The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Episode 6 Review: Surprise

Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 episode 6 “Surprise”. 

Holly was right. Mothers so often are. Earlier this season, June protested her mom’s characterisation of Nick as an untrustworthy Nazi monster, and guess what? Holly called it. Of all the people – Lawrence, Serena – in whom June was forced to place her dubious trust this episode, Nick was the one who betrayed her. 

Given the choice between striking a blow at the heart of Gilead or saving his own skin, Nick chose his skin. Like Winston Smith selling out Julia in 1984, the weight of that oppressive state caused him to splinter and break. Reeling from the murder of Toby and groomed by Wharton, who preyed on Nick’s daddy issues with all that “son” business, Commander Blaine capitulated. He sold out Mayday and derailed the plan on which everybody was either risking, or pinning, their lives. Now he’s lost the only good thing in his life. 

Plus all his teeth, if June holds true to form. The narrow confines of that hiding place give Nick nowhere to run from June’s boiling rage – that of a woman, let’s remember, who’s taken out more than one commander with her bare hands. If this were a fantasy show instead of a dystopia, it’s easy to imagine flaming laser beams shooting out of June’s livid eyes and leaving Blaine a pile of dust on Serena’s closet floor as the realisation of his guilt dawned. That explains Nick’s “let’s move to Paris” mania: he knew that he’d already lost June and, just like all the carbonara talk in that post-coital flashback, was fantasising in order to hold on to her for a moment longer. 

Long overdue, The Handmaid’s Tale has finally got around to coloring in Nick’s previously outline-only character, just in time for his and June’s love story to come to this abrupt end. (Even if she lets him out of that closet in one piece, she’ll never forgive or trust him now, and if Mayday find out, he’ll be right at the top of their next kill-list.) Thanks to his scenes with Wharton and that flashback, we now know who Nick is: a poor kid with a sad background, to whom Gilead delivered status, wealth, a father figure and a future. Knowing that, it’s no real surprise that he folded under Wharton’s pressure. Like Rita said, it’s not always as easy as June makes it look to choose the brave thing. 

Has Serena chosen the cowardly thing by accepting Wharton’s marriage proposal? June thinks so, and it was satisfying to see how much that opinion irked Serena. A woman entirely lacking in female friends, or indeed any friends, Serena genuinely appears to covet June’s approval and Rita’s affection – two things we know she’ll never have. She’s so lonely, and so determined to see her Gilead past through a rose tint, that she seems to block out the fact that the women for whom she’s pouring green smoothie at her breakfast table were formerly enslaved… by her. 

Remind you of anyone? Oatmeal raisin, Lydia, really? She’s lucky that Janine didn’t stick that treat basket where the sun doesn’t shine. That was a great, explosive scene for Madeline Brewer; less so for Ann Dowd, who seems stuck in one mode this season. Dowd’s range has been narrowed to Lydia loudly barking about her girls like a Golden Retriever worrying some chickens. We know that Lydia’s a zealot, but was she always this much of a fool? Janine may have done Dowd a favor by setting her that ‘bring Charlotte back’ challenge. With any luck, Lydia will get some more screentime, more scope, and return to Janine next time bearing more than cookies.

Speaking of idiots, Naomi continues to labour under the misapprehension that she’s in the cast of The Real Housewives of Gilead instead of The Handmaid’s Tale. Ever Carradine’s brief appearances this season fussing about Angela and the Lawrence home décor have been welcome comic relief. They’ve also served the more important purpose of revealing more of Lawrence’s complex character. His sweetness and regret play out through his scenes with little Angela, who’s a prop, essentially, and stops Lawrence from going full Shakespearean lead and rehearsing his doubts and justifications direct to the audience in monologue. Mostly though, the Lawrence household scenes are good for laughs. Joseph ushering Naomi out of the basement (“This is actually a beautiful space”) where he was storing two of Gilead’s most-wanted was a great addition that offered some light to this drama’s shade.

On the subject of which: is electricity metered in New Bethlehem, or is there a law there about never turning on the big light? Every scene takes place in barely-discernible murk – a metaphor for its moral gray areas maybe, but also a design system that enhances the mystery of a character like Wharton, who’s rarely seen not looming out of a pool of darkness.

Josh Charles’ character has proved a valuable addition to season six in that he’s one of this show’s few mysteries left to solve. Progressive or Chauvinist? Romantic or Love-bombing psychopath? With Nick this episode, Wharton revealed himself to be a master manipulator, simultaneously playing good cop and bad. He seems to know exactly what to say to get people to do what he wants, which means that Serena should beware. And to judge by Serena’s panicked justifications about marrying him to June, she knows it. Yvonne Strahovski continues to excel at playing the simultaneous layers of Serena’s vulnerability, doubt, hubristic pride and claws-out attack mode.

Which brings us back to June and Nick in that closet. His betrayal has just stopped June and Luke from getting one stop closer to Hannah, and potentially put every woman at the Penthouse in (even more) danger. He’s saved the life of the reprehensible Commander Bell and unwittingly stopped Lawrence’s progressive reforms in their tracks. Is there anything he can do to redeem himself, or is this endgame for Nick?

The Handmaid’s Tale season six streams on Tuesdays on Hulu in the US. Episodes will start on Channel 4 in the UK on Saturday May 3.

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