Let’s be real. By the time we hit Handmaid's Tale Season 3 Episode 3, "Useful," the show was already starting to test our patience with June Osborne’s plot armor. We’d just watched her refuse a literal golden ticket to Canada at the end of the second season. She stayed for Hannah. We get it. But episode three is where the psychological rubber really meets the road, and honestly, it’s one of the most frustrating, brilliant, and uncomfortable hours of television Hulu has ever put out. It’s the episode where June stops just being a victim and starts trying to be a player in a game she doesn't fully understand yet.
Commander Lawrence is the center of this storm.
Bradley Whitford plays him with this chaotic, academic detachment that makes you want to punch him and ask him for a reading list at the same time. In this episode, he forces June to confront the "useful" parts of herself, but not in the way she expects. He takes her to a warehouse—a terrifying, cold, industrial space—where women are being sorted like cattle. It’s the "Colonies or the Kitchen" moment. He tells her to pick five. Five women to save from certain death by radiation.
She refuses at first. Of course she does.
The Brutality of Commander Lawrence’s Lesson
The dynamic in Handmaid's Tale Season 3 Episode 3 shifts the show’s entire moral axis. Up until this point, the conflict was mostly "Gilead is evil, June is good." But Lawrence disrupts that. He challenges the idea that moral purity is a luxury you can afford in a fascist state. When he forces June to choose which Marthas get to live, he’s forcing her to become like him. He’s stripping away her status as a martyr and making her an accomplice.
It's savage.
She tries to play the hero. She looks for "useful" women—a chemist, an engineer, a doctor. It’s a utilitarian nightmare. Lawrence is basically saying, "If you want to be a leader in the resistance, you have to learn how to play god with people's lives." It’s a far cry from the hopeful rebellion we saw in the earlier seasons.
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While June is dealing with the intellectual sadism of Lawrence, we also see the cracks in Serena Joy. She’s back at her mother’s house, mourning a baby that was never hers. The cinematography here is bleak. Everything is washed out, gray, and lonely. Serena is a monster, we know this, but Yvonne Strahovski plays her with such a shattered, hollow energy that you almost—almost—feel bad for her. She’s realized that in the world she helped build, she has zero power without a man or a child. She’s just a woman in a blue dress waiting to be told what to do.
Why "Useful" is a Turning Point for the Resistance
You can’t talk about Handmaid's Tale Season 3 Episode 3 without talking about the Marthas. This is the episode where the network starts to feel real. It’s not just handmaids whispering in grocery stores anymore. It’s a logistical operation.
June is trying to navigate this underground railroad while living in the house of the man who literally designed the economy of Gilead. It’s a wild paradox. Lawrence is the architect of the nightmare, yet he’s the one allowing the Marthas to run a resistance cell out of his basement. Why? Because he’s bored? Because he’s guilty? The show never quite gives us a straight answer, and that’s why it works.
There’s a specific scene where June is in the basement, and the tension is so thick you could cut it with a carving knife. She’s trying to prove she can be an asset. But she’s messy. She’s impulsive. The Marthas don't trust her because she’s a "walking heart attack." They aren't wrong. June’s recklessness is her greatest strength and her most annoying trait.
Breaking Down the "Selection"
When June finally makes her list of five women, it’s a moment of total soul-crushing defeat. She chooses:
- An engineer.
- A technician.
- A teacher.
- Two others who have "skills" Gilead can't ignore.
By making that choice, she admits that Lawrence is right. In a world of limited resources and extreme danger, some lives are "worth" more than others for the sake of the cause. It’s the death of her innocence. If Season 1 was about survival and Season 2 was about escape, Handmaid's Tale Season 3 Episode 3 is about the high cost of power.
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The Visual Language of Episode 3
The directors (specifically Amma Asante for this block) really leaned into the contrast between the opulence of the Commander’s homes and the visceral filth of the "salvaging" areas. Look at the way the camera lingers on June’s face. The extreme close-ups. We see every pore, every twitch of her eye. Elisabeth Moss is the queen of the "internal monologue face," and she uses it to full effect here.
There's a lot of talk about the "male gaze" in cinema, but this show uses a "trauma gaze." It forces you to sit in the discomfort. When June stands over those files, looking at the photos of women who will likely die because she didn't pick them, the silence is deafening. There’s no soaring soundtrack. Just the sound of paper shuffling.
What Most Fans Miss About Serena’s Arc Here
People love to hate Serena. For good reason! But in this episode, her walk into the ocean is a massive symbolic beat. She’s not trying to kill herself—not really. She’s trying to feel something other than the stifling control of her mother and the ghost of her husband.
Her mother, Pamela, is a piece of work. She tells Serena that she’s nothing without Fred. It’s a reminder that the patriarchy isn't just enforced by men; it’s upheld by women who are scared of losing their own small slice of the pie. Serena’s realization that she has been "discarded" is the catalyst for her eventual (and temporary) alliance with June. It’s all about leverage.
Factual Context: The Real Impact of This Episode
When "Useful" aired, it sparked a ton of debate among critics about whether the show was becoming "misery porn." Some felt the warehouse scene was too much. But if you look at the historical inspirations Margaret Atwood used for the original book—and that the showrunners continue to pull from—the "selection" process is a direct reference to real-world regimes.
The episode holds a solid rating on IMDb, usually hovering around an 8.0, which is high but lower than the explosive finales. It’s a "bridge" episode. It sets the stakes for the rest of the season. Without the moral compromise June makes here, the later episodes where she moves 52 children out of the country wouldn't feel earned. She had to learn how to be cold.
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How to Process the "Useful" Philosophy
If you're rewatching this or seeing it for the first time, pay attention to the word "useful." It’s repeated like a mantra.
- Gilead defines "useful" as biological: Can you breed?
- The Resistance defines "useful" as tactical: Can you build a bomb or fix a radio?
- Lawrence defines "useful" as intellectual: Can you survive the guilt of your own choices?
June is caught between all three. She’s no longer just a Handmaid. She’s becoming a commander in her own right, even if she doesn't have the title.
The ending of the episode, where she tells Lawrence "I’m moving them," is her reclaiming her agency. She’s done being the chess piece. She wants to be the one moving the players. It’s a chilling moment because we realize that to save her daughter, June might have to become someone we don’t recognize anymore.
Actionable Takeaways for Your Next Rewatch
To truly get the depth of what’s happening in this specific hour of television, keep these things in mind:
- Watch the background Marthas: Their movements are much more coordinated than in previous seasons. They are the true backbone of the episode.
- Listen to the sound design: The lack of music in the warehouse is intentional. It makes the environment feel more like a factory than a prison.
- Compare Serena and June: This episode mirrors their positions. Both are "homeless" in a way—June emotionally and Serena literally. They are both looking for a way back to a life that no longer exists.
- Note the lighting in Lawrence's house: It’s always shadowed. He’s a man who lives in the gray areas, and his house reflects that moral ambiguity.
The show hasn't been the same since this episode. It pushed the characters into a corner where there were no "good" options left. Only "useful" ones.
If you're looking to dive deeper into the lore, check out the original Margaret Atwood sequel, The Testaments. It provides a lot of the "why" behind the Marthas' network that the show only hints at during this season. It also helps explain how the power structures June is currently fighting eventually start to crumble from the inside out, often due to the very "useful" people the Commanders thought they had under their thumbs.
Next Steps for Fans:
- Re-examine the "Selection" List: Go back and pause the screen during the warehouse scene. The names and occupations on those files aren't random; they represent the specific infrastructure needs of a growing rebellion.
- Analyze the Lawrence-June Power Dynamic: Watch for how June begins to mimic Lawrence's speech patterns in later episodes. It starts right here in episode 3.
- Track the Blue and Red Imagery: Notice how the colors of the costumes start to bleed into the environment. In "Useful," the harsh whites and grays represent a stripping away of the rigid caste system as the characters face life-and-death choices.