Season 5 of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ started weeks ago with a promise of open war between its two main female characters: the June by Elisabeth Moss vs. Serena by Yvonne Strahovsky. Like every promise of the series, which we can see on HBO Max, this is half fulfilled.
And it is that Bruce Miller’s script and company puts in this season a Serena navigating between the widow on the warpath before her declared vengeful enemy and her own arc of redemption, or at least retraining, in what she is ceasing to be a villain to become something more complex.
By the way, be careful if you are not up to date with the series, because there will be spoilers.
Specifically, between episodes 6 and 7 of season 5 we have one of those “ultimate confrontations” between both antagonists. ‘Together’ ended with June about to be executed by Serena and she is shooting her escort instead, and then in ‘No Man’s Land’ there is some tense reconciliation as she gives birth to Noah.
However, as there are no happy endings here, the episode ends with her detained by immigration and separated from her baby, courtesy of Luke (OT Fangbele), oblivious to everything that has happened between them all day. A heartbreaking moment in which the only thing that comes out is wanting to hug her recently given birth mother.
A gigantic evolution of the character
But beyond the sensationalism that this moment can have, it comes after enough seasons in which work has been done for us to know (and understand) much better to Serena Joy. This season, in fact, the character has had a “taste of her own medicine” arc in the wake of her pregnancy and her widowhood. Something that has changed her but not redeemed her because, as Miller warns, she is still the same viper as always:
“I think once we decided to get Serena pregnant, we focused a lot on what pregnancy would be like for anyone in that world, or in a world where fertility is falling. And also, what would it be like for someone like Serena, if she got pregnant, how would she take that message? How would she sell that message to others? How would she use it, given her personality? Being pregnant doesn’t change who you are, but it does change what your priorities are sometimes, and it changes you. But he is still a snake, or perhaps a spider, narcissistic. And it’s not going to change that, but maybe you have another excuse, which is [que quiere] make a good world for your baby. But it’s still always about Serena.”
We have arrived here as a result of the road map drawn up by Bruce Miller with the, a priori, cruel and jealous wife of Fred Waterson. During the first seasons, we were sailing in his past discovering her as one of the intellectual authors of the movement that evolved over time into the totalitarian Gilead.
Then, episode by episode we watched it as a woman as ambitious as a prey of the world that he helped build and his moments of wanting to take the initiative are quickly stifled. Something that has become very clear during this season, not only with that public relations “job” gileadians but also for how he never manages to have freedom. And here he looks for unexpected allies.
Sorority, the axis of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Here the important thing is to know that, from the beginning, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is, beyond dystopia, a story of sorority. Of friendship and feminine alliances in a world in which they are massacred, disdained, raped and tortured. You just have to see those ties formed at the Raquel and Lía Center, the institution governed by an Aunt Lydia whom we have also seen evolve.
Season 5 of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ it does not redeem Serena, but it does show her evolution throughout the series. She’s still ambitious and cruel, but these episodes have humanized her in such a way that not only is she impossible to hate anymore, but the end of this week’s episode makes you want to give her a hug.
But, beyond sentimentality, I think that the real rise (or change) of Serena also comes because she is being the best written character in the series. If we add to this the turns she gives the script with June, her ideas and her ideas, make the villain of the show my favorite character of the series.