progress

noun

movement to an improved or more developed state, or to a forward position:

verb

to improve or develop in skills, knowledge, etc.:

to continue gradually:

Episode 9 is the penultimate episode and it certainly is moving all the pieces on the Gilead chessboard into position, whether they are actually in Gilead or in Canada, ostensibly now, the ‘Land of the Free’. The ground is being made ready for Season 4's denouement.

June has told her husband Luke about her last terrible and traumatic meeting with their daughter imprisoned in a glass cage — where one can see, but…

“Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals, but, however unwilling the partizans of the Christian system may be to believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.There was more knowledge in the world before that period, than for many centuries afterwards; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, as already said, was only another species of mythology; and the mythology to which it succeeded, was a corruption of an ancient system of theism.’’

― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

Recently on this…

This latest episode has galvanised my interest greatly. I doubt that it being directed — once again — by Elisabeth Moss is a coincidence. Her episodes of The Handmaids Tale are perhaps the best I have seen.

It is the eve of June’s testimony to the Court Hearing on whether Commander Waterford should be put on trial and she is attending a group therapy session with other escaped Handmaiden’s. Emily and Moira are there to. They are all going through the post-trauma of Gilead captivity and each are at different stage of recovery.

Moira having been out the longest seems…

‘‘We most earnestly desire to help in bringing about a lasting peace between the peoples of these two islands, but see no avenue by which it can be reached if you deny Ireland’s essential unity and set aside the principle of national self-determination’’

— Éamon de Valera to Lloyd George, July 1921

In the December 1918 general election (see map below), Sinn Féin won the overwhelming majority of Irish seats. In line with their manifesto, Sinn Féin’s elected members boycotted the British parliament and founded a separate Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann), declaring an independent Irish Republic covering the whole island…

‘‘I never was so utterly crushed to the earth before any human intellect as I was today before Tintoretto. Just be so good as to take my list of painters, and put him in the school of Art at the top, top, top of everything, with a great big black line to stop him off from everybody…. As for painting, I think I didn’t know what it meant till today.’’

— John Ruskin

According to standard opinion Michelangelo, Titian, and Raphael were the supreme artists of the sixteenth century; yet often during the last four hundred years, viewers have gazed…

Wrath — Sing, Goddess, the wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and the birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

— Homer, Iliad, 1.1–8; trans. Robert Fagles with some changes

There is an old saying about ‘‘finishing what one started’’ — for what in essence is the epic tale of the ‘Iliad’ ?— and this applies both on many levels in this episode and in my decision to write these reviews of Season 4. I was so impressed with the new season, but then after 5 & 6 it has now taken a nose-dive way into my annoyance and disappointment. But there is still much to discuss. I will finish what I started.

Episode 7 brings June back home, finally…

‘‘Break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.’’

–The Bible, Daniel 4:27

The story of Susanna and the Elders is a brief text included in the book of Daniel (chapter 13) of the Old Testament by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. It is one of the additions to Daniel, considered apocryphal by Protestants.

19 ‘When the maids had gone out, the two elders rose and ran to her, and said: 20 “Look, the garden doors are shut, no one sees…

‘‘If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;’’

— Rudyard Kipling, If

There are at least four TV shows currently on air which depict strong female characters as leads or as a joint shared leader, in their…