Critical Condition: The Handmaid’s Tale (S3)

The Handmaid’s Tale | Lightbox, from Thursday

☆☆☆☆ “If the season 2 finale left you screaming at your screen — For God’s sake, June, why aren’t you getting on the damn truck outta Gilead with Emily (Alexis Bledel) and baby Nichole? — season 3 won’t do much to restore your confidence in that decision. Based on the first six episodes, June and the show she anchors are stuck in a grim cycle of combative misery, working ever harder for a future that gets further and further out of reach.” — Entertainment Weekly.

☆☆☆☆ “After a second season that could most generously be described as misery porn, the Emmy-winning drama returns for a third run that rights many – though definitely not all – of Season 2’s wrongs. The new season is more propulsive and watchable, although it doesn’t quite reach the heights of that first moving season. But Handmaid’s regains its footing by setting off on a new path.” — USA Today.

☆☆☆☆ “Hulu’s Emmy-winning dystopic favourite returns with Elisabeth Moss as good as ever, the cinematography as moody as ever and a plot that has become frustratingly repetitive … What the first six new episodes lack isn’t prescience, but a sense that the show has anything new to say or any conversations it’s hoping to advance.” — The Hollywood Reporter.

☆☆☆☆ “This is also The Handmaid’s Tale, a series constantly balancing heavy-handed symbolism with intimate character development in order to dramatise the oppressive, sexist underpinnings of modern America (if not the world). Season 3 isn’t short on powerful moments or personal growth, but it does falter at times while trying to bring the two together.” — IndieWire.

☆☆☆☆ “This season, you’ll find out what happened to Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), last seen taking a heavy tumble down a flight a stairs. Plus, expect a pair of notable newcomers … If not much sunnier, not as relentlessly grim as the second, while June is slowly, methodically, morphing into the Robo-June we know she must become. So far, so good.” — Newsday.