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The following article contains discussion of themes including sexual assault that some readers may find upsetting.
The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 episode 4 spoilers follow.
The horrors of Gilead are intrinsically linked to sex. There’s no way around it. And that’s because this fascist state was first founded on the belief that low birth rates could be improved through ceremonies that justified rape as a religious and sacred act.
That underlying horror and hypocrisy is in many ways the backbone of The Handmaid’s Tale, although it wasn’t until the end of season two that we vividly experienced this firsthand through June’s eyes.
A lot of fans were put off the show completely by this Ceremony sequence, and Ralph Fiennes has since admitted that he refused to film another rape scene involving Fred Waterford and his wife, Serena, for that same season.
So when Moira turns around in season five and says to June, “We all left [Gilead] f**ked up about sex,” we know exactly what she means.
And to the credit of this show, Gilead’s tortures still remain with these refugees even now they’ve escaped its borders. Freedom could never instantly fix the damage that was done to June and Moira, so since their escape, this struggle with trauma has played a key role in the show’s evolution throughout seasons four and five.
That became particularly evident in the season-four episode titled ‘Home’ where June and Luke had sex for the first time since they had finally been reunited. It was uncomfortable to say the least.
Back then, there was still a general disconnect for June who was freshly traumatised by her escape, and this understandably created a huge gulf between her and Luke. How could he fully understand everything she had endured throughout the years they had been separated?
But then, after June verbally assaulted Serena in the night, she returned home and started to kiss Luke while he was still asleep. He was pretty taken aback by it all upon waking, but when he did realise what was going on, Luke reached out to touch June as his equal. Her response? She pulled his hand off and pinned it down as she mounted him.
And when Luke asked June to “wait a minute,” his cries went unheard. They’re married, but consent should matter still, always. It was pretty clear that Luke didn’t want to go through with the sex, not like that. But June ignored him, and even clamped her hand around his mouth as she rode him.
June, who was still high off the abuse she gave Serena, dominated Luke with an ecstatic smile on her face as she climaxed. As someone who had been sexually assaulted and held prisoner all these years, the control she claimed in that moment empowered June, finally giving her back a semblance of the autonomy she’d lost for so long.
Luke clearly did not feel the same way though. His disorientation sapped the moment of its sexual power, and that’s because this wasn’t loving sex. It was non-consensual, and therefore deeply toxic.
Frustratingly, the episode ended with Luke just staring at June with an enigmatic look that was hard to read, and then beyond that, season four didn’t really address the ramifications of this disturbing reunion.
In fact, it’s not until season five that June and Luke’s sex life truly evolves, which is curious given the integral role sex has played on The Handmaid’s Tale up to this point.
Episode four of the latest season, ‘Dear Offred’, is similar to the previous episode in that June is energised by her hate for Serena again. But this time around, June didn’t act on it, choosing instead to let Serena live when she had a chance to actually kill Mrs Waterford outside of the Gilead centre.
Back at home, June tells Luke that she can’t promise she won’t kill Serena next time she has the opportunity to do so. Luke’s okay with that though, and in fact, he’s pretty keen to murder his wife’s oppressor too.
And with that, the pair get it on, aroused by the thrill of what they might do. The sex is far more passionate than anything we’ve seen from them before, and in some ways, this marks a really healthy step forward for the pair. Finally, they’re connecting, which has not been easy given June’s disconnect and all of the struggles they faced separately.
But now, knowing that Luke is on her level when it comes to revenge, June gives in, and the pair become equals once more. They even fetishise each other’s scars, which is sort of hot in a dangerous kind of way, but also points to a problem with all this too.
June is quite literally turned on by the idea of her husband murdering someone, and Luke is all for them doing it together as well, which roots this passion in hate as much as it does love. That’s not exactly the healthiest reason to bang, and hearing ‘The Chain’ by Fleetwood Mac play over the this scene just reinforces how their trauma and hate has become intertwined like never before.
Still, it is a step forward regardless, even if it does come with caveats. Through this moment, June and Luke are more connected than ever, and crucially, they’re enjoying sex together again. They’re not just going through the motions or dominating one another in some kind of unhealthy, twisted way.
“They’re both trying really hard to make this work,” says showrunner Bruce Miller when we asked about this scene. “They were married. They were in love. They have a huge, long history together. When they look at each other, they see a good time before any of this happened. They have a history from before it was terrible.”
“But the moment where they finally connect again is when Luke says, ‘We’re going to have to trust each other.’ When, all of a sudden, it isn’t just him trusting her. It’s her having to trust him from losing control. And once that happens; once they both have the danger of falling off the morality wagon, they’re going to have to believe in each other when they’re not around – that is when they can finally connect again.”
It’s a long time coming for the pair, in more ways than one, but through sex and this willingness to let go, June and Luke are no longer ships drifting by each other in the night. They’re a unit with shared goals: rescue Hannah and murder Serena. Toxic? Yes. But does Serena deserve to die for everything she did to June? Quite possibly.
Miller says that he and the writers always use sex purposefully on the show in this regard. “We don’t show sex scenes unless you’ll learn something in them that you wouldn’t know otherwise, that there’s no real way to explain.” And through this one in particular, they were able to show “equality and a growing sense of trust” between June and Luke.
“Sex is very important to June’s character,” Bruce adds. “It’s very important in the show, because one thing Gilead does is it takes away so many of the aspects of your sexual life… I’ve always felt like June is not going to let Gilead take away her sexuality. She’s not going to give it up to them.”
That doesn’t mean June always handles sex, and any of her emotions, in a healthy way really. But as Moira said, “We all left that place fucked up about sex,” and how could they not? At least the new season is reckoning with this more as we head into the final endgame.
