June makes a recovery after her botched suicide attempt. Serena tries to make nice with June, but reverts to her harsh ways when June requests to see Hannah. Eden confides with June her concerns about Nick being a Gender Traitor, so she convinces Nick to have sex with Eden to allay any suspicion. The Second Ofglen sets off a bomb in the new Rachel and Leah Centre.
This episode provides examples of:
- Babies Make Everything Better: Appears to be inverted, Serena's gunshot wound appears to destroy her uterus and likely nixes any plans to have children naturally. This is later played straight as Serena is pregnant in Season 4.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Serena's presumed shooter is captured, we see him whimpering as Waterford prepares to shoot him. But the camera pans out to reveal the shooter's partner and Waterford promptly shoots her instead to make him suffer.
- Boom, Headshot!: In the flashbacks, an enraged Fred does this to the female partner of the man suspected of shooting his wife.
- Cliffhanger: The Second Ofglen walks into the Commanders' conference at the new Rachel and Leah Center as a suicide bomber. We only see the explosion happen before the credits roll.
- Dramatic Irony: In the "Before" we see Serena at a college campus where the students are outraged by her talk of "woman should know their place." The college head tells them that Serena "has the freedom to say what she wants" but their hostile reaction prevents her from ever making a speech...which could never be uttered in public in the present.
- Fan Disservice: Nick's sex scene with Eden is played this way: not only is Nick having sex with a minor, but the act itself is done through a hole in the bedsheet.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Horrific example, but you can see around 20 Handmaids standing on the balcony on the inside of Rachel and Leah Centre as Ofglen detonates her explosives. They are unable to escape and as evidenced by the funeral in the following episode, almost all of them are killed.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: None of the guard detail thought to check the Handmaids for any contraband. Furthermore, there aren't any armed guards visible inside the room where Waterford is speaking. Even if they were offscreen, none of them think about using their firearms to take Ofglen down before she detonates her explosives.
- Kick the Dog: Fred shoots the partner of Serena's suspected shooter to make him suffer. He then has the suspected shooter taken away to be tortured.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Serena's gunshot wound in the flashbacks essentially appears to nix any chance of her getting pregnant normally until we find that she is actually pregnant in Season 4.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": When Second Ofglen raises the bomb's trigger to show the other handmaidens outside, they take the opportunity to run like hell. Not only that, the Commanders assembled (Waterford included) quite literally freak out as Ofglen runs towards the podium to detonate her explosives.
- Mistaken for Gay: Eden and Nick have not had sex since they were married, and Eden confesses this to Offred and her worries that Nick may be a Gender Traitor. Offred explicitly tells Nick to have sex with Eden to avoid suspicion.
- Moral Event Horizon: Fred does a Boom, Headshot! on the female partner of the man suspected of shooting Serena with the intent of making the man suffer.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Eden tells Nick he's going to be a great father, without knowing that June is currently carrying Nick's child.
- Origins Episode: While the Waterfords get more focus in the flashbacks, this trope applies more to Serena as it shows why she is so desperate to steal June's child from her, especially since the character is a lot younger than in the books. Fred also gets a bit of exposure here as well, as we start to see his hostility come out in the aftermath of Serena's shooting.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Fred in the flashback. Having his wife shot in front of him essentially presses his Berserk Button and his determination to hunt the shooter down. And when he believes he has the suspected shooter, he shoots his partner first to make the man suffer his loss.
- Pet the Dog:
- It's not the first time Serena Joy has shown some hollow conditional compassion to Offred, but it is the first time Offred does reciprocate some open mutual kinship with her. All the more devastating when Offred cries to Nick that she really did believe Serena Joy had the decency to empathize with Offred's desire to see Hannah.
- Subverted by Fred. He gets June a picture of Hannah, for which June is genuinely grateful... and then promptly tries to have sex with her. Fortunately, June's able to persuade him to back off because she's "worried about the baby."
- Squick: Both Offred and Nick are disgusted when Offred tells Nick to have sex with Eden. Especially since Eden is a minor.
- Suicide Attack: Done by the second Ofglen at the new Rachel and Leah Center.
