Major spoilers below.
If there was any character that The Handmaid’s Tale fans were praying would get a happy ending in the series finale, it was Janine, the feisty, and at times delusional, handmaid played by Madeline Brewer. Like all those forced to don red in Gilead, Janine has been through hell and back, but season 6 was particularly brutal: Throughout the show’s last 10 episodes, viewers find out that Janine has been forced into a life of sex work at Jezebel’s. When Commander Wharton (Josh Charles) then shuts down the brothel, Janine watches as her friends get violently murdered, and she gets reassigned to be a handmaid for the abusive and obsessive Commander Bell (Timothy Simons).
Even after Mayday retakes the city of Boston, and Bell is murdered, Janine is still trapped in Gilead—until one night when she’s delivered across the border and into June’s (Elisabeth Moss) arms. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and Naomi Lawrence née Putnam (Ever Carradine) appear soon after, finally ready to give Janine her daughter, Charlotte, back. “I know [fans] are [getting] what they’ve been asking for, and insisting upon, for seasons and seasons now,” Brewer tells ELLE of the emotional reunion. “Every time I post anything about Handmaid’s, [the comments are] like, ‘I just need her to get into Canada with Charlotte.’”
Below, the actress gives her full thoughts on Janine’s resolution, filming the episode’s dream karaoke sequence (featuring a few deceased characters), and the parallels between Handmaid’s Tale and Brewer’s other talked-about series, You.
Congratulations on this last season. How do you feel about the show officially ending?
I was just saying earlier today that I was like, I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready. And now that the final episode is [airing], I’m like, No, I’m not ready for it to be over. It is just always a little bit anxiety-inducing to meet the end of a very major chapter of your life.
Janine’s had one of the most devastating storylines of the entire series. What did you think about her arc in season 6?
I’ve been really proud since season 4...She’s been allowed to evolve. They didn’t try to keep her as the crazy, screw-loose [handmaid], a little bit of almost comic relief at times. They allowed her to become more fully grounded between season 4 and season 6. So, season 6 has been especially gratifying to me as an actor. Janine is grounded. She has a purpose, but she’s willing at the drop of a hat to help her friends.
We need to talk about her ending. I get served so many Handmaid’s clips on TikTok, and every comment is like, “I just need Janine to get her daughter at the end.” This is what people wanted so badly. When did you find out that was going to happen? Did you have any say?
No, I don’t have any say in anything. But one of our writers told me in season 4, “We’re not killing you. It’s just not going to happen. I think that’s something we’ve pretty firmly decided will not happen.” So, I was like, I wonder how this will end then. I found out reading the script. Lizzie [Moss] had said something to me during season 6, something like, “I think you’ll be very happy with where you end up.” And I am. I’m very happy with where Janine lands and with whom she lands. It’s just such a beautiful moment of these four women—Naomi, Lydia, Janine, and June—and the sacrifices that they’ve all made.
I’ve called it a quiet ending, because it’s so peaceful for me. It’s not chaotic and bombs going off and a plane blowing up. It’s such a beautifully peaceful, quiet, earned ending for a character who has been through so much. And she’s the one that you’d think is going to go out with a real bang and a real fight. I’m so glad that she just gets to quietly go into the next phase of her life.
Was there an ending that you hoped for or you had in mind?
I never really allowed myself to do that, because I think part of me, despite what they told me, thought Janine would die in Gilead, maybe in the fight or something...I’m glad that I just let it be. And I trust our writers.
Do you have any thoughts or theories about why Naomi made this decision?
I think with all of the chaos of what happens in the days prior, and some of the things Serena has been saying to Naomi, it really cuts to the core that Naomi is a mother. She’s been a mother to this girl. Especially seeing [Commander] Lawrence with Charlotte, I think it just changes something for her. Because when we think about the timeline, Naomi would’ve been raised to read books and to form her own opinions. And regardless of what she believes in this patriarchal structure, I think she wants her daughter to know how to read. I think she wants her to know how to form her own opinions and experience the most out of life, and she knows it’s not going to happen in Gilead.
It’s a really beautiful sacrifice that Naomi makes where she, for the first time it seems, casts aside her own ego and her own hatred of these handmaids, and puts the life and happiness of her daughter [first].
I also want to talk about the dream karaoke scene that happens in the finale. It’s such a breath of fresh air. What did it mean to you to film that sequence with so many of the women on the show?
Oh, it was beautiful. Nina [Kiri, who plays Alma, who died in season 4] and Bahia [Watson, who plays Brianna, who also died in season 4] are two of my closest friends, so to have them back, to see Alexis [Bledel, who plays Emily] after so many years...It was a beautiful moment. It was bittersweet, which is how I think we’ve all described the ending.
But that is a callback to season 1 where I’m on the bridge, and June is trying to get Janine to come down, and she’s like, “We could drink margaritas and do karaoke.” It’s such a beautiful callback to their friendship and the way these women have saved each other, repeatedly, and in a different world, in a different time, they could have been friends...It was really nice to just think about what could have been. It was also a beautiful goodbye for all of us.
It’s lovely that it was all of you in a moment of joy versus a moment of trauma.
I think that’s really what they wanted. To say: Our final image of these women together is not going to be in strife. Let’s remember them as what they could have been together.
Janine is part of another central relationship on this show: her and Aunt Lydia. Where do you feel like their relationship ends? Are they in a place of forgiveness, understanding?
There’s too much history and too much guilt, and resentment, and love, and fear that they could only just part ways. Janine recognizes what Lydia did for her. And I think Lydia cannot move forward without doing this. But I don’t think that absolves anyone of their participation, speaking only for Janine and Lydia. I think that guilt will haunt Lydia for a very long time. What she learns in episodes 9 and 10 of this series sets up The Testaments.
But I don’t think their relationship could ever meet peace. There’s just too much history. Let’s say they both ended up in Canada and were living normal lives. I don’t think they’d go out for coffee. It’s like, this is over now, because this is all we can be to each other, is this relationship. This can’t take on another life in another place and time.
What about your relationship with Ann Dowd?
She just texted me this morning!
Oh my God, you guys are buds. What did you learn from her that you’ll take with you? She’s such a force.
I’ve worked with so many brilliant actors on The Handmaid’s Tale that it would be impossible not to take with me some of the technical things I’ve learned as an actor. But what I’ll take with me, from Ann specifically, is that is the warmest and most generous human being you will ever meet in your life. As archaic as it is, and icky as it is sometimes, it’s a caste system on a set. It’s hierarchical, and you don’t really step out of your rank, which is insane. Ann has a way of being at the top of the totem pole and making every single person feel like her closest friend. She has a way of touching every person and making them feel heard, and wanted, and valued in just a quick interaction. She makes sure to thank everyone, all of our crew, all of our background [actors], our crafty, everybody. I’ve seen the warmth that she brings to people. And I will take that with me because it changes your life. She’s magic.
In terms of acting techniques you learned on the show, is there one that really stands out to you?
Lizzie doesn’t blink. She blinks, of course, but she has a way of maintaining eye contact and connection where I think most people might shy away. I have trouble with eye contact—I’m looking anywhere but in someone’s eyes. And watching her, that connection is so powerful and engaging.
You mentioned in an interview that there was a scene this season that was especially difficult to film. You said it made you want to cry just thinking about it. I have a guess of what it is, but I do want to ask which scene you were talking about.
That was when all of the Jezebels get shot. It was like my body was ignited. It was so hard, but necessary. She’s lost so much, Janine. That was one of the only things she was really living for. She was living for Charlotte, but her purpose was with these women, her friends, her sisters, and she can’t save them. There’s nothing she can do. It’s just so utterly devastating.
This show has been such a huge part of your life and career. Do you feel like there’s one thing in particular you learned about yourself throughout the entire experience that you’re going to take with you?
Janine has just made me a better person. She’s smarter, and funnier, and more compassionate, and stronger. She’s so many things I’m not and that I aspire to be.
There’s that scene in Jezebel’s where she’s trying to ask Nick if June’s okay, without actually asking. And everyone in the TikTok comments is like, “See, she’s so smart. She’s so clever.”
She is smart! That’s the thing about Janine that I’ve always loved and admired is that she knows how to survive. When we meet her in seasons 1 and 2, and she’s checked out, it’s because that’s how she’s going to get through. Because, otherwise, what? Is she supposed to meet despair and torture every day?
And in the meantime, that sisterhood—with Alma, Brianna, and June—uplifts her and holds her, as she does them. It really drives home for me the truth that we are nothing without our sisterhoods, whatever they may look like. Our sisterhoods, our brotherhoods, our everythings. Our communities are how we get through.
You also ended another show this year, You. There’s a similar theme in both series, of bringing bad men to justice. Did that stick out to you as well? Or did you see parallels between your two characters?
Not between the characters, but definitely thematically. I guess that’s part of the zeitgeist right now. That’s a reflection of a bit of our world. Handmaid’s Tale, You, Adolescence—these are conversations that are being had on large and small screens because they are part of our lives. Patriarchy hurts everyone. And in our own way, in Handmaid’s Tale and You, we’re trying to help people understand that fact and that it’s not an admonishment of maleness, it’s not an indictment of masculinity, but it is worthy of conversation.
Especially with You coming out, I naively assumed most of the fans were young women and girls like me. And it’s a lot of men, really boys, like 18- to 23-year-olds. They idolize this man [Joe]. They want to model themselves after him because, to them, he is the perfect picture of masculinity. He’s strong, powerful, clever, charming, good looking, he’s rich at the end, and he gets the girl nine times out of 10. I can see on the surface why they admire him, but they’re doing mental acrobatics, or it’s not bothering them, the cognitive dissonance of the man they admire is also a murderer. I think for some of them, unfortunately, the murder makes him even better—the fact that he’s willing to go the distance to punish a woman for what she has done to him. The conversations around the two shows... I want to be in a Netflix Christmas movie. [Laughs] I’m so tired. No, I do love it. And this is the greater picture around getting to be an actor. I get to be on shows where the conversations are important and interesting. And I feel sorry that the boys who are mad at me for playing Bronte [in You], I’m sorry that they don’t have better role models.
Get her in a rom-com next, though.
I was at a meeting at Netflix, and they were like, “What do you want to do?” And I was like, “I would love to do a Christmas movie.” And they were like, “Really? That’s not really your thing.” And I’m like, “It could be.”
“Put me in a musical.”
I love a musical. I’m a musical theater girl.
If you could do any Broadway role, what would it be?
It would take several years, but I would want to be Mama Rose in Gypsy. Then, of course, after seeing Sunset Blvd., I simply must play Norma Desmond, who I’m obsessed with from the film. But there are so many great shows out there and great roles for women in musical theater and more being written. I think theater is having a really great time right now, and I’m excited to join.
With Handmaid’s and You, there have been a lot of endings for you this year. What are you looking forward to?
I have a few irons in the fire and things I’m cooking up. I want to go back to theater. I live in New York, so that’s where my heart is. I’m getting married in less than two months. So I’m like, Nothing can hurt me right now. I get to get married to the love of my life. I feel a lot of possibility. I feel like the world is my oyster. I just finished two extraordinary shows. I’m very proud of them. And I can’t wait to see what’s next in store for me.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
