WARNING: Spoilers for The Handmaid's Tale season 5, episode 7 below.In June's desire to kill Serena is a cornerstone of The Handmaid's Tale season 5, but that all changes in episode 7.
During Serena and June's road trip through No Man's Land, June helps Serena give birth to her baby. Naturally, becoming someone's impromptu midwife could certainly change a person's feelings about their patient. The sequence is punctuated by flashbacks to June and Serena's time in Gilead, specifically, when they are helping another handmaid give birth. June and Serena's glances during these flashbacks imply a warmth and understanding between the two that was not previously there. While June and Serena have a begrudging respect for each other, that only comes later, and to imply that there was some deeper relationship between the two goes against much of what The Handmaid's Tale has shown previously.
How & Why The Handmaid's Tale Season 5 Changes June & Serena's Relationship
The Handmaid's Tale season 5, episode 7 changes June and Serena's relationship in two fundamental ways, simultaneously altering their shared history and changing the trajectory of their future. The flashbacks paint a rosier picture of the past, one where Serena and June show that they have a deeper understanding of each other's positions in Gilead. While Serena has always understood June's position as a handmaid, it is this very knowledge that made her lash out at June in the first place. June's status reminded Serena of her own and showed her that, as a woman in Gilead, she was one wrong move away from a life of pain. This anger prompted the animosity between the two and while it's possible to add layers to their relationship, this kindness undermines much of what's known about Serena and June's early years together.
In The Handmaid's Tale's present-day timeline, it's Serena and her baby that seem to change June's perspective on her adversary. While in the barn, June insists Serena raises her baby herself before escorting her to the hospital and subsequently being devastated when Canadian immigration officials come to arrest Serena. The Handmaid's Tale has been so focused on June and Serena duking it out that this change is jarring, to say the least. It also alters their future, and it's easy to see June now defending Serena as she fights Canadian officials for custody of her child and her freedom.
The Handmaid's Tale Flashbacks Make Its June & Serena Changes Weirder
It's one thing to subvert expectations in the present-day timeline of The Handmaid's Tale, but the show's method of backing it up with flashbacks rewrites a crucial part of June and Serena's history. Before escaping from Gilead, June and Serena were primarily enemies and that continued when both arrived in Canada. The show trying to soften the damage Serena has done to June undermines the very real trauma she has been trying to process, something she put on full display when she testified against the Waterfords in The Handmaid's Tale season 4. It's possible for June's feelings toward Serena to change in the present without undermining how they got there, but The Handmaid's Tale's season 5 flashbacks do just that.
The Handmaid's Tale's June & Serena Change Is Massively Rushed (At Best)
The Handmaid's Tale season 5 spends 6 episodes building up June's desire to kill Serena (not to mention the four previous seasons that see her boiling with rage), just to undo that with one episode. Changes like that take time. While June was a handmaid in Gilead, it took at least two seasons before Serena and June found some modicum of understanding underneath their rage. Seeing June change her mind after one experience is a baffling choice, especially considering how stubborn she has been in the past. There is no denying that birth is a transformational experience and seeing Serena in this position has softened her somewhat to her former adversary, but for the show to undo years of character work in one episode feels disingenuous. Serena and June's war isn't over yet, but The Handmaid's Tale changed the landscape of the battlefield all too quickly.
New episodes of The Handmaid's Tale season 5 premiere Wednesdays on Hulu.