As the episode progressed, it quickly became apparent that Nick’s Gilead-approved child bride had disappeared – along with plenty of information about her husband’s illicit relationship with June, too.

“Seen Eden around?” Nick asked June, fighting hard to keep the nonchalance in his voice. “She was gone when I woke up this morning.”

June simply shook her head — she had far more important things (e.g. the fact that her baby had been snatched and absorbed into the Waterford household) on her mind. However, the expression in her eyes told us that she knew Eden’s departure would come with its own unique brand of awful, awful consequences.

And we, the viewers watching at home, shared June’s concerns. Why? Well, because we knew that, just as the Hitler Youth did, Eden and her contemporaries came to Gilead as something of a clean slate – making them much more vulnerable to ideological manipulation. That, from a very young age (think of June’s daughter, Hannah, in her tiny pink Handmaid’s uniform), they had been taught to believe in Gilead, to understand their proper role in society, and to inform on all those who break the rules.

That Eden spelled trouble, with a capital T.

“She’s still a teenager, so I wanted to keep that sense of curiosity, but she’s been raised to dream and aspire to be a good wife or a mother and doesn’t really know anything else,” Sweeney told Stylist previously, in a frank discussion about her character.

“She works on blind faith alone: others may judge the regime, but she doesn’t know any different – and I wanted the audience to be able to see that.”

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