This Reddit Theory About June In 'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 4 Is So Creepy
The Handmaid's Tale is finally back after nearly two years off the air, but Gilead is still terrible as ever. At the end of Season 3, June failed to escape to Canada yet again; instead, she took a bullet so the plane full of children could get away. The new season picked up with her convalescing in a new safehouse in the countryside. But fans are starting to see how the years fighting Gilead have changed the woman once known as "Offred." This Reddit theory about June in The Handmaid's Tale Season 4 suggests the person she's becoming may not be the hero America needs.
Warning: Spoilers for The Handmaid's Tale Season 4, Episode 1 through 3 follow. June's safehouse was initially presented as "a commander who will take them in." But that's not entirely accurate. The Commander who owns the farm where June and her compatriots were staying is no longer completely in control of his mental faculties. It's his wife, the 14-year-old Mrs. Ester Keyes, who has taken them in.
Ester was forced into child marriage and her husband offered up to any virile man in the neighborhood in hopes of getting her pregnant. As a result, she is (understandably) deeply traumatized. But what caught fans' attention was how June handled the situation once she realized what was going on. When one of the Guardians who'd been regularly taking advantage of Ester came by, the girl took him prisoner. Rather than talk her down from any acts of violence, June declared that true justice would be to kill him for his crimes. So, she handed over a knife to the poor kid and told the girl, "Make me proud."
Those words have been spoken on the show before. But not by June or her Mayday compatriots. As Redditor mollygk noted, June was directly quoting Aunt Lydia:
When June said to the child bride wife Esther: "good girl" and "make me proud" when handing her the knife to kill the rapist guardian, it was a line straight out of Aunt Lydia's playbook. She's like the anti-Aunt Lydia — I think we will see more of this surrogate role from June throughout the season.
But does Mayday need an Aunt Lydia? As the show has gone to great pains to show viewers, Aunt Lydia is a horrendous human being. She punished those who showed her kindness even before Gilead rose. Moreover, it's obvious Lydia hates June; she resents her for failing to embody her teachings time and again.
What Lydia hasn't seen is that June actually has taken on her teachings. And she embodies them too well. June even used Lydia's own tactics against her when she was captured in Episode 3 when she sneered at Lydia for failing "her girls" until Lydia ran from the room.
June becoming the revolution's Aunt Lydia, an iconoclast who no longer considers the lives of those she's "helping," would also fit into the bubbling anti-June sentiment among other characters (and, TBH, some fans). In the first few episodes of Season 4, Moira, Emily, Rita, and Luke all stopped at one point or another to note how June keeps doing things with no thought of the fallout. The children like Asher, who she "rescued," were just as ripped away from their Gilead families without being able to understand why. Moira and Luke are raising a child they never asked for.
Moreover, June's choices keep killing people, like Alma, Dolores, and Brianna. How much longer until she buries Janine too? What is the ultimate cost for June in taking down Gilead? At this point, it seems like Season 4 might show fans this revolution will finally come at the expense of June's soul.
The Handmaid's Tale continues Wednesdays on Hulu.
