Fearless fight to overthrow patriarchy in The Handmaid’s Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale has lost none of its urgency or relevancy in its fourth series.

Elisabeth Moss in the fourth season of the award-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale.

Eddie Cockrell picks the Free-to-air, Pay TV and Streaming highlights this week.

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Free-to-air

“Gilead has a way of bringing out the worst in people,” fugitive Martha and reluctant fundraiser Rita (Amanda Brugel) tells a group of Toronto sympathists organised by Luke Bankole (O-T Fagbenle), the determined husband of The Handmaid’s Tale’s protagonist June (Elisabeth Moss), in last week’s second of 10 episodes in the much-anticipated fourth series of the international hit TV series. “But in June, it brought out the best.” So, too, has The Handmaid’s Tale brought out the best in Moss, whose June will spearhead a resistance to the patriarchy over the next eight episodes even as the actor directs three of them (including the first of Thursday’s two hours, the harrowing The Crossing). After a year and a half wait, the award-winning cautionary dystopian fiction has returned, and is as provocative and absorbing as ever.

Having successfully engineered the Angels Flight of 46 children and nine Marthas out of Gilead at the end of season three, the wounded June and the other fugitive Handmaids have taken refuge in a rural farmhouse overseen by a 14-year-old wife named Mrs Keyes (McKenna Grace, The Haunting of Hill House).

Back in Gilead, an imprisoned Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) tries to stave off a death sentence, while Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) waits for her opportunity to “save” one or all of the fugitives. In Toronto, the detained Waterfords (Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski) learn of June’s fate, and Luke works to raise awareness of her plight.

In episode two, June spearheads a covert offensive at a local Jezebels house that results in the death of a number of commanders. Now, in the powerful third episode, which series creator and showrunner Bruce Miller wrote for debuting director Moss, June is once again in custody, facing not only Aunt Lydia but a smilingly sadistic interrogator known only as “The Lieutenant” (veteran character actor Reed Birney, cast very much against type).

Perhaps the most promising developments thus far in the new season find the conundrums of Janine (Madeline Brewer), Rita and especially Nick (Max Minghella) taking centre stage as June and Janine make their way to Chicago, where June has been told is currently the front line of the conflict.

Few actors do haunted, hunted and determined with the intensity of Moss, and her June continues to be the driving force of the show.

The broadcast schedule for The Handmaid’s Tale finds Thursday’s episodes three and four followed by weekly single hours going forward. A fifth season of the show has already been ordered, and plans are afoot to mount Atwood’s 2019 sequel novel The Testaments into a stand-alone sequel television event. Also returning now at SBS is the award-winning companion podcast, Eyes on Gilead. Each episode features episode analysis and exclusive interviews with series stars and creators.

“This is the start of a new adventure,” Aunt Lydia says in a very different context, but four episodes in it seems clear The Handmaid’s Tale has lost none of its urgency or relevancy. Praise be.

The Handmaid’s Tale, Thursday, 8.30pm, SBS and SBS On Demand.

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The Bites

See What You Made Me Do
Wednesday, 8.30pm, SBS, NITV and SBS On Demand

From cautionary dystopian fiction to cold hard facts: “Why doesn’t she just leave?” is the title of the second of three weekly episodes in this timely and ultimately important inquiry into the scourge of domestic abuse in Australia. In See What You Made Me Do, Jess Hill makes a clear and persuasive case but the real question is “why did he do it?,” and sets out to answer the conundrum of love, abuse and power in modern relationships by drawing on her six years of research as an investigative journalist. In this first episode, the controlling behaviours now known as “coercive control” are illustrated through a victim survivor (“online dating couldn’t hurt …”) and Hill’s researched history of this horrible psychology since the early 1950s. She meets and talks with people on the front lines, revealing heartbreaking stories of systemic failures and lives destroyed or lost. The third episode, Solutions, highlights the progress forged by the #MeToo movement but cautions against complacency by advocating the criminalisation of coercive control as the UK has done. Assembled at the height of the pandemic, See What You Made Me Do is essential viewing.

Seinfeld
Monday and Thursday, 9.30pm, 10 Peach and 10 Play

Ten continues to perform a valuable public service by making noteworthy sitcoms available in their original chronological order across their range of channels. Two months or so into the third season of Seinfeld, which commenced three decades ago, it was abundantly clear to the show’s slim but growing audience that change for the better was afoot. Series co-creator Larry David and lead Jerry Seinfeld began commissioning scripts with multiple and often overlapping storylines, while supporting players Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine), Jason Alexander (George) and Michael Richards (Kramer) further connected with their characters’ selfishness and thus began to gel as an ensemble. These six season-three half-hours spread over two nights begin with the Emmy-nominated eighth episode The Tape, in which Elaine leaves an erotic message on Jerry’s answering machine. Thursday’s The Alternate Side (episode 11) introduces a favourite catchphrase, “these pretzels are making me thirsty,” as Kramer lands a bit part in a Woody Allen movie, while fan favourite and lucky 13th episode The Subway finds the gang taking equally eventful solo trips on the New York conveyance. For a show proud to be “about nothing,” Seinfeld is the gift of the TV gods that keeps on giving.

Outback Truckers
Tuesday, 8.30pm, 7mate and 7 Plus

“Why would you be out playing golf when you can be out here doin’ this?,” says series nine Outback Trucker Boe Vella, waving his right arm expansively at the top end territory rushing past the cab window of his heavy-laden road train during a 600km run from Darwin to Ramingining, “Cruisin’ around, livin’ the life”. Less than a year after the eighth season, 7Mate’s franchise is back with a premiere featuring three new long-haul sagas. Returning truckers Anthony and Danyelle Haigh drive not only their Murranji Water Drilling company equipment but their six- and one-year-old boys, a 19-year-old nanny and portable living quarters — cheekily dubbed the “Haigh family roadshow” — 460km to an urgent project, while no nonsense Mike Partridge lugs a wide load cross-country as a favour to a mate. A TV show made for drone technology, the fast-moving and picturesque hour showcases the beauty of the Australian outback and the rugged romance of the open road from above and in the cab. “The joys of doing bushwork,” the loquacious and optimistic Vella says with a big grin on his face. “I’d rather be out here than livin’ in the city.” Outback Truckers excels at selling that appeal.

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Pay TV/Streaming

Frank (Brian Gleeson), Doofus (Domhnall Gleeson) and Liam (Brendan Gleeson) in a scene from Frank of Ireland.

Misadventures go sideways in Irish hit

Frank of Ireland is a proudly irreverent six-part comic blast of outspoken Irish mischief with real-life brothers Brian and Domhnall Gleeson, sons of veteran actor Brendan Gleeson (Mr. Mercedes, Donald Trump in The Comey Rule), as mismatched best friends and arrested man-children trying to make a go of it in contemporary North Dublin.

All six half-hours, written by the brothers and Michael Moloney, display a gift of the gab and a scruffy, uncensored subversiveness that places the program in the rarefied company of Canada’s Letterkenny, Britain’s Peep Show and other transgressive comedies committed to both tickle and offend.

“Ma, why does everything turn out shit for me?” 32-year-old Frank (Brian, from Peaky Blinders) asks his long-suffering yet bluntly outspoken mother Mary (Pom Boyd) after he’s made a fool of himself at the funeral of the grandmother of girlfriend Aine (Sarah Greene), with whom he broke up six years ago but keeps finding next to him in bed. “Is it because I’m God’s lonely man?”

“It’s because you’re a prick, Frank,” Mary explains patiently. Or as tolerantly as she can manage, given her self-absorbed, eternally unemployed wannabe musician son still lives with her. Which often proves awkward, as Mary invites a series of new lovers to come live as well, often more than one at a time.

“You know,” she tells her son thoughtfully, “I dated a fellow once who was into erotic asphyxiation. Didn’t work out in the end, he needed room to breathe.”

This is that kind of comedy. Various misadventures go sideways for Frank and Doofus (Domhnall, light years removed from the ruthless General Hux he played in the second Star Wars trilogy), as they continuously quote their favourite movies (including the most obscene passages of Taxi Driver) while dealing with Aine’s new doctor boyfriend Peter-Brian (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and a bedridden Mary who begins to mirror the James Caan character in Misery.

It’s really in the fourth episode, A Good Few Angry Women, that the show breaks into the clear blue sky of surrealism. Aine’s father Padraig (Pat Shortt) has adapted and directed a distaff overhaul of the play Twelve Angry Men as a musical called Twelve Angry Women.

He hires the boys to write the songs, but as Frank has confused the source material he’s based them on Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

Inevitably, this prompts Padraig to chase someone away from the craft table yelling “you can’t handle the fruit!,” though the real question is why the stage-bound and talk-heavy play required local trainer Nicola (Liz Fitzgibbon) on hand as stunt co-ordinator.

The Gleeson brothers had worked together previously, including on a couple of shorts written and directed by Domhnall and starring Brian.

The latter approached the former, who suggested his childhood friend and sometimes collaborator on sketch comedy Michael Moloney join them on the project (dad Brendan makes a welcome appearance in the sixth episode).

“Basically,” Domhnall told an interviewer recently, “the three of us got together and decided to … just try and make something joyous.

“I think there couldn’t be a better time for it to be coming out,” he went on.

“The only stuff I’ve been watching the last few months has been comedy. I just haven’t been able to handle much else, and so I’m really happy that we get to make something a little bit stupid and put it out there.”

Frank of Ireland is more than a little bit stupid — calculatingly so — and quite far out there indeed. It’s also a beer-breath of fresh air that may stretch the definition of joyous, yet delivers in spirit.

Frank of Ireland, streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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The Picks

Are You Addicted to Technology?
Streaming on SBS On Demand

The SBS On Demand commission Are You Addicted to Technology? bills itself “a world first,” and content-wise it’s a half-hour inquiry into the deleterious effects of technology overload, presented by whimsical yet dead-serious Dr. Kim Le. The Australian child psychiatrist is a recovering gaming addict attuned to the devious ways Big Tech feeds the “attention economy” by hooking consumers on ever-newer devices and a constant flow of fresh content. The twist is that the program is interactive, so viewers accessing On Demand online via iOS, TVOS or iPad will have three opportunities during the show to answer a short set of questions about their personal usage, with results collated and compared real time to those of a national survey conducted as part of the show’s production (it’s unclear when or even if the show will be available on traditional SBS Free-to-air channels). In this paper a fortnight ago, Kim, as he’s familiarly known, shared that he and his partner are contemplating a family soon, and based on his research he’s “seriously thinking of switching to a dumbphone”. Depending on their individual results from the questionnaire, viewers may or may not want to make the same momentous decision. There’s only one way to find out.

The Mosquito Coast
Streaming on Apple TV+

“He’s a smart guy, a sexy guy, easy on the eyes. He’s a dramatic actor, but he can tell a joke,” The Mosquito Coast casting director Victoria Thomas recently told a magazine writer profiling series lead Justin Theroux. “You believe he could exist on both sides of the law. It’s nice not to be able to know what you’re getting in every performance.” Perhaps unintentionally, the quote is key to preparing for and enjoying this sprawling yet never uninteresting free-form, prequel-ish expansion of Theroux’s uncle Paul’s 1981 novel (he’s credited as a producer here), which is itself celebrating 40 years in print (Peter Weir’s 1986 film version, which has grown in stature, is notoriously the only Harrison Ford movie to not make money; “I’m still glad I did it,” the star has said). Theroux stars as Allie Fox, a driven inventor who may or may not be a government asset but is being hunted by them all the same. Perth’s own Melissa George co-stars as his long-suffering wife, Margot, with Gabriel Bateman (Unhinged) and relative newcomer Logan Polish offering strong support as their questioning children. Yet it’s Theroux’s charisma and drive that fuels this iteration of The Mosquito Coast, which is challenging and rewarding.

Wahl Street
Streaming on Foxtel On Demand

The recent passing of Alma Wahlberg, mother of singer Donnie (New Kids on the Block), movie star and relentless entrepreneur Mark (Boogie Nights) and chef Paul (the decade-old casual dining Wahlburgers chain, co-owned by the clan and coming soon to Australia and New Zealand), prompts a renewed interest in the six half-hours of Wahl Street, which recently played weekly on Fox Showcase and is now available on their On Demand streaming service. A logical extension of the 95 episodes of the reality series Wahlburgers, which ran from 2014 to 2019, Wahl Street finds Mark on the threshold of the pandemic, grappling with the sudden shuttering of the chain and the ripple effect on his other businesses, of which there are many. The celebrity is seen mingling with fans, working out alone and with the CEO’s of his various companies while on location in London to shoot the still-delayed science fiction action film Infinite, and interacting with fans. A fun touch is the sprinkling of relevant clips from Wahlberg’s films to the narrative, and the show reveals a driven businessman during a tough time. “Well,” he says of Wahl Street’s timing, “if you like drama you couldn’t have picked a better year.”