A lot happens in The Handmaid’s Tale this week. Like, a lot. An undercover mission gone wrong, an attempted rape, a murder, a deadly plot exposed, and two main characters shoved into the boot of a Commander’s car? As a result I now have nail marks permanently etched into my face from clutching it in horror.

I knew from the get-go that Moira (Samira Wiley) and June (Elisabeth Moss) would have problems with their plan to break into Jezebel’s, suss out the layout, warn the women, and then bomb the hell out of it and come out unscathed. This is Gilead, after all. No woman is safe, just as no man can be trusted. And so it makes sense that, while this episode shares its name with Madeline Brewer’s beloved character, it shines a light on those who would never allow the word ‘Janine’ to fall from their lips.

First up, we have Commander Bell, who somehow wins the award for worst person in Gilead – no small feat when you consider how many are vying for the title. Played with icy sadism by Veep’s Timothy Simons, Bell is a frequent visitor to Jezebel’s – and, unfortunately for Janine, he’s become horribly infatuated with the former Handmaid. Possessive. Obsessive, in fact, lashing out at her with such venom and cruelty that it takes your breath away. There’s no subtlety to his misogyny. He doesn’t hide behind soft words or reformist language. He doesn’t pretend. He’s the kind of man who doesn’t care who’s watching as he breaks a woman down and treats her like an animal.

Credit: Disney

Together, these men form a kind of ‘nice guy’ axis, using charm, paternalism, Beauty And The Beast-style gifted libraries and strategic softness to mask the same fundamental belief as Bell: that women are subordinate. Their treatment may be gentler, but the effect is the same – compliance, control and preservation of power.

Wharton takes on the ‘father of daughters’ mantle, using his role as a parent to justify his complicity in a misogynistic system. He’s the kind of man who exists everywhere: in offices, governments and homes. One of those men who say they love and respect women because they have daughters, not because they see women as full, autonomous people. It’s a protective instinct, not a liberatory one. His paternalism is a leash. And I suspect that the flowers, the aforementioned library and the promise that he’ll do the cooking all mean that his beautiful – albeit incredibly sudden – marriage proposal to Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) will not necessarily prove to be the fairytale romance she believes it to be, even if he is claiming he wants to teach young girls to read.

On the other hand, we have Wharton’s son-in-law, Nick. Ever stoic and emotionally muted (even with those expressive eyebrows), the former Eye is often positioned as June’s moral counterpoint: her lover, her co-conspirator. But Nick only acts when June is in danger – and even then, he’s selective. His resistance is born of love, not principle. And when love becomes the only motivator, it narrows the scope of his humanity. He doesn’t fight for justice: he fights for her. His decision to murder the hospitalised Guardian in cold blood feels indicative of his natural instinct to prioritise self-preservation at the expense of others. Foreshadowing, perhaps?

Credit: Disney

Lawrence, of course, is the most complicated of the trio. He’s the twinkly-eyed man who loved his wife, who quotes The Book of Mormon when asked to parrot meaningless scripture, and who’s stepped in to save the likes of June and the painfully absent Emily (Alexis Bledel) in the past. He helped build Gilead, only to recoil at the nightmare he created. Now, he wants to rebrand the regime with New Bethlehem – a ‘kinder’ colony where women are still evaluated by their fertility, but perhaps with more sunlight and less overt cruelty.

It’s an illusion of change. A system softened, not dismantled. A prison with prettier walls. Plus, it’s important to remember that Lawrence has proven all too happy to work with the other (more monstrous) Commanders up until now. He’s attended Jezebel’s. He pretended to rape Janine behind closed doors to save face. He’s raising a child that’s been forcibly taken from her true mother. It’s only now that he knows his peers are plotting to a) tear down New Bethlehem once they get their refugees back, and b) execute Lawrence as a traitor and display his body on The Wall that he may suck it up and prove more helpful to June and her fellow rebels. May.

Credit: Disney

Of course, these three men look like absolute princes alongside Bell, in spite of their shortcomings, but they aren’t better than him; they’re just more socially palatable. Gilead (and, sadly, our own reality) needs men like Bell to draw attention away from the subtler tyrants who ensure the regime continues to function smoothly. As Promising Young Woman made all too clear with its cinematic debut in 2020, so-called ‘nice guys’ can be the most dangerous because they offer plausible deniability. They keep the machine running while claiming they’re trying to stop it.

Gilead, remember, is built on ownership: of bodies, of roles, of lives. The episode’s darkest scene underlines this: when June and Moira dress as Marthas, a Guardian seizes the moment to lock a door and attempt to rape them both at gunpoint. In this world, being perceived as lower-status women makes them open targets. It’s not about who they are, it’s about what their clothes signal they’re worth. Gilead dehumanises by design, and men are taught to recognise and exploit those signals instantly. What would happen if an infertile woman – and an invisible one destined for manual labour at that – were to be assaulted under these conditions? Who would she tell? Who would believe her? Who would care? And who would wonder loudly if she were ‘asking for it’ because of the way she behaved in the presence of a man? Thank goodness June and Moira are able to work together (a poignant message for everyone watching, perhaps?), and not just overpower him, but murder him and tumble his body into an incinerator. That’s one way to get rid of the evidence.

Credit: Disney

Amid all this nightmarish food for thought, the episode finds its emotional core in its women. Janine – ever radiant, ever tender, ever hopeful – emerges as a bright thread. Her love for the women around her has never been more profound or more necessary. She refuses to leave Jezebel’s without her girls, even if it means risking her own safety; she puts her trust in June and Moira without hesitation (an error, it seems, as the precious letters she entrusts to them soon wind up locked in a safe they cannot access). Still, in a society built to isolate and pit women against one another, Janine builds sisterhood. Her power lies not in rebellion or rhetoric, but in deep, sustaining care. And that’s revolutionary.

While we’re on the subject of all things revolutionary, let’s not forget the quietly devastating exchange between June and Moira, which finally acknowledges that no matter how close they are, they can never fully understand each other’s trauma. June’s time as a Handmaid is a particular kind of wound. Moira’s experience as a Jezebel – particularly as a Black lesbian – is absolutely another. These are different modes of suffering, both forged by the same misogynistic system, and the show wisely lets them sit in that space of loving incomprehension. “If we start comparing our suffering then those fuckers have won,” Moira points out. Better, it’s implied, is to unite against a common enemy.

Finally, there’s Luke (OT Fagbenle), who, unlike the Commanders, has no institutional power whatsoever, but decides to risk everything to strike a blow against Gilead. Yes, his nerves betray him. Yes, he fumbles and stammers his way through his carefully rehearsed lines. Yes, he winds up getting punched in the face and separated from his wife all over again. But unlike the others, his failure isn’t rooted in self-preservation – it’s in desperation. It’s the second time he has stepped from the sidelines of June’s war and tried, however clumsily, to become part of it. Another father of daughters? Maybe, but this is one who puts his money where his mouth is. Who acts rather than simply pays lip service to the feminist ideals he claims to support

All of this circles back to the central question: who gets to call themselves a good man in a world like Gilead? What does ‘good’ even mean when the entire system is rotten? Maybe it’s time to stop grading men on a curve. Maybe the presence of kindness doesn’t cancel out the weight of complicity. And maybe it’s time to remember that soft power can uphold violent systems just as effectively as brute force. Because when women are fighting for their right to exist fully (as so many are in the real dystopian world we’re living in right now), the difference between ‘not as bad’ and ‘actually good’ is nothing more than semantics.

True feminist allies – those who are willing to risk it all to stand alongside us and stand up for what’s right – are the true key to our survival.

Until next week, then. Blessed be the fruit.