s hesitation and longing. ... Her story is the kind of intimate horror that “The Handmaid’s Tale” once excelled at homing in on, but in its determination to make June a #resistance figure, it keeps leaving its most potentially effective moments by the wayside.

Visually, The Handmaid’s Tale is as striking as ever, maintaining the chilling beauty of Gilead’s optics—the curated flecks of handmaid red on stark white snow and the strange symmetry of ceremonial events. Story-wise, though, it’s blotchy as hell.