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 Crimson Heart, the place new handmaids are pressured 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 joyful final second.
Her lacking eye—typically, however not all the time, hid together 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 delivery, she entertained fantasies of holding her child lady. In fact, that isn’t the best way of Gilead, and Charlotte (Janine’s title for her daughter; her captors, Commander Putnam and his spouse Naomi, known 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 aiding Aunt Lydia within the Crimson Heart, constructing on an advanced relationship rooted in energy, guilt, shared trauma, and the occasional try at kindness.
In season six, former handmaid Janine is pressured 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 can 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 state of affairs and brings one of many little lady’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 state of affairs 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, in reality), and after one other temporary but terrible stint in captivity, she’s free of Gilead ceaselessly.
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 together with her mother, to dwell a life away from Gilead’s cruelty. Although The Handmaid’s Story collection finale ended with quite a lot of characters nonetheless on the mid-points on their journeys, that’s not the case for Janine. This can be a actual and true joyful ending for her, in the end.
Chatting with the Hollywood Reporter, Brewer was understandably thrilled that her character lastly bought her best want. “I assumed it was so lovely. I’m so glad with the ending for Janine,” she stated. “It might have gone quite a lot of other ways and it’s all she’s ever wished.”
She continued. “I don’t suppose I actually, really hoped for something as a result of I couldn’t even think about. That’s additionally not my job (laughs) [to write the show], however it’s the identical purpose why I by no means made too many choices about Janine’s life earlier than … So I didn’t wish to make too many choices. I wished it in methods to shock me. And it did … I’m simply so happy with Janine for all the time being herself and never letting them take the fireplace away from her. And for being a superb good friend and a superb mother and a superb individual.”
The present was typically very bleak, however reward be—at the very least Janine lastly triumphed in the long run. All seasons of The Handmaid’s Story at the moment are accessible on Hulu.
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