Hulu and Channel 4’s The Handmaid’s Tale is awash with chilling moments, but one that was added for the TV adaptation stood out as particularly affecting last night.
When Ofglen (Alexis Bledel) was carted away in a black van, it turned out not to be because of her Mayday connections but down to her rule-breaking affair with her female housekeeper
Told by a court that her very “existence is an abomination”, she was sentenced to “redemption” and later awoke in a hospital having been given what we are to assume was a clitoridectomy.
“The stitches will come out in a few days,” Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) tells her.
“You can still have children of course [fertility is valued in Gilead], but things will be so much easier for you now.”
