The Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) origin story we never knew we needed?
A shocking gunshot to finish things off?
“Unfit” was jam-packed with huge moments.
Ann Dowd.Credit: Sophie Giraud/Hulu
Let’s break down the biggest.
Karma Gets Ofmathew
Last week’s ugly finishleft viewers with mixed feelings about Juneis she bold?
And, as “Unfit” begins, most of her fellow handmaids evidently agree.
Sensing the tension, Aunt Lydia calls for a meeting of the handmaids.
June admits to it, but cynically, without real feeling.
She makes her switch seats with June and forces the blame to be put upon her.
Lydia scolds “Don’t be a crybaby.”
all the handmaids call her a crybaby in unison.
Taken together, it’s a whole lot of karma for Ofmatthew’s tattling.
Here, that finally changes!
She’s looking after a boy whose mother hasn’t shown up to pick him up.
She offers to take him home when his motherstrung out, rattledfinally arrives.
Still, Lydia makes good on the offer: They both come home for dinner.
We finally see how Lydia lives.
She’s alone, alluding to a past unhealthy marriage, and a little lonely.
But the relationship deepens quickly.
Soon they’re spending Christmas together, exchanging gifts and laughing like a family.
It’s clear Lydia is missing some of that connection.
She’s taken on a caretaker role, not entirely unlike her post-Gilead role.
and religious expectations are much starker.
(Though this one is a little less awkward.)
They slow-dance and finally kiss.
They go back to Lydia’s apartment.
There, he reveals his wife passed away three years ago.
He pushes back, a little spooked by how fast things are moving.
He says he still wants to see her again; she rebuffs the very idea of it.
Moral Judgment
June Breaks Bad
So what’s going on with June?
She’s certainly losing her grip on kindness, and she’s well aware of it.
“They all deserve to suffer,” she narrates.
“It’s an acquired taste to enjoy seeing others in pain.”
But nothing quite compares to the final visuals of the episode in the supermarket.
She tells June this, while Ofmathew stands in the back, utterly broken from prior events.
June listens to Lydia while cruelly smirking at Ofmathew, who is being consoled by Janine.
She settles on June as a target, who merely, confidently nods.
She shifts ever so slightly to target Lydia.
And still, even now, June appears unmoved.
It’s a harrowing, traumatic moment.
She just doesn’t seem to care anymore.
