The resistance lives in return seasons of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ ‘Claws,’ ‘Big Little Lies’

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By Lorraine AliTelevision Critic

June 5, 2019 6 AM PT

Television Critic

They’ve spent the last few years assembling in secret, mapping out their plans for survival in shadowy basements, unassuming strip malls and private seaside mansions. Now it’s time …

The resistance storms TV this week when “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Claws” and “Big Little Lies” return with new seasons, and an emboldened sense of what can be achieved when women opt out of class warfare and fight oppression, together.

Hulu’s dystopian drama starts where it left off when Season 3 premieres on Wednesday. Runaway handmaid June (Elisabeth Moss) had a chance to escape, but stayed in the authoritarian state of Gilead to find her older daughter.

The difference now? She’s willing to die to free other women and take down the deadly patriarchy for good. Her red cloak, once a sign of forced servitude, is now the symbol of a caped crusader.

The hardworking manicurists of TNT’s irreverent comedy “Claws” don’t don superhero garb, but they do return Sunday for a third season owning the male-dominated crime syndicate that previously owned them.

Salon owner Desna (Niecy Nash) and her crew of acrylic artisans are done playing. They’re holding onto their piece of the pie, and no one is going to pry it from their nail-charm-adorned fingers.

The well-to-do wives and mothers of HBO’s “Big Little Lies” are back Sunday for Season 2. They have their own Aunt Lydia to battle in Mary Louise (Meryl Streep), the grieving mother of the rapist they killed last season. Not all bad guys are men.

And we’re not even into next week, when “Marvel’s Jessica Jones,” starring Krysten Ritter, returns to Netflix for its third and final season of full-out female empowerment.

If these strong female casts and figures felt impressive before, they now feel crucial, even as fictional avengers. The real world has shown hints of the dark dystopian future depicted on, say, the Syfy network — and Hulu — since “Handmaid’s’” 2018 cliffhanger finale.

All but flat-out bans on abortion have been passed in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio. From Jan. 1, 2011 to May 31, 479 abortion restrictions have been authorized in 33 states, accounting for more than a third of the restrictions enacted since abortion was legalized nearly half a century ago, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research group.

The workplace is also moving in the opposite direction of equality. The gender wage gap for full-time, working women has widened in recent years. And perhaps most heartbreaking, we’ve learned that children who were ripped from their mother’s arms in state-sanctioned actions by authorities died in government custody. It’s a horror story that runs regularly on the nightly news.

It’s no wonder that “The Handmaid’s Tale,” as grim as it can be at times, also feels like a catharsis. Season 3 arrives right on cue, addressing topical issues such as forced pregnancies via future-shock scenarios.

Now, however, a furious and emboldened June embodies an entire resistance movement. She and her fearless fellow handmaids validate the rage of women who not only feel disenfranchised but targeted, and the characters fight back.

Emily (Alexis Bledel) is one of a network of women who revolt. In one particularly harrowing scene, she’s fleeing to Canada with June’s baby, clutching the swaddled infant to her chest as she runs through the dark underbrush, dodging drone detection. She needs to cross the border for any hope of a better life, and she’s nearly made it there with the help of women from every level of Gilead’s tiered underclass.

The asylum of Canada is just on the other side of the river, so she wades into the icy water. When she’s sucked under the river’s turbulent waters with the child, it’s one of the series most heart-stopping moments, which is saying a lot given “Handmaid’s’” history of traumatizing its audience with beautifully crafted terror.

The Floridian manicurists of “Claws” aren’t governed by totalitarian rule, but they have been held back by a culture that treats working-class women with even less respect than their men. Work, work and more work has gotten them nowhere, and when they did gain some ground, the Dixie Mafia and men with names like Uncle Daddy and Roller made sure, at least initially, that they didn’t get far.

But in a wickedly funny and moving season opener, the ladies’ hard-won camaraderie may make them the biggest kingpins in town, if they stick together.

“Things are about to turn around for us, ladies,” says Desna. “All those years of being passed over, low-balled and taken for granted are over. Bitch, we about to run this town!”

And what better way to cap such a speech but with a break-out dance number to En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind.” If only the handmaids could get their work-worn hands on an iPod, let alone a CD player.

No soundtrack is required, however, for these women to show us what resistance looks like – whether it arrives in a red cloak or 6-inch high stilettos.

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