Who's Crazy Now?
Season One, Episode Nine: “The Bridge”
This episode begs the question of who and what is really crazy in a crazy world. Janine’s baby has been forcibly weaned from her and turned over to the Putnams in another bizarre, bible passage-chanting ritual. She is walked out of the large, elegant home by Aunt Lydia, through a tunnel of red robe-clad handmaids who murmur the prescribed greetings. Only Offred really looks at her and gives her a hug. The former Ofwarren, soon to become Ofdaniel, whispers, “He’s coming for me.” She’s the only one of these characters who seems to have faith in/believe a commander. Crazy? She’s told that she’s lucky to be going to Daniel’s home since his wife is nice. The woman invites her, smilingly, onto the be for the ceremony, but Janine panics: “I don’t want—Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking touch me!” She asks for Warren and cowers in a corner. Crazy? Or perfectly normal for a gang rape and monthly ritual rape survivor who’s just had her child taken from her—a second time, her second child. This is not a new idea, but sometimes “going crazy” is the only sane response to an absolutely crazy situation.
The next we see her, she is standing on the edge of a stone bridge, her baby in her arms, threatening to jump off. Offred has been wakened by Mrs. Waterford from a dream about HER stolen daughter, and taken there to try to talk Janine out of it. Or at least to “save that child.” Janine sadly says to her friend, “They all think I’m crazy, but I’m not.” It’s a wonder we’re not all crazy in this place,” Offred responds. She tries to get Janine to see into a future that could very well never be there for them; she has joined Mayday now, taking actions the book’s main handmaid never does. She has to hope that what she says to Janine is true: “All of this is going to be over one day.” She draws a picture of things they might have done before: they’ll go drinking, and dancing. “Can we do karaoke?” Janine wonders. But, she can’t sustain such hope. She yells at Commander Putnam about the sexual things she had to do for him; and her hope was that he would really let her keep her baby and take her away from there. But, he’s there at the bridge with his wife, the wife who told the baby “Who needs that horrid girl?” She turns to Offred, offering her own hopeful future: “Come with me. It’s can’t hurt very much. Just for a second, and then we’ll be free.” Is this really crazy? Wanting to get out of this mad, cruel world seems perfectly sane to me. And, she almost makes it.
In Gilead, though, Janine is crazy for fighting rape and wanting to keep her baby, while Naomi Putnam—part of a power system that allows her to steal another woman’s baby--is just fine. Warren Putnam, feigner of piety in order to gain more power and abuse his handmaid, is also perfectly sane in this world.
If Janine’s bid for freedom is perfectly reasonable in their insane world, Offred’s is, too. And her form of attempted escape is not suspected. Early in the episode Mrs. Putnam says to Mrs. Waterford, “You’re so lucky you have an obedient handmaid.” Yet, Offred joins Mayday and gets her Commander to take her back to Jezebel’s so she can try to get a package that the resistance needs. Waterford, not quite as susceptible to flattery as he seemed to be, knows she wants to get there for something other than sex with him—though he continues his creepy asking of questions that she can only answer with lies: “Did you like that?” He thinks she wants to see Moira (“Ruby”), and he hopes to watch some lesbian sex between them (he the planner of the cliterodectomy for the “unnatural” Ofglen) until Offred tells him they weren’t “that kind of friends.” But as the Commander is in the shower, Offred is distraught to hear that Moira is discouraging her involvement as a spy: “Just go home. And just do what they say.” She worries that Moira is losing it and commands her: “Do not let them grind you down. . . . You keep your fucking shit together.” Moira was either faking her compliance to try to keep her friend safe, or revived back into rebellious sanity by Offred’s speech. At the end, she stabs a john with a part of the inside of the toilet and, dressed as a Commander’s driver, is driving away, having sent—through someone who works at the butcher shop—Offred the package Mayday needs. Attached is a note: “Praise be, bitch. Here’s your damn package. XO.” Moira out. Janine almost out. And, to find out if Offred is out, we have to wait for the season finale next Wednesday.
But, clearly, rebellion--not obedience--is what is sane in this crazy world.
