![]() Their hands are all on her pregnant belly. Mrs Calhoun, the Wife who’s waiting like a vulture to steal Natalie’s baby, brings some friends along with her to pray over the fetus. She becomes an observer of her life rather than a participant- like Natalie, she’s on her way to the Sunken Place. The mental and sensory deprivation take their toll on her mind in other ways, as well. She learns to doze and dissociate while kneeling, losing long periods of time. The hospital room is plain and white, with nothing to keep June engaged most of the time. June is there in body, but like Natalie, her spirit wanders. Aunt Lydia told her to stay with her walking partner. June will be by Natalie’s side until the baby is born. Since Natalie can’t complain and will be dead soon, they don’t worry about hurting her. June tells us that the doctors are careful not to give Natalie any medication that would hurt the baby. Ooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth? But hearing it in your head for weeks when you’re practically in solitary confinement would be rough. It’s a good song with lyrics that are meaningful for June. After a while, she started hearing Belinda Carlisle’s song “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” on repeat in her head. June kneels on the floor in front of Natalie’s bed. They aren’t even pretending to see her as a person who matters anymore. No matter who comes into the room, no one bothers to cover her up. Her hair is down and exposed and she’s wearing a skimpy, short-sleeved hospital gown. Ironically, now that she’s simply a vessel, modesty is no longer required of her. She’s hooked up to several machines and closely monitored as her medical team attempts to keep her alive long enough for her baby to have a good chance of surviving outside the womb. The episode opens in Natalie/Ofmatthew’s hospital room, where she lies brain dead and comatose but still pregnant. This intense character study is a transformative episode for June, with lessons learned for other characters as well. As an OB/GYN’s daughter, June carries herself with an extra bit of confidence in a hospital that none of the other handmaids could have mustered. June may not have liked Natalie, but there’s no way she would let anyone sexually assault her for kicks. She also serves as a bodyguard/chaperone. June bears witness to the medical procedures and the attitude with which they are done. June’s constant presence in Natalie’s hospital room, swathed in handmaid’s red, reminds those who enter that Natalie is a human being, not just a vessel. She did what she hoped would allow her and others to survive, just like the rest of the handmaids. Natalie was annoying, but after 5 years of Gilead’s abuses, she was also mentally fragile. It’s a genius move for Aunt Lydia to punish June for her harshness toward Natalie by sentencing her to remain kneeling in the room 24/7 until Natalie gives birth. The series continues to be grounded in reality, no matter how extreme it seems. It’s all still happening in the US and globally. It’s a reminder of the long history of racism, medical mistreatment and violence in the US of the continued commodification of women’s bodies, especially those of women of color and that everything in The Handmaid’s Tale novel/S1 has already happened somewhere in the world/history. Season 3 aired in the summer of 2019, long before George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s deaths in May and March of 2020. Natalie is reduced to frequently malfunctioning life support for her womb, an obstacle in the way of the healthy baby boy they want to eventually harvest from her, just as they’ve stolen her previous three children. In this episode, we watch as her body is treated like an inanimate object by almost all of the many people who file through her hospital room. It was shocking enough to watch as a pregnant Black woman was shot by the Handmaid’s Tale version of the police in the previous episode. She is now blatantly referred to as a vessel for the baby and nothing more, ultimately the only role that matters for the women of Gilead. Little care is given to her comfort and none to her potential wishes. Natalie is comatose, but kept alive as an incubator for her baby for as long as possible in order to give the baby the best chance of survival. Almost the entire episode takes place in Ofmatthew/Natalie’s hospital room, where she is brain dead after being shot by a Guardian in episode 8. Episode 9, Heroic, is probably one of The Handmaid’s Tale most controversial episodes.
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