'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 4 Episode 4: Rita outs Serena's secret to Fred, giving them reason to be together
Spoilers ahead for 'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 4 Episode 4 titled 'Milk'
'The Handmaid's Tale' latest episode draws out narratives on two parallel plot threads -- June's (Elizabeth Moss) escape and Serena's (Yvonne Strahovski) escape. Serena and Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) were June's first Commander family, and through Nicole, June had managed to drive a wedge between the commander and his wife. She sent Nicole to Canada with Emily, and the separation from her daughter is what really pushed Serena into turning against Fred, step by step.
Now that she has, and has learned that she is pregnant, the first thing that we expected to see was the bridging of the gap built between Serena and Fred. Instead, Serena initially tried to keep the news of her pregnancy from Fred.
In order to disprove Fred's claims about the human rights violations she committed in Gilead, Serena attempts to get help from someone who she considers an "old friend". She asks permission to have Rita, the Martha who served her in Gilead, visit her. This is despite knowing that Rita had indeed come clean about the Waterfords, and Rita is surprised that Serena has reached out to her.
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When Rita hears about Serena's pregnancy, she calls it a miracle. Knowing how Rita and Serena had also bonded over Nicole previously, we understand the moment of camaraderie that arises out of this exchange.
But Serena miscalculates this small moment as being a renewal of their bond and this is perhaps why her best-laid plans begin to crumble. Her plan was to get Rita to corroborate her claims that she was forced to do what she did in Gilead. With Rita helping her, she believes that the two of them could very well be on their way to becoming a part of the same household again, sans Fred.
But she utterly disregards Rita's feelings over the matter. Instead of asking for help, Serena ends up just sending her papers that will help in giving a statement. This reminds Rita of the way she was treated like a piece of property and pushes her to visit Fred. She wants to tell him that things between her and his family are over and she doesn't want to be dragged into the battle between Serena and Fred. That is when she even throws the sonogram in Fred's face before leaving.
We believe that news of the pregnancy will end up bringing Fred and Serena back together again because of the teasers and trailers for the upcoming Episode 5. One showed Serena and Fred going out for a movie and popcorn, like on a date, the other showed Serena back in her 'wife uniform' standing by her husband's side with a big smile on her face.
'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 4 new episodes stream on Hulu every Wednesday.