nick & june

Thanks for all the interesting asks over the past few weeks, Osblaines (and kind neutrals we believe may have also been sending in questions). The Testaments season is wrapped, and so are we for the next little while. We're taking a break from the inbox to protect our peace, our mental well-being (sadly we've seen an increase in rude antis trolling the inbox), and to focus on real life stuff- we've fallen behind on our fanfics that we'd love to return to and share with you all once they're ready to publish. We have a few asks that are answered and lined up in our queue, but once those have dropped over the coming week, things will slow down for a bit.

For now we're just going to do our best with reblogging any fanfic and fanvid posts. Eventually we'd love to return to our poll series should there be enough interest for that.

As always, we will forever remain a safe space for Nick and Osblaine fans, and we love and appreciate you all.

https://www.reddit.com/r/americandad/comments/a7bl9c/what_doesnt_kill_you_makes_you_stronger/

Hey.

Sadly we agree. It's pretty sad that a show with such good source material ended up such a disaster. It's written with such an immature tone. The hallway scene is so cheesy and in your face. While this episode is far from the worst in the show or the series as a whole, it's not exactly amazing. Long gone are the days with finales like 1x10 or 4x10, and episodes like 1x03, 1x06, 2x05, 2x09, or 4x09. We were truly blessed in those early days. If only we'd known how badly things would end up becoming. T

And you're right- the universe has lots of potential, hell there are moments within the show itself that are good (the saw scene from one of the earlier episodes, Becka's journey as a queer girl) but those are lost among the filler, slop, and shoehorned current-day American politics. These shows are not going to age that well as a result. The books will be treasured, but like the cheesy film, these shows will eventually be forgotten too.

Hey.

Yeah, it seems like it.

We too really do not like the lack of communications. We understand not overstating stuff on the show, but sometimes this show goes too far in the other direction and leaves too much unstated. (This is a big Bruce Miller thing. He ALWAYS relies far too heavily on subtext, putting a very heavy load onto the actors in getting them to convey things with looks alone.) Dialogue is helpful! More scenes are helpful! Yes, showing and not telling is important, but with Garth they often failed to do either of those things.

We kinda wonder if they're not giving Garth more depth and background because Nick being given more depth and background humanized him and helped make him the beloved, empathetic character that he ended up being which the creators resented very deeply. Having Garth just kinda exist makes it a lot harder for him to be a popular character.

Hey!

So we can answer as to why they select this time of year to air the show- it's so they're as close to the end of the Emmy eligibility voting window as possible. That way the show is fresher in the minds of the voters and it increases the chances of them being nominated and winning.

Hey!

Yeah, it certainly seems like the show could lean more on the book in the second season. The Judd plot does seem like it's coming to fruition after wasting an entire season just kind of doing nothing with him as a character. You're right to point out that lots of stuff for him will happen off-screen in order to get him where he needs to be.

But yeah, S2 seems like it will be the Judd season, getting Agnes/Hannah slowly into a position for the Aunt stuff which will likely occur in S3, and then maybe, just maybe, the Jade/Nicole stuff will happen in S4, with Gilead falling completely because of it. (Which is different to the books, but it's already obvious they want the girls to bring down Gilead, much like the standard YA story.)

It does seem like all the main girls will eventually become aunts on the show for the most part.

We suppose it's because by making Becka's story more dramatic, it makes Agnes's story more dramatic by as a result, but it leaves a lot of room to give Agnes her own plots without bogging her down with complexities. (Not that that they never waved away any of the complex plots for June when they made things too difficult to write, but in a show like this, it's easier for the story to become overwhelmed.)

As for Garth, it's likely a combination of American politics and trying to avoid all the issues they created with Nick. Plus they have decided they must have a male character, so they inserted him into Gilead, but did so in a way for the audience members to complain about him being "useless".

Hey.

We don't blame you for that. When looking in the context of tht, where the show went more and more downhill as time passed, it's hard to have faith that tt, which is in our opinion is sitting at a tht s4 level of quality, will actually improve upon the issues it currently has.

It's hard to see that the show has the bones to be good, but it just misses things in a lot of ways that makes it hard to enjoy (and we're just watching clips- watching whole episodes would be harder!). They'd really improve things if they actually did some world building. While they irritatingly excused the world building away in tht because we "saw what June saw or knew" (which was bullshit), tt has two other main narrators that actually do know decent amounts about the Gilead universe. There's no excuse to not use them to flesh that out when we see more than Agnes does. It's certainly not like the show lacks the time in the episodes to do so either. They could have cut the filler, spent more time with Mayday, given Garth depth, and spent some time with the aunts and working classes, and things would have been a lot better.

Immediately turning things around after developing them for an entire season is a Bruce Miller specialty. We wonder just what will be walked back in the S2 tt premier episodes. Tht was notorious for doing that, we have no reason to believe that tt will be any different.

We'd really love to know MA's actual true thoughts on the matter. Alas we never will- she has to make nice to sell more copies of her book and to get more of her works adapted. We expect the show will use little snippets of the book here and there, but it's never going to be more than loosely inspired and that makes us quite sad.

PS still don't know what they are trying to do with show Garth. Any character has a status and purpose to the story but him not so much. He just seems to be inbetween Agnes and Becka from a viewers point and how they writers represent the show.

Hey!

Yeah, it's not a shock that they'd undo some of the things that they built up to during the season, like the Weston engagement. It gives more drama to the story of Agnes throwing everything away to help Becka and it allows for the Judd story to start up, perhaps with an increased edge of danger for Anges as it makes Judd see her as more threatening due to Agnes's position becoming more precarious. And yes, it's likely they also used Weston and his role as a way of making it a bit easier for Agnes to help Becka.

We're with you- we really don't care for the Becka and Garth stuff. It feels really ridiculous. Hopefully this plot won't last long into the second season. There is so much on the show that's lacking and spending more time on this plot is such a waste. As you stated, the writing of Garth has issues. They'd be better off developing him rather than using him as a dull stand-in for the "disappointing male" role.

And yes! The Becka/Agnes kiss had significantly more chemistry than anything we've seen on this show. Daisy and Garth do have their moments though and we do love the irony that they work better considering it basically is the only real element they've kept for Garth's story (even then not really as Daisy/Nicole had a crush on him and Garth was significantly older).

Daisy very much feels like June plopped back into the show. We hope she gets to develop into her own character rather than just copying the previous "Super Amazing Perfect Feminist Hero Mother" that they wrote June to be. We really, really wish they'd kept her as Nicole and kept her organic to the book character who had elements of both parents and was still her own unique self.

Hey.

We can understand that. Sometimes this show feels like it was written by Reddit atheists. Other times they lean too much into a character's religion in ways that feel really odd. (June's religious lines last season certainly sounded more like Serena and less like June, it was perplexing. We're fine with June retaining her faith, but they should have toned it down and had her speak more like herself.) It's a superficial portrayal of religion, done to align with the current Christo-fascist political issues in the US and to send a particular Message using their branch of feminism. It doesn't feel particularly thoughtful, instead done to be provocative.

At the heart of it all, Gilead is and was never about religion, they merely used it as a tool of control and manipulation. It often feels like the show forgets that in their desire to target a more politically engaged audience.

Daisy being someone that believes in a female god actually does fit the character (she's basically meant to be the embodiment of June's "Under Her Eye" line), but it'd be nice to explore religion through the eyes of many characters and not act like June and Daisy's religious beliefs are the only right ones. Believing in a female god is fine, acting like it's the only right way to believe in a god is not. Religion and feminism is a complicated thing, something the show doesn't really have the maturity to tackle with all the depth and nuance such topics deserve.

Hey.

So we can indeed confirm that she has returned, briefly filming a scene as an aunt.

While it is possible that that's a sign of her approving of what's going on and all the changes, good and bad, it's pretty unlikely given she has been critical of several choices tht made and has largely still remained silent about the show. There could be several reasons as to why she appeared:

She did it as a way of drumming up publicity for the novel, hoping to sell more copies of her book. This feels pretty likely to us given she's been engaging in American politics during this second Trump term as a way of marketing her books in a way she never did before. By capturing interest at its highest, she sells more copies. Plus with the show butchering her novel, she may as well make more money out of it.

She did it out of obligation.

She did it as a favour to someone/out of courtesy, whether that was to Ann or to the younger cast members (Brad and Lucy in particular seem to be fans of her) or even The Scientologist.

She simply wanted to appear in the one plot segment the show is doing justice to and which she is most interested in (the aunt backstories).

*puts on clown shoes and mask* Maybe she only agreed to appear because they've made changes to the parts of the show she's most critical about, like the plot armour and destroying the whole power of love. A little "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" sort of deal.

Hey.

Yeah, we certainly don't care for this plot element at all. It's an insult to the book and it took up so much time on the show that could have been better spent elsewhere. So much of the show ended up underdeveloped because they spent so much time on this unneeded plot.

At the very least they should have been telling this story through the eyes of original characters, not preexisting book characters. Doing what they did ended up muddled and confusing. The plot itself isn't terrible (though we saw it twice with Nick and once with Esther, so it is repetitive- we know they intend for the two shows to be separate, but let's be real, this is basically tht s7) and there is a decent story to tell there, but the execution is lacking.

It truly is too bad. This show had great potential with such amazing source material to use as a guide, and it just ignored it all to take advantage of the good name of the book and fans of it, to needlessly expand the story and drag things out, and to insert petty immature drama.

Hey!

We agree completely. That was such a poorly written and poorly directed scene. Frankly 6x09 is one of the worst episodes in the entire series (which really says a lot considering how many stinkers they managed to produce) and the lack of any sense of danger is a huge one. There is no way that a woman's voice (and a woman's voice in a place where women are silenced to boot) would not be noticed. There's no way June wouldn't have been noticed barely hiding behind the car. There is no way whatsoever that there wouldn't have been a massive security presence the night after a murder spree. There is no way whatsoever that June wouldn't have been caught and Lawrence's suspicious activities not noticed. None. The amount of suspension of disbelief for this scene to work at all is so overwhelmingly massive that it's embarrassing.

Hey.

Yeah, we agree, he does have communication issues. Part of that is from Gilead depriving him from a real education, part is from Mayday keeping him in the dark, and part is a personality thing with him. It all culminates in making a difficult situation worse.

Those communication issues ultimately did contribute to Daisy's impulsive actions. She's already an impulsive character but it's made worse when she lacks the information to make informed choices and feels like she's being jerked around.

Forever a Nick defender. We literally have so many reasons to defend him even if the writers thought they could change that (they are clearly not smart writers). The dialog on the plane with Lawrence made zero sense and some try to justify Nick hate alone on that bad writing in that scene. Don't dumb yourself down like the writers do.

Not to forget they took his daughter away from him and the father of Nicole away from her forever plus his son. What the show did was gross.

June chose Luke whatever (even though no way they could work out after all that) but don't let Nick die have him with his family and his daughter occasionally if not otherwise. June doesn't deserve him anyway.

https://www.tumblr.com/bo-kryzze/780299807282642944/june-osborne-nick-blaine-603-devotion?source=share

Hey.

Rant away, friend! We too will forever be Nick defenders. Nothing the writers said or did will change our minds. It was so forced to try and make Nick look bad with the ridiculous scene full of bullshit and lies. He was flawed, he was complicated, he had to make terrible choices to survive, but he was never bad.

The vast majority of people throwing around the term 'nazi' genuinely do not know what it means. We've heard from our European followers how troubling they find it for such a specific, loaded term to be thrown around simply because people don't like Nick. It cheapens the atrocities committed by the actual nazis when it's used so casually and incorrectly. One can dislike Nick all they want and consider him as part of the problem of fascism due to his passivity and prioritizing his family, but Nick was not a nazi. He did not display any support for national socialism ever. Unfortunately with the show throwing the word around like it was nothing, they just made everything worse. We'd initially and foolishly believed that the show was doing that as commentary on the dangers of misusing language and how that removes power from words, but sadly not- they joined in the troubling modern political discourse of not using language properly.

And we agree- if Nick were as awful and self-interested and devoted to Gilead as people claim him to be, why would he risk his own life to help Luke and Moira, especially given he doesn't expect anything he does will result in June "choosing" him, so why bother helping? That he chose to help at no benefit for himself and at great risk to his safety and mental well being (seeing as he spiralled after killing the guardian) shows who he really is. 6x03 was a great episode for Nick and his true character, and despite the flaming disaster we still think decently of it.

June's lack of consideration towards Nick will forever make us sad. We'd hoped that s6 would have confronted the fact that she took and took from him without caring that he was falling apart. We'd have loved to see her take care of and support him for once, especially given her freedom placed her in a position to do so. We will never forgive them for robbing Nick of fatherhood and his children of a father (and likely of a relationship as siblings as well). Those three deserved far better.

Hey!

Ugh, oh no that sounds awful. We're sorry you came across such ugly, stupid takes. Book!Nick would truly have no choice in such a situation. Imagine what would happen if he'd said no? He'd be gone, possibly dead, and unable to help the handmaid at all.

Sadly there is no fixing stupid, and to have such a perspective involves a breathtaking degree of stupidity to such levels that suggest they should be reading something like The Bernstein Bears rather than The Handmaid's Tale. That person clearly doesn't have the critical thinking ability to realize just how little Nick can actually do in Gilead.

Honestly a lot of these kinds of takes come from people who enjoy being smug and rage-baiting Nick fans. It's very easy to provoke people by saying something so wildly out of touch that suggests they didn't even read the book.

We'd love if the antis just stopped and let the Nick fans live in peace. But Nick is such an interesting character that even people who hate him can't keep his name out of their mouths.

Hey!

So since this was sent, we have received confirmation of the season two renewal. While it's possible it may take them time to film again due to the rising demand for Chase, she likely signed onto The Testaments as a priority project, meaning that the needs of this show come before anything else she gets involved in. Filming will most likely begin in September or October, as is standard for most of the Gilead universe seasons (the only exception was S5 of tht which began in February and ended in August).

Filming movies is very quick- they average a couple months at most, even for big productions like the superhero films which often require many more reshoots compared to an average drama. So if she were to get involved in such a project, it wouldn't be overwhelmingly demanding. Marketing feels like it takes up a lot of time, but she can easily do a lot of that from Toronto.

Hey!

This comment makes us think of this meme haha:

They also made a parallel to Offred getting picked up by the eyes at the end of the book with Becka getting taken away and Garth telling her it's alright like book Nick did. If they really try to put book Nick into Garth and making him look useless they truly have lost the plot of the story. What trying to make book Nick look Bad too? Thankfully Margaret Atwood made that impossible.

Hey!

That's an interesting observation haha. We used to go deep into Max's social media behaviour to get a sense of his feelings and what could happen.

While it's possible Brad not sharing the renewal news in an indicator that Garth dies this season, we don't see it as too likely. There's too much left to do with Garth to get rid of him so early on. Plus he's the only close in age male character to the main group of female characters. It'd be a poor choice to limit themselves to younger girls and older men when Garth and his peer group have so much world building potential. What's more likely is that Brad is either busy (we have no idea how active he is online or what projects he could be working on) or he's simply unsatisfied with the material he was given and the less than ideal fan reaction to the character. He likely expected a more dynamic supportive rebel character that fans enjoyed than what he ended up getting. We can certainly see why he mentioned in an interview that Garth and Nick aren't all that alike aside from the literal standing they possess in Gilead.

That's yet another uncreative parallel to do. They really need to stop trying to make Garth into Nick. It's just not working. Nick fans don't like it, neutrals don't like it, antis don't like it. They should have left him as his own character (and in the same breath, they should have bloody well respected who Nick was in the books and first five seasons of the show).