I am never not thinking about the way they quote the Beatitudes in The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments. In Season 2 of The Handmaid's Tale, when Aunt Lydia was interrogating June about Emily being a lesbian, Aunt Lydia tells June "Blessed are the meek" (where the line ends "for they shall inherit the Earth"). June being June (and also having been at least familiar with the Bible from before Gilead's rise) responds "Blessed are those who suffer for the cause of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." THEN in the season finale for The Testaments, when Agnes confronts Aunt Vidala about the Aunts' failure to protect Becka (and all the girls, really) Agnes says "Blessed are those who thirst for justice for they shall be satisfied!", which I assume is the Gilead approved version of "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." There is so much to get into there, but to keep it to 2 points: 1) It is so on brand that by the time Hannah is in wife school Gilead would have substituted "justice" (something defined and imposed and meted out by the state) for "righteousness" (something which is a divine or moral thing, not synonymous with law, and not something created and defined and controlled by flawed men); and
2) History truly repeats because it is insane that both June and her daughter end up quoting the Beatitudes to condemn an Aunt in defense of a lesbian.
