When Women Are Accused of Complicity

This article contains spoilers regarding recent episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Loudest Voice.

D has depicted all kinds of grim visuals: ritualized hangings, feet flayed with steel cables, women whose mouths have been bolted shut. And yet the image I couldn’t get out of my mind this week after watching the Season 3 finale was that of a generic to-go coffee cup. Early in the episode, Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger), a representative of the U.S. Government-in-Exile, came to meet with Serena Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski), a recent defector from Gilead who’d turned in her husband in exchange for immunity. As Tuello walked up to greet her, Serena was sitting on a bench outside her detention center, placidly reading. She wore a long, dusky pink overcoat, tailored slacks, and ballet pumps. With her smooth blond curls, she looked like the very model of. Tuello handed