‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Had to Plan Character Deaths Very Strategically

With just one episode to go in The Handmaid’s Tale, the creators, cast, and crew look back in a detailed new oral history that addresses some of the biggest questions viewers have asked about its story over the years. That includes: if Gilead is such a violent police state fond of swiftly executing any and all dissidents, how has Elisabeth Moss’ character, the rebellion-leading June Osborne, managed to survive for six seasons?

This week’s “Execution” saw June literally escaping a hangman’s noose—just her latest miracle after dodging bullets, being run over by a truck, and several other very near misses. (A few characters did meet their ends elsewhere in the episode.) Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, The Handmaid’s Tale novel author Margaret Atwood admitted that was a necessary element in a story that may be inspired by reality, but is obviously fictional.

“About the only thing that would be different from real life is that had June got caught, she would have been shot,” Atwood said. “But you can’t do that because you can’t eliminate your central character. She’s still there because, as there always have been, there are collaborators on the inside helping her. Our rule for the show was: ‘Nothing that you put in can be pure invention. You always have to tell me when this happened in history.’ There’s almost nothing you can make up in this area that hasn’t happened somewhere.”

Keeping the main character alive is one thing, but The Handmaid’s Tale also had to take Atwood’s sequel novel, The Testaments—released in 2019, and set 15 years after her 1985 original—into consideration, especially after Hulu announced it would be adapting it as a Handmaid’s follow-up.

“She gave me a very small no-kill list,” series creator Bruce Miller told THR, and it included Ann Dowd’s Aunt Lydia—a villain in early seasons who has finally (finally!) started to realize the true evil of Gilead as The Handmaid’s Tale nears its end.

“I wonder if Bruce ever wanted to knock Lydia off! I just adore Margaret Atwood,” Dowd said to THR. “I’m very happy to have it continue because I really do love Lydia. Having the experience of starting already on The Testaments, the way Margaret wrote it just makes so much sense and the writers have captured it beautifully. It’s a very good step from the end of Handmaid’s to the beginning of the Testaments.”

Added Miller, “Lydia is a fucking cat. She has 900 lives, which is exactly how those people survived in those kinds of regimes—they’re very good at stepping slightly out of the way when the shit starts to fall.”

Another character who lived longer than anyone expected? Joseph Fiennes’ Commander Waterford, who was originally only going to stick around for a season or two. (He did eventually meet a brutal-for-him, satisfying-for-viewers demise in season four.)

“Joe’s the most lovely guy and [Waterford is] a despicable character and it’s no fun playing a despicable character when you’re a lovely guy, so I was encouraging him to stick with it,” Miller recalled. “Because June and Serena [Waterford, Fred’s wife played by Yvonne Strahovski) had such an interesting relationship, Fred became much more than just this sleazy, blowhardy pervert in the story.”

Read THR’s full oral history of The Handmaid’s Tale here; the series finale arrives Tuesday on Hulu.

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