‘The Handmaids Tale’ Episode 4, ‘Milk’: Lady Macbeth and the ‘milk of human kindness’.
Lady Macbeth
Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,
In a strange way it is a nice change to be watching a post-apocalyptic landscape that is not infested with zombies. This is Chicago — or what remains of the city — in America during their struggle to remain free of the religious theocracy of Gilead, that is now, the main stage for ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.
Yet all is not well here either. The Sanctuary which we thought — and hoped — June and Janine were heading too is not much different from some of those post-apocalyptic environments and habitats that have featured in The Walking Dead for eleven seasons and have always dissapointed and led to renewed threat. Seems for the moment that there is little respite from threat or sexual manipulation by men in power even in relatively ‘free’ Chicago.
We should have been prepared for this after the deaths of those handmaids at the crossing and the decision by June to head for Chicago. I assume she is attempting to kill two birds with a single stone: to warn the rebels of an impending surge by Gilead forces and find some allies in her own ‘Mayday’…
