This Canada theory may completely change the game for 'The Handmaid's Tale'

The Handmaid’s Tale is part cautionary tale, part dystopian anti-fantasy, and part voluntarily once-a-week anxiety appointment for its fans.

Since the show eclipsed the plot of the Margaret Atwood book upon which it is based, there has been an increased amount of viewer speculation as to what fresh hell the show will rain upon its unsuspecting viewers in the coming weeks, speculation that is fueled by two dueling parties: those who believe that there may be a happy-ish ending for June, Janine, Moira, Emily, and Nick, and those who think that the show’s dark turns will continue spiraling into a climatically depressing ending where hope will die for good.

The happiest way The Handmaid’s Tale can end is with the dissolution of the Republic of Gilead, an outcome suggested by the frame of The Handmaid’s Tale the book, which takes place 200 years after Gilead’s fall and presents Offred’s story as a first-person source from a dark period of history.

If this is also the endgame of the show, the question of timing becomes paramount — when does Gilead fall and what causes the violent regime to falter? The Handmaid’s Tale may have already laid some clues as to how it might happen, and it involves Canada.

Canada cropped up as a destination for American refugees in the first season, but there have been more references to America’s northward neighbor in Season 2. While Luke and Moira settle into their lives in “Little America,” Commander Waterford and Serena Joy have name-dropped Canada in concerned conversations about the relationship between Gilead and other nations. From these, viewers know that Canadian and British troops have performed military exercises near the Canada/Gilead border and that the Canadians have set trade sanctions against the young totalitarian state in protest of its human rights violations.

In Episode 8 of Season 2, Fred Waterford throws Serena Joy out of his office after she mentions putting together an itinerary for his upcoming trip to Canada, showing that Gilead is alarmed enough about the Canadian situation to send one of their top men to attempt to forge an alliance. This revelation comes shortly after the news of Ofglen’s terrorist attack reaches the American embassy in Canada, which means that the Canadian army (and their British friends at the border) are aware of the destabilizing event.

Basically, Canada might invade Gilead by the end of the season. Fred Waterford is an ineffective leader and speaker whose trip to Canada is unlikely to convince their democratic government that a system of enslavement and institutionalized sex slavery is a great thing for the world, and with troops ready to roll a few hundred miles west of Boston, the Canadians might roll with the momentum Ofglen sparked in her bombing and come through for the formerly united states of America.

Considering that Canada has emerged as the deposed USA’s closest ally and the rest of the United Nations outwardly disapprove of Gilead’s coup, it’s possible that other nations besides the British might join them in an assault on the government. Whether or not the handmaids would survive an attack on the men who enslaved them is another question, and the fates of Gilead big shots like Serena Joy and Fred are also up in the air, but there is still hope for the victims of Gilead.

It’s spelled C-A-N-A-D-A.