Not every stormtrooper who goes into battle does so because they're convinced that the Empire is right. In a tyranny, it's easier for citizens to fight for what's wrong and commit atrocities—and it's tempting for captives to accept their fate.
The same is true in the Republic of Gilead. Offred (Elisabeth Moss) now knows that her husband Luke (O-T Fagbenle) escaped. She knows he's alive. But she also knows Luke lives in Canada and that she's a handmaid—forced to reproduce or face death. Those are their fates, whether they accept them or not. Nick (Max Minghella), the man she keeps going back to, however, is far more resigned to his destiny. He's an Eye, a spy loyal to Gilead, who may not always hide what he sees.
But not every member of a regime is a villain—some are just complacent, some just don't know how to get out. Before Nick was an Eye and Commander Waterford's (Joseph Fiennes) chauffeur, he was a down-on-his-luck guy in Michigan, trying to find a job and take care of his family after his dad was laid off. When he punches an unemployment counselor in the face, the guy responds with kindness, buying Nick a cup of coffee and telling him about the Sons of Jacob, a group trying to restore order to America, where fertility and employment rates are dropping. "You're not alone, Nick," he says, offering reassurance and solidarity. That helping hand is enough to recruit him as a foot soldier for what will become Gilead.
Nick believes the practices of Gilead are wrong, but it's also unnecessary for him to resist. Enslavement of women doesn't affect him. He overhears the Sons of Jacob concocting the role of the handmaids in chillingly logical language, but Nick doesn’t step in. "'Act' may not be the best name, from a branding perspective," Waterford says, referring to the ritualized rape handmaids endure to conceive. "The ceremony?" Even after the first Offred hangs herself, Nick turns a blind eye to the tyranny. Gilead may abuse women, but it also gives him a job and a place to live. He sees no reason to rock the boat he's on—at least not until he develops feelings for the latest Offred.
When Mrs. Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski) goes out of town, the Commander takes advantage, giving Offred a role in his fantasy. First, he changes her, shaving her legs, holding up a mirror as she puts on lipstick, trading in the long dress and bonnet of the demure handmaid for a sequined backless dress and heels. "He's good at this," thinks the woman formerly known as June. "He's done it before." Last time, it ended in the previous Offred's suicide.
Dressed in the green cloak of a wife and with the Commander by her side, Offred passes through the checkpoints that otherwise hold her prisoner. A jealous Nick drives them into what used to be Boston, to the back entrance of a nightclub called Jezebel's. The club holds the flipside of Gilead's values: Within the home, proper wives and meek handmaids are desexualized; in the seedy underbelly of the Republic, women drink and wear high heels, revealing cleavage and laughter. As the Commander tells Offred, these are the women who couldn't assimilate: sociology professors, lawyers, CEOs. "I'm told you can have conversations with some of them, if you feel like talking," he says. "They prefer it here."
Among the women who rejected Gilead’s values, Offred spots Moira (Samira Wiley) across the room. They find each other in the bathroom, where they can only exchange a few hugs and a teary embrace before a madam instructs Moira to go back out onto the floor. Later, Offred tiptoes through the halls of the club, witnessing glimpses of depravity and abuse. In the dorms, she finds Moira, who tells her about how she almost escaped on the Underground Femaleroad, before the Eyes caught her and gave her a choice: Jezebel’s or the colonies, where women clean up toxic waste until they die. "We're alone, June," Moira says. "Just take care of yourself." She chose her fate, but neither alternative was good, and now she's resigned herself to this life.
But Offred isn't ready to give up. After the night at Jezebel's, she returns to the Commander's house where his wife gives her a gift: A ballerina in a music box, locked inside with a key; a girl designed to fit someone else's image, who can only dance at the request of someone else. But Offred isn’t content to live her life within the confines of Gilead. "I will not be that girl in the box," she thinks to herself, as she carves "you are not alone" into the floor of her closet, beside "Nolite bastardes carborundorum." The previous Offred urged her successors not to let the bastards grind her down. This Offred knows she won't.
