In a dystopian near-future, the totalitarian and Christian fundamentalist government of Gilead rules the former United States amidst an ongoing civil war. Society is organized along a new, militarized, hierarchical regime of Bible-inspired social and religious fanaticism and newly-created social classes, in which women are brutally subjugated, and by law are not allowed to work, own property, control money, or read. Widespread infertility due to warfare-induced environmental contamination has resulted in the conscription of the few remaining fertile women — called Handmaids, according to Biblical precedent — who are assigned to the homes of the ruling elite, where they must submit to ritualized sex with their male masters in order to become pregnant and bear children for those men and their wives.

Watching a couple of episodes of this will surely give me nightmares. This is a truly scary vision of the future and it should be a cautionary tale for us all. No doubt do I think there are those who would love to have a society like this. We should all be fearful that our world might end up like this.