Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 episode 3 “Devotion”.  So close! For years now, Moira’s – and to a lesser extent, Luke’s – main job on The Handmaid’s Tale has been to wear a knitted beanie while looking concerned about June. Then, it finally looked as though Samira Wiley and O-T Fagbenle’s characters were getting their own plot with its own action and stakes. Lord knows they’ve earned one; there’s only so much even actors of their talent can do with the direction ‘give baby Nichole a bath’.   Luke’s train station sacrifice in the season five finale appeared to be teeing him up for all kinds of potential screentime. Prison, a trial, a release deal… all of which was swerved in favour of sending him and Moira on a Mayday mission into No Man’s Land. Okay, still promising. Then “Devotion” arrived, and revealed that the whole thing was just an excuse to reunite June and Nick, and to reheat TV’s most tepid love story.  With apologies to June/Nick stans (there must be some out there), their chemistry has never lit up the screen for me. The need for Max Minghella’s spy character to be so buttoned up and tamped down in Gilead has left Commander Blaine largely unknowable, even after six seasons. His devotion to June aside, who is Nick? A pragmatic survivor, a double-agent who meets his handler under dramatically lit bridges… Mostly though, Nick’s function is to be another member of the June Osborne fan club. Like Moira and Luke, he orbits June as a satellite. Granted, June is The Handmaid and this is her Tale, but a result of her character’s centrality is that some of the others get overshadowed. That must be why we were treated to a replay of her and Nick’s ‘I love you/I can’t have you’ old favorites instead of, say, some new Moira and Luke momentum. Nina Fiore and John Herrera’s script did well to acknowledge the repetition when June cut Nick off in the middle of one of his now-traditional ‘live well and remember me to our daughter’ speeches to ask who were they kidding. Those two are never going to say goodbye. The failure of Moira and Luke’s mission (codename: This Could Have Been an Email) resulted in a rescue that wasn’t just anticlimactic, but also patronising, and for Luke, humiliating. June showed up like an exasperated mom ticking off her kids, asking them how they could have been so stupid and telling them how worried she’d been. Needing to be saved by his wife’s boyfriend will do nothing for Luke’s feelings of inadequacy, which may be the point if he’s now spurred on to further Mayday action. If Luke goes out in a blaze of glory to save Hannah later this season, it might make good drama, but boy, would it be cruel. After everything they’ve been through, he and Moira deserve to make old bones.  As does Janine, who, thanks to her latest posting in the penultimate circle of Gileadean hell (as Lawrence said, at least it’s not the Colonies), now has intimate access to one of the men on Luke’s kill list. We heard Commander Bell’s name mentioned as a patron of this branch of Jezebels, if that’s what that was. The question is whether Janine has any fight left in her. If not, then at least it’s useful that the Marthas in the brothel there are masked – makes it much easier for anybody wanting to sneak in there disguised as one. Sans cattle prod, a powerless Aunt Lydia cut a pathetic figure in her scenes. Not only is she suffering from some kind of nerve damage, but Lydia also seems to have been taking amnesia pills. You’d think that the story of teenage Esther’s rape last season would have revealed Gilead to her as the unholy sham it is, but still, she was shocked to discover iniquity at the heart of her godly country. What will it take for Lydia to realise the truth, and more tantalisingly, how far is she prepared to go to save her special girl? Speaking of special girls, June was right about Serena always ending back on top. By rights, she should be made mayor of New Bethlehem after that rousing sales pitch. Bringing her back to sell the “safer than Disneyworld” enclave was a masterstroke from Commander Wharton, who spent the episode flirting with her as only the religious right can flirt (‘Praise the lord for blessing you and keeping you looking fiiiiiiine’ etc.) Would Serena and Wharton make the ultimate power couple, or is Wharton sniffing around the striking Viking because he’s old-school Gilead and wants to clip her wings? Episodes one to three of The Handmaid’s Tale season six are streaming now on Hulu in the US. Episode 4 arrives on Tuesday April 15. Season six will air on Channel 4 in the UK at a later date.