The Handmaid’s Tale Throws a Red Wedding of Its Own — Read Episode 8 Recap

Walder Frey could learn a thing or two from June Osborne.

Frey was the Game of Thrones villain who orchestrated that show’s infamous Red Wedding, a premeditated and highly violent attack on a large group of people that took place during a wedding reception. Effective? Yes — but so messy!

In Tuesday’s episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, June (and the resistance group Mayday) kicks off a similarly deadly and epic murder spree at a wedding. But all of the stabbing, bleeding and dying take place off-site, which is really so considerate of the venue’s cater waters and cleaning crew, no? It’s a very thoughtful mass murder, is all I’m saying.

Read on to find out how the chaos gets started in “Exodus.” And then make sure to check out what Yvonne Strahovksi had to say about the wedding and that scene in Wharton’s entryway.

THE WAR BEGINS | “They wanted us to look like we’d been dipped in blood, some fairytale figure in a red cloak,” June voiceovers as we watch econowomen dyeing and sewing new red robes for the handmaids. Moira and June then sew knives into the finished garments, which are then distributed among the women living at the Red Center. “They used our clothes to divide us, to dehumanize us. But tonight, those robes will be our weapons,” June continues. “Tonight we will use these robes to start a war.”

Then she and Moira get dressed and join the handmaids at the Red Center, gently touching the women’s hands in solidarity as they step into formation. “They put us in red, the color of blood, to mark us. They forgot that it’s also the color of rage,” she narrates. And then, with their faces covered and heads bowed, the ‘maids walk to the church and file into the pews for Serena’s wedding to High Commander Wharton.

MRS. SERENA WHARTON | The massive sanctuary eventually fills with the rest of the commanders, their wives and handmaids. Nick escorts Rose to her seat, then stands on the altar, where he’ll officiate. Wharton arrives next, and then it’s time for the bride’s big entrance. Serena wears a pale blue, longsleeved gown with butterflies adorning the train. It’s also got bedazzled bows down the front, which I’m sure reads as positively slutty in Gilead, but Serena’s so New Bethlehem now, I’m also sure she doesn’t care.

As Nick begins the ceremony, the handmaids who have blades sewn into their robes surreptitiously remove them and past them, hand to hand, down the pew. One woman accidentally drops her blade; the clattering draws the attention of the Guardian nearby, but the weapon is scooted under the bench, and no one sees anything. From the pulpit, Nick drones on about how fruitful his own marriage has been, and I know you’ve been a giant help in the past, sir, and I know it’s complicated, but YOU ARE DEAD TO ME.

The reception gets underway, and let’s just take a moment to appreciate how utterly BOTHERED by everything Naomi Putnam looks anytime the camera is on her. I love it so much. Anyway, Wharton and his new missus enter and take to the dance floor; while everyone’s attention is on the couple, the handmaids continue their work of making sure everyone wearing a white bonnet has her own personal death stick.

Serena takes a victory lap around the room, reassuring Lawrence that she’s still committed to their New Bethlehem goals — yeah, THAT’s why he looks so worried — before making sure to greet “my most important guests”: the handmaids. She asks them to gather; June and Moira quickly slip toward the rear of the crowd as the new Mrs. Wharton reassures them that she’s working on their behalf in New Bethlehem. She’s about to step away but decides she needs to sing them The Ballad of Serena and June, so she turns back to tell them about her own former handmaid. “I could’ve been kinder to her. To be honest, she could’ve been kinder to me,” she says as June fumes in the back. It only gets worse when Serena says she counts June as a “friend” and “I do believe that my former handmaid forgives me.”

Rita comes over, and Serena presses her also to speak about forgiveness and how she’s achieved it in her own life. Though Rita clearly wasn’t expecting this, it’s so rad to watch her turn the moment into a rallying point for the handmaids. “Well, you set a goal, and you work towards it,” she tells the women. “Keep your eyes on the prize, ladies.” Then she puts an end to wifey’s ridiculousness by calling her away to cut the cake.

TAKES THE CAKE | The dessert in question is a gorgeous, tiered, scarlet confection that is dosed with enough medicine to send everyone who eats it into a sleeping stupor in about two hours. The handmaids don’t touch their pieces, obviously, and they fold it into their napkins and leave it under their benches when Aunt Phoebe tells them it’s time to go. “I’ll meet you at the Red Center,” she says in a low voice to Moira and June. “Godspeed.”

Their plan is nearly thwarted by Aunt Lydia, who returns from DC and swings by to congratulate the happy couple. She gets a glimpse of June in the process; the older woman starts to chase her, but June eludes her. That doesn’t stop Lydia from going to Lawrence with her suspicions. “You’re losing it, lady,” he says, knowing full well that the bane of both of their existences is in the building. Then Aunt Phoebe joins in the gaslighting, and a befuddled Lydia is ushered away for some dinner.

THE HONEYMOON’S OVER | High Commander Wharton carries his bride into their home, and she’s giddy… until she sees a handmaid kneeling in the entryway. Commander Bell’s dad has sent her, “the most fertile handmaid in Gilead,” as a wedding gift. (Gross.) “But, I’m fertile,” a shocked Serena replies. “But you’re only one person, my love,” Wharton says.

Serena forbids having a handmaid in the house, but he maintains that Ofgabriel (again, gross) will help them achieve the big family they talked about. Serena tells the woman, whose real name is Christina, to “run and never come back.” But Wharton intercepts and wonders why the woman whose thoughts and opinions he’s said he admires is suddenly having thoughts and opinions about this.

“I was so stupid to do this again!” Serena says, crying. “I thought you were a better man, but you’re just like the rest of them!” He screams at her, then uses that soft and mean voice that he used on Nick a few episodes back. “I have bent to your liberal attitudes, but I will not turn my back on God,” he vows. “You think God wants this ABOMINATION OF A MARRIAGE?” Serena spits.

Just then, Noah starts crying; Serena grabs him, muttering, “We can’t stay here.” A Guardian blocks her exit, and Wharton forbids her to leave: “You are my wife now. Your place is in this house. You have nowhere to go.” She’s like, what are you going to do, cut off my finger or beat me with a belt? “I will survive it, and I will survive you,” she promises. He maintains he’s a good man and husband. “You can’t be,” she whispers. “You’re a commander.”  With hatred in his eyes, Wharton orders the Guardian to step aside. Serena and Noah exit via the front door, and she runs.

UNDER, ER, IN HIS EYE | Aunt Lydia sits, alone, eating her meal while the reception crew cleans up and notices that the area the handmaids were sitting in has a ton of uneaten cake chucked under the benches (which were skirted; the only reason she sees is because one napkin is sticking out from the end). So she hotfoots it back to the Red Center, where Aunt Phoebe is unsuccessful in stopping her from checking on the handmaids in their beds. Everything seems to be status quo in the dormitory… until Lydia rips the covers off one woman and finds her fully dressed.

Meanwhile, June and a handful of other women are out in Gilead, working to kill the commander who either didn’t have handmaids or whose handmaids were not at the wedding. As she promised, our girl takes on Commander Bell, creeping into his house and finding him asleep in the living room. He rouses when the phone next to him rings. It seems like he’s getting news of what’s going down, but he’s distracted when June audibly steps into the room. “June Osborne,” he says, voice full of contempt. “Nice to meet you,” she responds, then instantly slams her box cutter into his right eyeball. He’s dead moments later.

She sits, takes a swig of the drink he was enjoying, and breathes a minute before she hears footsteps behind her: It’s Janine, who starts crying as she thanks her friend.

THE UNDOING OF AUNT LYDIA | Back at the Red Center, Aunt Lydia is screaming at the handmaids, whom she has kneeling on the floor in the center of the room, a Guardian holding his gun on them. She singles out Aunt Phoebe, and it seems like she’s going to make an example of her, when Moira stands and tells her to stop. To add insult to Moira’s continued and horrifying Gileadian injury, Lydia doesn’t even know who she is. I do love that once Moira drops a couple of F-bombs, it’s Aunt Lydia’s clue that “you’re working with HER!” She threatens to shoot anyone who won’t tell her “WHERE IS JUNE OSBORRRRRRRRRRRNE?!” That’s when June quietly announces from behind her, “I’m right here.”

Lydia blames the rebellion on June, but June calmly states that “you did this” by mutilating and terrorizing the handmaids and taking their children away. “But I think that you’ve seen things you can’t unsee,” June says, approaching slowly, “and I think you’ve learned things that you can’t unlearn. And I know that in your heart of hearts, you know that rape is rape, and you know it wasn’t our fault, and that we don’t deserve this, and we’re not fallen women.”

The louder Lydia gets, the more hushed June gets. When Lydia storms that June shouldn’t presume to know what’s in God’s heart, she quietly urges Lydia to ask herself “if you think that God wants this for us.” June’s words are affecting Lydia, who grows tearful and trembling. “Or is there a God who would empower a woman like you to stand up for us, to arc toward the light and to finally declare ‘Enough?’”

It’s really all over when Janine walks in behind June. “If you really want to save us, let us go,” she says. Lydia, whose entire world is crumbling before her, has the Guardian lower his weapon. “I’m sorry he hurt you, dear,” she tells Janine, who hugs her. The other women scurry out as the Guardian looks on, stymied. June is the last to leave, sharing a significant look with Aunt Lydia before turning and walking out the door. Alone, Lydia slowly lowers to the floor and sobs as she implores God to help her.

“The dress became our uniform,” June voiceovers as the handmaids take to the streets, peeling off one by one as they pass their targets’ homes, “and we became an army.”