How ‘The Handmaid’s Story’ Made Certain at Least One Character Acquired a Genuinely Pleased Ending

Within the first episode of the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale, viewers met Janine, performed by Madeline Brewer. Like June, the principle character performed by Elisabeth Moss, she’s been kidnapped by Gilead and is now within the Pink Heart, the place new handmaids are compelled to study their horrifying new duties. When Janine talks again, she’s hauled off for a biblical punishment: the lack of her eye. That set the tone for Janine’s harrowing journey all through the collection—however she by no means misplaced her spirit, and in the end, the present rewarded her with an ecstatically blissful final second.

Her lacking eye—typically, however not all the time, hid along with her trademark patch—was kind of the one fixed for Janine over six seasons. After being the primary handmaid in June’s group to provide start, she entertained fantasies of conserving her child woman. After all, that isn’t the way in which of Gilead, and Charlotte (Janine’s title for her daughter; her captors, Commander Putnam and his spouse Naomi, referred to as her Angela) was ripped from her arms, virtually actually.

After that, she held completely different roles with various ranges of freedom—at one level she ended up in exile, shoveling poisonous waste within the dreaded Colonies; at one other, she survived a bombing after briefly escaping Gilead for Chicago. Within the final seasons of The Handmaid’s Story, we noticed her helping Aunt Lydia within the Pink Heart, constructing on a sophisticated relationship rooted in energy, guilt, shared trauma, and the occasional try at kindness.

In season six, former handmaid Janine is compelled into a special form of sexual slavery, toiling at Jezebel’s, the brothel created for the pleasure of Gilead’s two-faced commanders. There, she encounters Angela’s new adoptive father: the grumpy however not-evil Commander Lawrence, who reluctantly married Naomi for causes which might be frankly too lengthy to get into right here. (It’s The Handmaid’s Story—count on the worst!) He’s conscious of Janine’s scenario and brings one of many little woman’s drawings to her, an act of kindness that renews Janine’s hopes that in the future she’ll get to see her once more.

That scenario feels ever-bleaker when Jezebel’s is destroyed and Janine is snatched up by a commander who’s taken a merciless curiosity in her. Ultimately, although, her extended struggling lastly ends when June kills the man (stabs him within the eye, the truth is), and after one other transient but terrible stint in captivity, she’s free of Gilead eternally.

Better of all, although, as June and firm are speeding to get her to security, we see Aunt Lydia and Naomi seem. Extremely, they’re bringing Angela/Charlotte to be along with her mother, to dwell a life away from Gilead’s cruelty. Although The Handmaid’s Story collection finale ended with plenty of characters nonetheless on the mid-points on their journeys, that’s not the case for Janine. It is a actual and true blissful ending for her, in the end.

Chatting with the Hollywood Reporter, Brewer was understandably thrilled that her character lastly bought her biggest want. “I assumed it was so stunning. I’m so glad with the ending for Janine,” she stated. “It may have gone plenty of other ways and it’s all she’s ever needed.”

She continued. “I don’t assume I actually, actually hoped for something as a result of I couldn’t even think about. That’s additionally not my job (laughs) [to write the show], but it surely’s the identical cause why I by no means made too many selections about Janine’s life earlier than … So I didn’t need to make too many selections. I needed it in methods to shock me. And it did … I’m simply so pleased with Janine for all the time being herself and never letting them take the fireplace away from her. And for being good friend and mother and individual.”

The present was typically very bleak, however reward be—no less than Janine lastly triumphed ultimately. All seasons of The Handmaid’s Story at the moment are out there on Hulu.

Need extra io9 information? Try when to count on the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and all the pieces it is advisable to find out about the way forward for Doctor Who.