AP – Not long ago Yvonne Strahovski, who plays beautiful, ruthless, deeply complicated Serena on The Handmaid’s Tale, was forced to watch early scenes of her character’s cruelty.
Of course, Serena was being cruel to long-suffering heroine June (Elisabeth Moss). It wasn’t a nice experience to relive.
“I was dying. I wanted to vomit! It was horrible,” Strahovski said in an interview, of footage played at a panel event. “To go back and look at that was insanely jarring.”
To which longtime Handmaid’s” fans would likely reply: Tell us about it, Serena! We’ve gone through hell and back ourselves, for 56 episodes.
Rapes. Mass hangings. Shootings. Torture. Kids torn from mothers, tongues from mouths. And more. The searing Hulu drama about a totalitarian state that treats women as property, based on the Margaret Atwood novel, may have been brilliant. But the brilliance came from abject darkness.
So praise be, loyal fans: Creators of the show felt your pain. They want you to know that this, the sixth and final season, will be different.
It will still be Gilead, to be sure. As Bradley Whitford’s ever-quotable Commander Lawrence would say: “Gilead’s gonna Gilead.” But it will be faster-paced, and more satisfying. There will be catharsis and redemption – rewards for all that fan loyalty.
THERE MAY EVEN BE … LEVITY?
Yes. Don’t take it from us (though we’ve previewed the first eight episodes). Take it from June herself.
Moss, who not only stars but directs four episodes this season, said it was around season 4 or 5 when creators realised they wanted to move away “from too much in-your-face darkness”.
Of course, the show’s hardly turned into a sitcom.
“We wouldn’t be The Handmaid’s Tale if we didn’t have those dark moments,” she said. “It would be dishonest.” But, she said, “We did want to bring in more lightness and levity.”
Helpful in that regard: Whitford’s whipsmart characterisation of Commander Lawrence, who tosses off memorable one-liners like “Serena, are you suffering from an irony deficiency?”
Whitford confirms a reporter’s suspicions that he’d come up with that one himself. “I’ve been telling that joke for years,” he said. “I pitched it … and I’m very proud of it.”
The series will move faster, too Eric Tuchman, showrunner with Yahlin Chang, recognises people had started to find the show “a hard watch… and that was honestly a way we as writers were beginning to feel”.
So, along with shunning the most extreme cruelty, the show has abandoned what he calls the “more languid pacing” of the past.
“We had a lot of stories we wanted to tell in 10 episodes,” Tuchman said. “We wanted the season to have a feeling of momentum and to be propulsive.”
Added Chang: “It was a now-or-never thing – this is the last chance we get to tell these stories with these characters.”
We can likely expect fewer endless gazes into June’s tearful eyes. There’s stuff to get done.
IT’S DECISION TIME: ARE YOU GOOD OR EVIL?
A number of characters have flirted with the other side, morally, in the show – good people doing terrible things, terrible people occasionally doing good. Well, it’s time for everyone to take a stand.
“People don’t stay the same,” Moss said. “Someone’s gonna go to the dark side, someone’s gonna go to the light. But you can’t just plod along, avoiding choosing a side. At a certain point, you have to choose.”
Of course we’ve always known where June stood, as the show’s moral compass – even if many viewers were stunned/perplexed/annoyed each time she returned to Gilead of her own accord.
But June’s gonna June, as Lawrence might say.
When we left her in season 5, June had just escaped Toronto, where the tide was turning against refugees from Gilead. She boarded a train headed westward, along with baby Nichole. Then she heard another baby’s cry, and it turned out Serena, her former tormentor from Gilead, was there too, with her own baby. “Got a diaper?” Serena asked.
While the upshot of this train ride is one of many forbidden spoilers, it’s safe to say June and Serena’s relationship remains… thorny.
IS EVERYONE REDEEMABLE – EVEN LYDIA?
Strahovski herself isn’t sure Serena is redeemable.
“She has softened. She’s made redeemable choices. And if there’s ever going to be a bigger redeemable moment, it may occur this season,” Strahovski teases. But she added: “I don’t know if any of it is entirely forgivable.”
Then there’s Aunt Lydia. The very name strikes terror for those who remember the horrid things she did to those handmaids.
But Lydia is already showing signs of change. (She’s also going to be central in an upcoming sequel, “The Testaments,” based on a later Atwood novel.)
Ann Dowd said it’s all about love – for Janine, her favourite handmaid.
“Love changes everything,” Dowd said. “It’s the most powerful thing in the world.”
THE ‘HANDMAID’S TALE’ ACTORS HAVE CHANGED, TOO
“This role has really pushed me to corners I never imagined,” Strahovski said. “It’s made me a better actress for it, 100 per cent.”
As for Moss, she said her “whole professional life has changed on this show.” Not only as actor, but as director and producer.
“For me, that’s been massive,” she said. “I love acting so much, but I did need something more to sink my teeth into … I wanted be more involved in all sides of what we do, and I have learned so much.” – Jocelyn Noveck
