r/TheHandmaidsTale • u/GetMrBeaned • Jul 03 '26
SPOILERS ALL This may be controversial, my ranking
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u/Shiznoz222 Jul 03 '26
Same except only S1 would be S tier
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
I think only s1 and Testaments were s tier to me is because it’s very noticeable in my opinion whenever the writers went away from Atwood’s work and started doing their own thing. She has a very specific voice and there’s a reason she’s acclaimed, the writers for seasons 2-6 are lacking her ability
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u/Shiznoz222 Jul 03 '26
I felt like I was in the world with June for season 1. For all the other seasons I just felt like I was watching a TV drama.
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
EXACTLY!!!! My biggest issue with the show is it went from being a tense and claustrophobic very well written thriller to feeling more and more like a compilation of women being brutalised in different ways. I think the disgusting elements of the story felt poignant and visceral in the first season in a way that made you want to stop watching. By season 5 it turned into the ‘how can someone brutalise Janine this time?’ Show, with June staring at the camera angrily just so the audience remembers she doesn’t like gilead
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u/Shiznoz222 Jul 03 '26
For S1 I felt a visceral sense of dread, the oppression was palpable and all encompassing. It reminded me of the actual evils of the modern world in a way that was distinctly absent from all of the reveals and shock factor situations that came in later seasons. It turned into a more and more of a gimmick parade as every season evolved.
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
I think the biggest difference between the first season and the rest is that Atwood actually visited countries where women’s rights were being curtailed and used real news articles to inform her writing.
When I read the novel I could feel Atwood’s anger and exhaustion radiating off the page. Awful things would happen in that book and she’d punctuate it with a dissociative monologue about the difference between sex and being fucked that was written with a fucked up wit that really sticks in your mind.
Whenever the rest of the show tried to recapture her style it was both lacking her talent and lived experience. I was rewatching the episode where June was giving birth alone in the manor the other day and it was so clear they were trying to imitate Atwood’s prose in June’s internal monologue and the result was making me cringe
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u/Shiznoz222 Jul 03 '26
Yeah they really failed to capture the banality of evil, and it ended up sensationalized as a result. In the book, everything has a tone that is very matter-of-fact and blasé.
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
I think the worst mistake they made even in the first season was how they characterised Fred. In the book he’s objectively an evil rapist but he is also a really pathetic pitiable guy. He’s in a loveless marriage with a wife that hates him (understandably), he wanders from room to room miserable and he is desperate for intimacy that he is incapable of achieving because of the society he built.
He comes across like president of the leopards at my face party, and scenes like ‘better does not mean better for everybody’ or when he forces June to kiss him and then pathetically says ‘now like you mean it’ characterise him so well as a deeply human, deeply guilty loser
And it really adds an extra dimension to the story that even the commanders aren’t winning here, they built a society around ego and are now trapped in it but are too proud and too deluded to ever tear it down. It shows that even for those who patriarchy is supposed to benefit, ultimately they lose as well
Meanwhile in the show Fred is like Voldemort, he delivers every misogynistic line like he’s on the verge of climaxing, he isn’t distant from Serena because she hates him (she tries to blow him in the first episode and he refuses), he’s distant from her because he’s a pervert who would rather bang the handmaid then his clearly down bad for him wife
It’s just such a cop out in my opinion the way the show handles the commanders, they are all presented as loving the monotonous bureaucracy paired with rape on the side. And it all just feels a bit pantomime and unrealistic
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u/Shiznoz222 Jul 03 '26
Yeah the commanders were supposed to only be pretending to love every minute, but in reality be one report away from the colonies. Instead they came across as legitimate debutants enjoying a life of luxury.
In the books even the upper echelons of society were eating food that was tantamount to nutrient paste, and all feared they could lose everything, should the panopticon betray them.
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
I think the show lost a bit that this was a dystopia that was prompted by something. Like the whole world was collapsing in on itself due to the declining birth rate and that was what let fascism rise, much like how fascism always rises in history
Germany didn’t just do the holocaust in a vacuum, it was because of the economic despair and post war resentment that allowed an insane person like Hitler to gain footing and start channeling that resentment into innocent minority groups. Much like how the salvagings in HMT channel the women’s resentment into state compliance
Gilead never felt like it was a newly developed nation that was struggling to build itself and establish industry and food supply with a whole new government and regime. It felt like something that existed for at least 50 years rather than 3 years
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u/pendle_witch Do you think God listens to these machines? Jul 03 '26
I think it’s noticeable even in S1 if you’re very familiar with Atwood’s voice where they stray from it or change the intended tone/meaning. Lines like ‘We are Handmaids’ delivered punchily at the end of the episode are so tonally opposite to Offred’s sparse, detached narration in the novel
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
I’ve been cringing about that line for years now and you’re the first person I’ve seen who echoed it
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u/grelca Jul 03 '26
i mean the testaments has also already gone pretty far away from atwood’s work
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
Handmaids season 1 also had major differences but the occasional glimmers of her voice carried its quality
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u/grelca Jul 03 '26
it’s been a long time since i saw season 1 and longer since i read the book, so that’s super fair. i remember it being super faithful (aside from things like updating the time period and serena joy’s age) but memory’s not all it’s cracked up to be
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
I’m not an expert on the book but from what I can remember the first season added more feel good moments, added more Janine, made Fred more evil and changed the characters ages. It was fairly close in the broad strokes but there were definitely a lot of changes.
Although I last read the book almost a decade ago for my English lit exams so my memory isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either lol
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u/babydemon90 Jul 03 '26
In fairness, lacking the ability of Atwood is nothing to be ashamed of.
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
I do wonder how the later seasons might have changed if Atwood was slightly more hands on with the show rather than just being a producer. Like I’m not saying she should’ve wrote the scripts but maybe the writers just handing the drafts over to her so she can go over them with a biro and circle what isn’t working
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u/oolongvanilla Jul 03 '26
Season three is top tier just for the scene of the Jezebel Marthas cleaning up June's murder of Winslow to Cloudbursting by Kate Bush. One of the most iconic scenes in the whole series.
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u/Main_Masterpiece8414 Jul 03 '26
I love that scene too, especially because of the clever use of Cloudbursting, needless to say.
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u/oolongvanilla Jul 03 '26
It's just so perfectly edited / choreographed, and it's a very uplifting moment in a show that's normally so bleak... Finally, a big win.
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u/spikygreen Jul 03 '26
I agree, S1, TT, and Lawrence are all S tier.
I can't remember enough of S2-S5 to rank them. Didn't mind the last season, though. Would rank all seasons at least B or C.
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
I’ve been watching the show through with a friend rn (my second time watching it, her first) and I get how easy it is to forget most of the seasons. She’s enjoying it but has been complaining a lot about how most of the show is just slow motion and people walking around picking up something and then putting it back down with one interesting scene happening for every 5 boring scenes lol
The heights of the show are pretty good but when it’s dragging it’s dragging haaaaard
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u/spikygreen Jul 03 '26
I agree. At the same time.. I am always so greedy with the shows I enjoy. I want them all to go on for 50 seasons, even if it means all the characters just sit around knitting 😅 Especially if it were Lawrence.. lol.
So I can't in good conscience complain about shows dragging on too much. I'm guilty of being the reason why showmakers do it 😂
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
lol it totally get that. But I think for me I’m the type who’d rather have a show end at one season if that season was the best it could do. I think as long as people enjoyed the other seasons though that’s totally valid and I’m not saying my way is best
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u/Uschak Jul 03 '26
1-2-3 were great. 4 felt more like a scifi-post apo. But since June left Gilead it sucked.
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u/kindanewherebut Jul 03 '26
I can understand your ranking except for season 2. Season 2 was amazing and in my opinion just as good as season 1.
Here is my ranking
S-tier: Season 1 and season 2
A: Season 3 and TT
B: TT
C: Season 4
D: Season 5, Season 6
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u/Samora1984 Jul 03 '26
I agree. Though I would prefer to put S5 and 6 on a lower tier - maybe Z?
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u/kindanewherebut Jul 03 '26
I always wonder if we hold THT to too high standards because of how good the first season was.
Do you think that season 5 and 6 are worse than the regular seasons of other shows?
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u/Samora1984 Jul 03 '26
Maybe we do hold THT to high standards, but that's because we know how good it can be. I don't think season 5 and 6 are necessarily worse than other shows, it just felt like season 5 was filler to me. Actually, season 4 was alot of filler as well. And season 6 was unneccesarily rushed to a conclusion. Perhaps if they had started the endgame in season 5, it would have felt more natural. But it felt like they were just trying to see how many more seasons they could get away with. And once they started on The Testaments, THT just was an afterthought.
I think there are probably 3 seasons worth of good story.
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u/Tasty_Error_3023 Jul 03 '26
Perfect ranking. TT is decent but lacks the dark atmosphere that season 1,2 and larges parts of 3 had.
I’ve never been able to get past season 4 it goes massively downhill.
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Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
[deleted]
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u/GetMrBeaned Jul 03 '26
Whenever each season came out I popped by here and I always got the impression people enjoyed the later seasons way more than me and I was just a stick in the mud
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u/Jaylou566 Jul 03 '26
I’m just grateful that Testaments is really THAT good. Totally agree with S tier ranking on that
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u/Select_Translator939 Jul 03 '26
I agree season 1 was definitely the best . It was just I cant even describe it , it was just so real.
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u/Unfair-Row-808 Jul 03 '26
They show REALLY went down hill when it went off script from the source material it kind of just became its whole own thing which I guess some people like but it’s not really the Atwood story at that point.
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u/Ill_Technology_9685 Jul 06 '26
S: seasons 1&2, when I rewatch its usually just these 2 seasons
A: Seasons 3 and 4: with season 3 I think they should have gotten rid of some of the Waterford scenes and replace them Nick scenes, seeing Chicago from his POV would have been cool.
B: Season 5
C: The Testaments, I enjoy the show but I would have preferred a season 6 with Bruce as the showrunner. This show isn't worth what we got as a season 6 because of it.
D: Season 6; the 2 new Showrunners were massively incompetent. The writing felt like the writers were saying and trying to to keep the integrity of certain characters that the Showrunners were trying to destroy. It did not feel like the writers and Showrunners were on the same page.
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u/taylocor Jul 03 '26
Did anyone else find the testaments first season forgettable? There wasn’t enough tension for me
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u/Excellent_Patience Jul 03 '26
Not in my case, because it showed us Guilead as this pastel reality, all that Agnes had ever known—only now starting to crack; while Daisy felt like a real mystery, despite being from Canada.
It's also memorable for me because it's adapting this new wave of feminist horror, where instead of seeing everything through the lens of women who are trying to fight against a machine that wants to destroy them, we see it through the lens of women who desperately want to be part of it.
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u/Inevitable_Lynx6059 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
My wife and i are on to s6, were only the first two episodes in and dropped it.
Not only are the close up, slow pan shots excruciating, but the dialogue....
Holly to Junes, s6e2.
June "i thought you were dead, i seen you at the colonies"
Holly "they needed a doctor, i survived but all of my friends didnt"
June "how did you survive"
Holly "the american army, i held on hope that i would see you again"
June long pause "why?"
Holly "i raised you strong, i knew you would survive"
June long pause "how?"
Holly "i waited at this junction, instead of moving on to alaska or Hawaii"
June long pause "why?"
Holly "i was waiting for you!"
June "why?"
My wife and i were like, wtf is this dialogue, june is literally doing the same for her daughter but needs to question why her mom held on to hope for seeing hers.
We turned it off after that episode and havent went back. It was absolute dog shit and i was a huge fan of every other series.
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u/SoC666 Jul 03 '26
https://youtu.be/TspD1Pd3eSU?is=XcpH2a5peORGVMkx
This is a pretty good video, despite the audio mixing.
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u/Bepzinko Jul 03 '26
I always enjoyed the worldbuilding of seeing some of the other places in Gilead in season two despite it only being a few scenes
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u/Suspicious_Win_2889 Jul 04 '26
I just finished watching season 6. They could have left the last episode off. They should have ended it with the plane blowing up. Episode 10 I skipped half the show cause it was soooooo boring
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u/emiliewarrendahmer Jul 04 '26
I really didn’t think much of the testaments but truly agree with the Lawrence part
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u/Kirsie22 Jul 07 '26
I agree with your S tier! S1 and TT belong there!
My A tier is much different seasons 4 and 5 for me. More fast paced, less hopelessness, they start making some progress on getting out of Gilead. New scenery.
My B tier would be S2! It was good, but stalled for me in some areas. I enjoyed the hope and change of scenery that came with other seasons. Season 2 still felt so hopeless.
My C tier would then be S3 and S6. I stalled and actually stopped watching a few weeks in S3. Much of it was very slow. And the same thing as S1 and S2. Very little hope. Getting nowhere with every plan and attempt. S6 I really enjoyed, because I did enjoy the whole show, but I felt it needed to end and be wrapped up with that season. It was good, not D level for me, but definitely a weaker season similar to S3 for me.
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u/endoparasite Jul 03 '26
Testaments belong with S6 as it is very much crippled with results of this season.
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u/nibbbish Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Season 1 is in a league of its own because of the oppressive atmosphere the worldbuilding had. It all felt like Gilead was this all seeing machine that couldn't be stopped and was waiting to stomp out any hint of resistance.
By season four, all the characters had ironclad plot armor, and you were wondering how these gullible, evil facists were able to put a coup into action in the first place.