#nick blaine

[eunoiakt]

He lived a violent and dishonest life

So says the woman who willingly fucked another woman’s husband, demanded he leave her, and is responsible for the deaths of countless innocents.

[just-b-yourself]

The Handmaid's Tale 4x9

-Keep yourself safe. Try and be happy.

Nick sees his daughter for the very last time...💔

[glasskey]

I never post these, but yeah….pay attention because ALL of this 👇👇👇👇👇

[otp-after-dark]

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE: Bruce Miller re-read Atwood's book before season six and somehow still ended it like that?!!!!!!

I’ve read Bruce Miller’s foreword to the series finale script of The Handmaid’s Tale three times now and I still can’t wrap my head around it. This man claims to have re-read the novel — in detail — as he crafted the final episode. He invokes Margaret Atwood. He quotes his early conversations with Elisabeth Moss. He talks about wanting to follow the “tonal spirit” of the novel and do no harm. And then he turns around and delivers an ending that does exactly what the book warns us against: reducing a woman to her biological function, erasing the revolutionary power of love, and pretending that silence is some kind of feminist triumph.

I’m sorry, what book did you read?

Because I read the one where Offred says:

“But this is wrong. Nobody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die from.”

I read the one where the Commander smugly says:

“You can fulfill your biological destiny in peace.” And Offred — just like June in Season 1 — says: “Love.”

That one-word answer is the thesis of the entire story. It’s the refusal. It’s the rebellion. It’s what makes The Handmaid’s Tale not just a dystopia, but a fight to remain human inside it. Love isn’t a luxury in Atwood’s novel — it’s oxygen. It’s the one thing Gilead can’t fully regulate or control. And Offred clings to it in the only form she can have it: Nick. 

And Bruce Miller read that, and still decided to end the show with June betraying that love, not because she had to, not because it cost too much, but because now, apparently, she’s too feminist for it. Too self-actualized for desire. Too “strong” to need passion. So instead of choosing the love that saved her, the love she repeatedly chose in Gilead, she goes back to her “first home,” takes up a pen, and becomes… a mother. A recorder. A symbol. Alone. Again.

I can't with these writers.

He calls it “bittersweet.” He says he didn’t want to leave viewers asking “what happens next,” and yet… we’re not left wondering. We’re left feeling gutted. We’re left with a story that once championed autonomy and complexity and love and now says: actually, it was always about the children. Always about the womb. Always about going back to tell the tale so other women can do better while the woman who lived it is left with nothing but the role Gilead gave her in the first place.

What makes this even worse is that he clearly knows what the book says. He quotes it. He reveres it. He says it made him want to be a writer. So how do you admire something that much and still miss its entire point?

Because you can’t read “We make love each time as if we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there will never be any more” and think love is incidental.

You can’t read “That word, made flesh” and think Nick was just a placeholder.

You can’t read��“It’s lack of love we die from” and then kill the love and call it feminist.

And don’t tell me it’s to set up The Testaments. Don’t tell me the love story had to die to make room for the “real” revolution. Love was the revolution. June and Nick’s love was the only thing in Gilead that wasn’t arranged, coerced, or broken. It was the last real thing they had. And the fact that this show walked all the way up to that truth and then turned away is what makes this ending feel not just wrong, but cowardly.

Bruce Miller read The Handmaid’s Tale, and instead of writing a finale where June lives her truth, or chooses her heart, or even just acknowledges that what she had with Nick mattered. He wrote her back into the house where it all started. Alone. Reflecting. Recording. As if that is justice. As if that is enough.

It’s not.

[jesperfahxey]

THE HANDMAID'S TALE 1.08 Jezebels

[boycottthetestaments]

📌 Let’s be clear — this isn’t thoughtful writing. It’s retroactive justification.

Bruce Miller’s recent transcript from his interview on YouTube, revealed that there was no clear arc planned for Nick Blaine. His ending wasn’t earned. It wasn’t intentional. And Bruce contradicts himself in nearly every breath. Here’s the breakdown:

🔹 1. “We didn’t plan it.”

“I don’t think there was any big decision about what to do with Nick.”

→ Translation: They wrote him into a corner and called it depth.

🔹 2. “It’s a violent world.”

“We didn’t think about ‘I need to kill these characters’… it was such a violent world…”

→ Translation: The world did it, not the writers! Blame Gilead, not our lazy arc decisions!

🔹 3. “He made his choice when he got married.”

“He would never leave his pregnant wife… that was the choice.”

→ Translation: They’re pretending Nick never struggled. That he never risked anything. That his loyalty to June was meaningless.

🔹 4. “He chose the winning side.”

“He didn’t say ‘my side.’ He said ‘the winning side’… because the winning side means safe.”

→ Translation: They want to strip him of agency while also calling him a coward.

🔹 5. “He’s intimate with June, Lawrence, Rose…”

→ Translation: They’re confusing emotional complexity with narrative incoherence. Nick’s intimacy with June is not the same as his political dealings with Lawrence or his performative marriage to Rose. This is gaslighting.

🔹 6. “He has a loving moral core.”

“That’s the man June fell in love with… that’s who he is.”

→ So then why didn’t the writing reflect that?

📣 This isn’t interpretation. It’s contradiction.

Bruce Miller talks like he’s trying to sound profound, but it all falls apart under scrutiny. The writing didn’t reflect what he’s claiming now. And fans aren’t confused, we’re just not buying the spin.

🧠 Nick Blaine’s arc wasn’t confusing. It was rewritten. There was clear guidance from Margaret Atwood and everyone, except for Nick, ended where their story begins in The Testaments.

Bruce Miller is a Fucking Liar!!

[supporter-of-my-fav-ships]

Nick x June - The Handmaid's Tale - Season 1, 2017

[daemyra-fire]

Happy Father's Day to Nick Blaine

who deserved to be Holly's father, and that opportunity was taken away from him.

[skyshipper]

THE HANDMAID'S TALE - SEASON 6, EPISODE 6 "No. You’d be you. You’d be good, kind and brave. And very, very handsome. I definitely would have noticed that."

[ofjonsafame]

What an insufferable prick omg.

This scene with Luke really cemented for me how horrible he was. Nick never uses June’s suffering as a weapon, he just does what he can to alleviate it, whenever he can.

Luke wants some big come to Jesus moment of sorrow from June. It’s kinda sick honestly. Like yeah it’s crazy but it’s normal for her now, and he STILL wasn’t getting how serious the danger was. All he wanted to do was talk about how it made him feel.

Anyone who has suffered knows the worst thing is hearing people say that your suffering also made others suffer, which is basically what he’s saying to her here.

Yeah the situation is bad and sucks, you don’t need to point out the obvious?! Unreal.

Luke is the type of person I can’t stand, he’s a wallower, he does nothing but insists on feeling bad for himself and non stop explaining why this is an unfair scenario for them to be in. He’s all talk, no action, all bravado, no strength of character. It’s all about what it feels like to HIM, how crazy it is to HIM, how hard it is to see her locked up for HIM, and in the final season, see look at HIM you underestimated him.

Insufferable through and through, truly.

In comparison, Nick knows that June has suffered beyond what he can possibly imagine, and doesn’t need to provoke her wounds. He suffers but never says anything (other than the single time), he just acts. He hates what she goes through but knows that him bringing it up and pounding into her how terrible her situation is will only add fuel to the fire. Especially for someone like June, she needs action, words only make it worse for her.

I hate essentially everything Luke does to be honest, starting from his very first introduction. People use the holly thing as some gotcha card but like what was he going to do? I mean Emily basically dropped the kid on his doorstep. Forgive me for not finding that to be the pinnacle of manhood and sacrifice.

Nick’s motivation is always to help June, to make her feel better, less trapped, more calm. It has nothing to do with him, her seeing his achievements, or proving himself. He doesn’t give a fuck about any of that. Because he knows how serious this is.

Lukes motive is always to prove himself, show how useful he can be, be a ‘man’ as he so degradingly puts it.

Selfishness VS selflessness.

[its-carstairs]

help, I'm still at the restaurant

[just-b-wilde]

The Handmaid’s Tale Timeline

Thanks everyone for your comments. I’m going to dig a little deeper into the data.

So what do we know or suspect?

• June was born in 1983. She mentions her age (34) in episode 2x02.

• Luke was born in 1980, mentioned in 1x06.

• According to fan wiki, Nick was born in 1990, but this was never confirmed in the show.

• Janine was born on September 30, 1992 — this is written on her file in 4x08.

• Hannah was born in 2009, according to June’s documentation. In 5x03, it’s mentioned that Hannah is 12 years old.

• Nichole/Holly was born in 2017, according to June’s records.

• Angela/Charlotte was born at the beginning of Season 1 and is still very little at the end of that season when June finds out she’s pregnant. We can assume Angela is about a year older than Holly, born in 2016.

• Caleb’s birth date is unknown, but in Season 3 it’s mentioned that he died four years ago, already as a child of Gilead. It’s also said it’s been five years since the women became Handmaids (3x10).

• When June gets to Canada, it’s mentioned that she had spent seven years in Gilead.

• June returns to Canada and Serena finds out she’s pregnant in Season 4.

• Noah is born at the end of Season 5 and still appears very young at the end of Season 6. Nick tells June in Season 5 that Rose is pregnant, and in Season 6 she still hasn’t given birth — so the time gap is less than nine months.

What does this suggest?

• Hannah was five years old when she was taken from her family. By the end of the series, she would be 13.

• Holly should be 5 years old by the end of the series, and Angela should be 6. However, Holly definitely doesn’t look like a five-year-old in Season 6.

• Gilead apparently came into existence around 2014, and June stayed there until 2021.

• At the beginning of the story, June had already spent two years in her first placement.

• Season 1 takes place in 2016. Season 2 in 2017.

• Season 3 would be in 2019, so she could have stayed with Lawrence for around two years.

• By Season 4, it should already be 2021, when June arrives in Canada. But that feels like too long a period for how much story space is actually covered.

• Seasons 5 and 6 appear to take place between 2021/2022.

• By the end of the story, June should be 39 years old, Nick 32, and Janine 30.

What definitely doesn't fit in the story?

• In 6x07, a date (26/11/2024) is visible in Nick’s car — but in the context of the story, it couldn’t possibly be 2024. It’s most likely just the actual filming date.

• In 4x08, June says she came to the Waterfords in 2017 — but that doesn’t make sense, as that’s also the year when Holly was supposed to be born.

• And as I mentioned, Holly doesn't match her supposed age in the story at all.

[just-b-yourself]

"He reaped what he sowed. He lived a violent & dishonest life"

" He’s so deep underground he needs a breathing tube.” - Margaret Atwood

Each and every one of those scenes represent a moment where Nick fought against Gilead, in his own way. By becoming an eye after the suicide of the Handmaid at the Waterford's. By denouncing the actions of commander Guthrie. By working underground with Mayday, supplying the women trapped in Jezebel's. He got the letters out of Gilead, giving credit to Luke. He killed Putnam. Pointed a gun on Fred's head to allow June and Holly / Nichole to escape. Helped Serena against Cushing. Delivered Fred to June. Organised with Mayday the first attempt of June's escape. Collected informations about Hannah for June. Punched Lawrence in the face in front of every other commanders. Made a deal with Tuello to keep June and his daughter safe. Killed two guardians to save Luke and Moira. And so much more...

So, would a true believer, a nazi, a villain have done any of that ? Nick was smart, smarter than most. He knew that in order to survive, he had to keep a low profile. He fought in the shadows. But fought nevertheless. He just didn't expect to be betrayed by the woman he loved, the woman he tried so hard to save for so many years... She had a choice. And she made it.

[capykate]

It would seem impossible to get any angrier, but each time these writers hit a new low.

Mark and Serena are now our reference to Casablanca. Meanwhile Nick, whose last name is FUCK LIKE A CASABLANCA CHARACTER, fuck off

"Deadline’s It Starts on the Page (Drama) features standout drama series scripts in 2025 Emmy contention." - if THIS is an standout script, Hollywood is fucked

🤡

[otp-after-dark]

Atwood Gave Us Love. The Show Gave Us Motherhood. (plus: lots of book references about love)

It’s weeks later and still unbelievable to me that after everything, after five seasons of resistance and rage and survival and pain, the THT writers chose this path. That The Handmaid’s Tale, which once fought so hard to dismantle Gilead’s ideology, is now echoing and affirming it. That it dares to let Fred Waterford be right.

“You can fulfill your biological destiny in peace. What else is there to live for?” June answers with one word: “Love.”

It felt like the clearest rejection of Gilead’s entire philosophy: a moment that reaffirmed the show’s feminist spine. June wasn’t choosing safety or submission. She was choosing herself. She was choosing love. And to see that truth now being unraveled, to watch the narrative quietly suggest that her real fulfillment lies in motherhood, not in passion, not in resistance, not in choice. I’m still in utter disbelief. It’s not just disappointing. It’s fundamentally anti-feminist.

That’s why that scene in Season 1 haunts me. It’s not rhetorical. It’s not idealistic. It’s a visceral rejection of everything Fred stands for. June isn’t trying to win an argument. She’s reclaiming something sacred. Something Gilead tried to erase. She’s talking about Nick. About a love that refused to die even when everything else was stripped away.

And that moment wasn’t just powerful in the show. It directly echoes the original exchange in the book, where the Commander says nearly the same thing:

“This way they’re protected, they can fulfill their biological destinies in peace. With full support and encouragement. Now, tell me. You’re an intelligent person, I like to hear what you think. What did we overlook?” “Love,” I said. “Love?” said the Commander. “What kind of love?” “Falling in love,” I said. “Oh yes,” he said. “I’ve read the magazines… Was it really worth it, falling in love?”

Atwood gives us the answer with everything that follows. Through the way Offred holds onto Nick, not because he is a hero or a savior or even safe, but because he is real. Because what they have exists outside of role and function and fear. Because he sees her. Because love, in a world like this, is resistance.

And yet, in the show, they’re walking that answer back. June’s love for Nick, the thing that made her human again, that brought her back into her body, her desire, her agency, is being quietly pushed aside. Not because it stopped meaning something, but because it’s inconvenient. Because it doesn’t “fit.” Because Luke is the man who represents family and healing and safety and fatherhood. And Nick? Nick is chaos. Nick is longing. Nick is choice.

It’s the same choice she makes in the book. Over and over again, Atwood writes about love as something radical. Something terrifying. Something that gives you back to yourself. There’s that beautiful line:

“But this is wrong, nobody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die from.”

June doesn’t cling to Nick because she needs sex. She clings to him because she needs love. Because that’s what Gilead stripped from her, not just bodily autonomy, but emotional truth. And Nick gives her that back. Not perfectly. Not without pain. But honestly.

Atwood makes that point again and again: that love is remembered not just as a feeling but as something felt in the body, something vivid and grounded and alive:

“I kneel on my red velvet cushion. I try to think about tonight, about making love, in the dark, in the light reflected off the white walls. I remember being held.”

That’s what love is under Gilead: not a fantasy, not an escape, but a memory you fight to keep. Something that tethers you to your own humanity. A flash of being seen.

There’s also this:

“We make love each time as if we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there will never be any more, for either of us, with anyone, ever… Being here with him is safety; it’s a cave, where we huddle together while the storm goes on outside. This is a delusion, of course.”

Even when it’s not safe, even when it’s built on delusion, it matters. Because that’s what it means to choose love in the middle of collapse. That’s what June and Nick always were. They were the cave. They were the thing that made the pain bearable.

So how can the show now pretend that motherhood was the point all along?

That what June needed was not passion or partnership or desire, but a stable household with a man who didn’t know her in the dark? How is that feminism?

It isn’t.

Because what they’re doing now, whether they realize it or not, is elevating motherhood at the expense of womanhood. They’re saying June is fulfilled not because she found love in a hopeless place, but because she returned to her “destiny.” And that is a cruel message for any woman but especially for the ones who’ve already had their personhood erased.

It says: you can be complicated, but not too complicated. You can burn it all down, but in the end, you better come home. And what does “home” mean? Luke. Family. Safety. Function. Motherhood. A box.

It raises up the white mother. Again. It centers her journey, her pain, her peace, and leaves everyone else behind. It positions June as exceptional because she gets to go back. She gets to “choose” the right kind of womanhood, the kind that’s quiet and soft and digestible.

But June wasn’t supposed to be digestible. She was supposed to be a flame. A scream. A woman who wanted and didn’t apologize for it. Who believed that survival without love wasn’t enough. And now? The show is telling us it was. That in the end, Fred was right. Love was just a myth. And peace is when you stop asking for more.

And worst of all: in the end, she betrays that love. Not with heartbreak. Not with sacrifice. But with a kind of self-righteous, untouchable performance of feminism that’s been completely stripped of its emotional core. She lets Nick go, not because it’s too hard, not because it’s too dangerous, but because the show has decided she doesn’t need love anymore. Just motherhood. Just survival. And that’s what she’s left with. A man she doesn’t really see. And nothing else.

Ick. Ick.

But that’s not what the book says. That’s not what the story was built on. Love was always the thing. Even when it hurt. Even when it faded. Even when it was only there in the margins. Love was the refusal to become numb. It was what separated you from them.

“The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh.”

Nick was the incarnation. He wasn’t abstract. He was real. And now the show wants to tell us that wasn’t enough?

I can live with ambiguity. I can live with tragedy and heartbreak. I can even live with June and Nick not ending up together, if that choice were rooted in character, in reality, in the mess of love and loss. But I can’t live with this story ending by saying love didn’t matter. That it was a phase, a detour, a narrative inconvenience. That a woman’s purpose begins and ends with what her body can do. That desire, freedom, and selfhood are indulgences, and motherhood is the only path to redemption.

That isn’t nuance. That’s a return to the very ideology this story once existed to destroy.

And it’s not just about June. It’s about what the show is saying to all of us. That in the end, we’ll all come home to the same role. That no matter how much we burn or scream or fight, we are just vessels. That our “destiny” is written in blood and womb and silence. That love, the kind that upends you, defines you, liberates you, is less important than being someone else’s stability. Someone else’s idea of safe.

As women, we are more than our biological destiny. We are more than mothers, more than partners, more than sacrifices. We are allowed to want. We are allowed to choose love. We are allowed to choose ourselves.

And I will never accept a story that asks us to forget that.

[vampiricalxdata]

I’ve tried to let it go but I can’t.

Everything THT did after the season 4 finale has been trash.

Seasons 5&6 could have been Nick & June uniting and becoming a part of the resistance.

It would have been so much more powerful to see the inner workings of a rebellion and the juxtaposition of June and Nick’s inner conflicts as they navigate change and the parts of themselves that were complicit in the rise of Gilead (yes, BOTH of them).

To move beyond the books and continue the tv series doesn’t mean an abandonment of the original themes and motifs. It’s about asking the right questions: What do those look like post escape? How do they present in Canada? Do they evolve or stay the same? What does the evolution of these themes look like?

Nick giving Fred to June isn’t as simple as, “his love language is acts of service.” Dude committed treason. That’s as much a declaration of loyalty as any and a flag flown that is not Gilead is inherently traitorous. If you didn’t think he was anti before, there can be no doubt now.

But they would have us believe his love is one dimensional. That it only extends as far as his reach to June. Sure, okay. Don’t show us what allyship looks like. Don’t show us what love and strength and support can do for a person who believed they might never see that for themselves.

And June whose greatest strength is her heart— what an opportunity to show what happens to someone whose love is twisted and manipulated, not just by Fred, but by Serena. There was an easy route between justified violence and a path to healing. And that path could have been lit by the same beacons who helped her find the strength to stay alive in Gilead: Janine, Alma, Brianna, Emily, Rita, and Nick. Hell even Aunt Lydia, who promised to watch over baby Holly.

Not to mention that’s also your in for a Lydia redemption. If June must be the pole all the ribbons tie back to, then why not actually use her. Lydia could easily feel a higher calling to June’s girls after being made a de facto godmother. To believe it is now well within her divine right to keep an eye on Hannah. Cut to her seeing the actual quality of life for these girls who are children and therefore innocent and pure insofar as a Lydia character is concerned, as opposed to these “ungodly” women she’s attempting to make “righteous.” It’s as good a catalyst for change as any.

And in all of their desperation to put moms on a pedestal, they overlooked an opportunity to showcase motherhood in all its aspects. Because guess what? SOME MOMS ARE BAD MOMS. Some are bad people. Some are hateful, selfish, oppressive people. “June was appealing to the mom in Serena.” SERENA IS A BAD PERSON. SERENA STEALS BABIES. SERENA BEATS AND ASSAULTS OTHER WOMEN. SERENA USES CHILDREN AS MANIPULATION TACTICS. SERENA BELIEVES IN GILEAD AND ALL ITS TENETS.

She believes possibly more than Fred, at least to start. In the flashbacks we see how she pushed him toward Gilead from the beginning. It’s Serena giving the speeches, not Fred. It’s Serena in the movie theatre invigorating the fight in them, not Fred. Even as he stood conflicted, wanting to fight for her voice in that boardroom, she insisted it was a sacrifice she had to make. When she’s lying wounded in the hospital, she basically calls him a pussy so he runs and kills the dude. I’m not saying Fred isn’t bad on his own, but to quote that dumbass traditional saying (and these two are nothing if not traditional): Fred is the head, but Serena’s the neck.

Basically, Serena is the Commander and Fred is her soldier.

Until she’s not.

And only then, when she feels just a fraction of the weight of the life she fought for; only when she’s uncomfortable, does she care. So, when Serena fights for women to read it’s only because she wants to be able to read.

Because Serena only fights oppression after it oppresses her. Because it’s not about the rights of the people, it’s about her individual autonomy. And the second she realizes a version of power exists for her in DC she reneges on her decision to let Holly go.

And to that I have to wonder: what kind of man would a woman like that raise?

But sure, let’s redeem Serena. Let’s give her a fighting chance. Because she’s a mother and all mothers are inherently good right?

Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

And it’s infuriating because an actual impactful ending was right there.

Lydia vs Serena — 2 women with a similar belief system. One who can change. One who doesn’t want to.

Nick vs. Fred — Men compelled by the women they love. One who chooses to liberate. One who chooses to oppress.

These 4 characters who are moved and transformed, for better or worse, by the roles of June, Hannah, and Holly— with June as the narrative voice at the center and her daughters as the plot device that pushes her story, and the stories of everyone around them, forward.

Because humans are not stagnate. Stubborn though we may be, even when we fall into the worst of ourselves we are still moving.

Instead we watched them all rock back and forth on the same stupid pattern to the point that the only option for an ending was heavy handed soap box monologuing.

Instead they offered up a story that lacked hope. That lacked the belief that love can change us. That implied trauma makes us cruel and single minded entities for revenge. That forgiveness can only come to those whose self lies in their small children. That salvation lies in your ability to give birth.

Because in the end, if Serena could not have conceived Noah, would she still have been worthy of her redemption?