Whispering cautiously, Ofglen and Offred make their daily trek past the Wall toward the park. Ofglen divulges that "Mayday" is the password of an underground network. On Offred's return to the Commander's house, Serena asks assistance with a skein of wool and reminds Offred that she must soon conceive. Serena suggests that the Commander is sterile and that Offred should emulate Ofwarren and copulate with a surrogate father. Serena proposes that Offred mate with Nick. Offred, who deduces that Serena is sincerely eager for a child, accepts the proposal as a last-ditch effort to conceive. As payment for her role in the conspiracy, Serena hands Offred a cigarette and promises to try to procure a photo of her daughter.
During Offred's nights with the Commander, he grows bolder about drinking and smoking in front of her. He explains the revolution that produced the misogynist state of Gilead: men enslaved women because they had nothing to work for. His explanation is simplistic and patronizing to a woman of Offred's intelligence: "We thought we could do better. . . . Better never means better for everyone. . . . It always means worse, for some."
At a televised Prayvaganza, Offred and Ofglen pass between guards armed with machine guns and enter a covered courtyard. Above the cordoned-off contingent of Handmaids, higher-ranking females file into gallery seats. Ofglen points out Janine, newly paired with another family because baby Angela was a "shredder." The ritual group wedding begins with a Commander leading the group in prayers of thanksgiving as twenty white-clad Daughters in their early teens are pledged to twenty Angels, decorated for service at the front. The Commander justifies this method of distributing women as victory prizes — it is an improvement over the "meat market" atmosphere of the old days, when people met in singles' bars or on blind dates. On the way home from the Prayvaganza, Ofglen divulges that she knows about Offred's night sessions with the Commander.
