Nick and June After Episode 6x09
I loved the idea of Nick and June. The characters had such undeniable chemistry. But ultimately, that's all it could be - an idea.
June has a savior complex. I don’t think she would ever truly be able to leave Luke because he waited for her, even though she did love Nick. And Nick definitely loved her. But, as he himself said, June chose Luke again and again. He saved her so many times, and even though she loved him, she still left to go back to Luke. That must feel awful.
It is not a woman’s job to fix a man, to reform him, to save him. But I do believe that June could have saved him by truly choosing him and asking him to come with her one of the many times that she was leaving Gilead this season. Nick was at war with himself all season, caught between two lives. He just wanted someone to tell him who he was. Wharton forced him to be the man who betrayed all of the women in Jezebel’s. June also forced him to smother the soldier in the hospital. I think he was sick of not knowing who he was or what he should do.
And just like many young men indoctrinated into systems because they don’t have a good example of what a man is, he became a part of a system that allowed him to have power. Finally feeling like you’re someone and you have a purpose is what pushed him to choose Rose in the end. He missed his chance to run away to Paris with June and Nicole. This was his opportunity to have a family, even if it wasn’t his first choice of wife and child.
June not understanding why Nick would choose to save himself and finally pushing him away was his downfall. And like I said, it’s not her responsibility. Men should be able to do the right thing without a woman telling them how or helping them. She has every right to turn her back on him after Jezebel’s. That was horrendous, but Wharton is a very scary man, and there are some things that you can’t talk your way out of.
Nick loved June until the end, but I think he represents the average person in a system of oppression. It is really hard to stand up for what is "right" when you don’t even know who you are as a person. I think every person in Gilead has probably made decisions to save themselves or save a loved one, even if it meant that others got hurt. That’s how those in power stay in power.
And I don’t know why people are so shocked by this ending. It became very obvious to me that Nick was going to die as June cast him off as a lost cause. That was clearly the one thing that was keeping him tied to May Day. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the cause, but he clearly views the situation like, "I’m one person, what can I do?" I had hoped that he would die in a more heroic way, but I think this was much more realistic for a character like him.
And I am really sick of people saying, "If you’re surprised that Nick became a villain, you missed the point. He was a villain the whole time." Because ACTUALLY characters can be more complex than that. He was not a villain the whole time. He was just a man who didn’t know his place. A "nobody," as he called himself, and June made him feel like more than that. That was why he loved her. She turned him into something more, and it wasn’t until he became a commander that he felt something like that again. People respected him, and he had a place.
Yes, June could have saved him if they left Gilead together. But I respect the showrunners for not giving some magical happy ending because that’s unrealistic. I was always team Nick and June, but I knew deep down that was never going to happen.
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