The Ceremony in The Handmaid’s Tale is the most horrifying thing on TV today

Joseph Fiennes as Commander Waterford in The Handmaid’s Tale. Photo: Hulu. Acquired via Hulu PR.

The Ceremony in The Handmaid’s Tale is terribly nauseating, unsettling, and the most horrifying type of torture depicted on TV today.

Four episodes in, and viewers of The Handmaid’s Tale have now twice experienced the silent and awkward terror of the ritual known as The Ceremony. The state-sanctioned rape of handmaidens for the purpose of procreation is not only wholly unnecessary in a world that has IVF technology at its fingertips, but it’s also a show of power and dominance for the power-hungry men of Gilead.

Throughout this week’s episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, we learned so much more about the Ceremony, but, if I’m being honest, I can’t even hear that phrase without experiencing a wave of low-level nausea. From uncomfortably direct camera angles to Elisabeth Moss’ haunted performance, the series has done a fantastic job of painting the ritual as exactly what it is: the most terrifying torture a woman can endure.

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Just like rape, the Ceremony isn’t about sex. It’s not even really about procreation. It’s mainly about power and control. It’s a complete and utter subjugation of the female population made to feel inferior, trapped, and powerless over their own fates. Held down by their Commander’s wife, the handmaiden is made to lay as a bridge between the two, providing nothing more than a set of female reproductive organs to be used as an appliance. Via this mandatory copulation window, the handmaidens are violated in every way possible. Yes, there’s the act of unwanted sex, but there’s also the implication that each one will become a vessel, honored to carry the seed of the man whom she belongs to. If she becomes pregnant, the baby isn’t hers. Nor is it the wife’s. It’s his, and his alone.

The Ceremony embodies a blatant and total theft of women’s bodies, souls, and even their very DNA. This sounds like something out of an alien horror film, but we know it’s not. It’s humans using humans. And, more specifically, it’s men using women; a tale as old as time.

Author Margaret Atwood has exhaustively stated that she did not make anything up for her original novel. In fact, the inspiration for The Ceremony comes directly from a passage in the Bible. And the religious fanatics of Gilead have taken that passage and sprinted away with it, taking their sanity far far away from any reality in the modern world.

Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale. Photo: Hulu

However, when it comes to actually explaining to the handmaidens what the Ceremony will actually entail, that’s left to the women. And in the fourth episode of the series, we get to see a group of handmaidens learn firsthand what is expected of them in their new roles. As per the time honored tradition of religious figures dodging sexual questions, Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) doesn’t want to directly tell them what’s going on. Perhaps it’s modesty, perhaps it’s fear, but the brazen Moira (Samira Wiley) finally calls her out and gets an answer. As Lydia explains, a feeling of abject terror sighs throughout the group of women as they realize the final horrific violation required of their prescribed roles as baby makers.

The indignity of it all is enough for Moira and June (aka: Offred) to plan an escape. Their rebellion is electrifying, but June is caught by officials, allowing Moira a window in which to slip away. As penance for her insubordination, June is forced to endure a brutal lashing of her feet. Yet, while this scene is upsetting, physical violence can’t even come close to touching the invisible scars that will eventually be left on her as a result of coerced participation in the Ceremony.

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Yet, no matter what atrocities befall our heroine, she’s a survivor. The handmaidens may be forced to participate in the basest form of torture over and over again, but their spirits will not be broken.

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ episodes 1 – 4 are currently available for streaming on Hulu. New episodes are released every Wednesday.