The Handmaid's Tale

:

Season 4
  • Network: HULU
  • Series Premiere Date: Apr 26, 2017
Season #: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Metascore
62

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 18
  3. Negative: 1 out of 18
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Critic Reviews

  1. i
    Reviewed by: Rachael Sigee
    Dec 3, 2021
    60
    We already know that life for women in Gilead is abhorrent, and it feels like the more interesting story now lies outside the bounds of this hellhole.
  2. The Times
    Reviewed by: Carol Midgley
    Aug 16, 2021
    60
    Isn't it nice to see the women giving the men their own medicine? Blessed day. And quite telling when murder and castration come as sunny relief.
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Kristen Baldwin
    Apr 23, 2021
    58
    New things, things we've waited for, start to happen in episode 6. A few of these moments are genuinely cathartic and moving, but others feel underplayed and dulled by such a long delay.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Daniel Fienberg
    Apr 27, 2021
    50
    The Handmaid's Tale is solidly entrenched in the things it does well — with Elisabeth Moss' performance as an unimpeachable centerpiece — and most frustrating in its bleak and repetitive rhythms.
  6. Salon
    Reviewed by: Melanie McFarland
    Apr 29, 2021
    40
    While the fourth season moves toward breaking that old catch and release merry-go-round, it doesn't sufficiently persuade us to wholly invest in any hints at evolving beyond it. June despises Gilead and hates it more each time she's forced to go back, but without providing a vision as to where the story's headed the best we can muster in reaction to her plight is a yawn.
  7. Primetimer
    Reviewed by: Aaron Barnhart
    Apr 27, 2021
    40
    If you don’t mind continuing to churn through a storyline that effectively adds up to one step forward and one, perhaps one-and-a-half, steps backward … then yes, watch Season 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale.
  8. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Matthew Gilbert
    Apr 27, 2021
    40
    The show has become another one of TV’s never-ending stories, another “Homeland,” where seasons are crammed with action-adventure filler, as June runs from one safe house to another, always escaping from seemingly inescapable situations. ... By the time I reached the third episode of the new season, I remembered all the criticisms of the show’s excessive violence, and I had to concede. The show seems to fetishize June’s punishments.

Awards & Rankings

40
#40 Most Discussed TV Season of 2021

User Reviews

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User Score
5.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 38 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 38
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 38
  3. Negative: 11 out of 38
  1. dangyosabyss
    Apr 28, 2021
    1
    For a case study in how modern TV writing ruins great works of literature take The Handmaid's Tale. Utterly perverting the meaning of the bookFor a case study in how modern TV writing ruins great works of literature take The Handmaid's Tale. Utterly perverting the meaning of the book and turning an iconic character into yet another reddit superhero revolutionary. That Atwood was consulted on the show is surprising given how it turned out (though given The Testaments comic book stupidity perhaps it isnt). This is how you ruin a truly great book by a truly great writer. The usual checklist of idiocy is here : tokenism, extremist politics, 'its not x-ism when we do it' etc. It couldve been iconic. It should have been iconic. It wasnt. Add it to the pile of great content HBO has massacred with its stupidity.… Full Review »
  2. majednazal
    Apr 30, 2021
    10
    Still as beautiful, as suspenseful and as tragic as it has always been, amazing first 3 episodes. I can't wait for what's to come
  3. shag00
    Feb 23, 2022
    4
    Seems the show has lost it's way. The original story has been, to a significant extent, sidelined in favour of contemporary social issuesSeems the show has lost it's way. The original story has been, to a significant extent, sidelined in favour of contemporary social issues which I imagine most of us don't really care about all that much. Lazy script writing has made an entrance as well with many instances of inappropriate dialogue, meaning things are said which just aren't in the real world.

    Let's take the Gilead language of bless this, that and the other thing. The people you escaped to Canada are still using it. These people lived in contemporary America until two or three years ago so getting back to a normal world, one would imagine, would prompt these people to speak the way they have for the vast majority of their lives.

    The special effects are not that special either. In one scene a group of girls is running across a railroad track and are hit by a train despite the fact they are 10 feet away from the railroad. Then what's left stows away aboard a train in a liquid railroad car. And what a railroad car it is, first off they find one whose contents are not hazardous and is only two thirds full, good luck indeed. The real killer though is that this rail car is internally lit, no doubt to make it easier for the bacteria to meet up and then during the day the above mentioned lights transform into little windows so the sun streams in, the only thing lacking was a bed. I won't go into how they drained this car or how they got out but it's imaginative as well.

    So what starts out as an interesting story soon turns into a very much, a "meh" TV show.    … Full Review »
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