I have been fascinated by the whole concept of the handmaid's tale (book) and simultaneously even watched the movie and it felt kind of incomplete?? I felt sort of dissatisfied with the movie, so, when I watched the 1st season, I was pleasantly surprised because I liked the whole shift in the cinematography and shift of the voice and how updated it seemed. Some additions, alterations seemed a good change to me like how they did not go in a linear progression of the timeline, instead just threw us in the story, and just how overall it felt more in sync with the times.
So, frankly I would give it a 3.5 stars because I feel it consistently deteriorates with the quality of the writing throughout the progression of the subsequent seasons. The amount of bullshitting is insane for a series so well written and well shot at the beginning. My biggest ick with it was the blatant commercialization of June's suffering and her heroic adamance to save people. Like in s2 itself, she got 3 different chances to escape but chose not to which actually made her actual escape kinda weak to be honest. June is shown to have this unwavering hope and faith that things would change which I feel gives an uneasy shift from the narrative of an ordinary woman to a tale of a brave knight, which to me feels the entire opposite of the book.
Another thing which irritates me is the crazy amount of plot armour June and people close to her have, like it's obvious and nonsensical.
The next aspect in which I think the series fails is its fear to confront (again a side effect of commercialization) - like the balance between the dystopia and utopia in it seems shaky - there is no addressal of racism, good men also being misogynists, internalized misogyny amongst the marthas and the handmaids, just the petty hatred amongst women as a result of being constantly pitted against each other/ I am done ranting - however, the show does a nice job of being a thriller, sometimes, not well though, albeit.
season 6 - The plot armour of June is still pretty crazy but I overall I feel it is more solid than season 5 and a fitting ending at that.