Ann Dowd and Madeline Brewer talk to ET about the new direction they’re taking with the handmaids.
As the saga of The Handmaid’s Tale unfolds, life in Gilead continues to drive Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and Janine (Madeline Brewer) back together. Especially in season 5, after Janine was unable to escape across the Canadian border and is once again a handmaid under the watchful eye of Lydia.
While the two characters have always had a fraught mother-daughter dynamic, they find themselves needing each other now more than ever as Janine recovers from Esther’s (Mckenna Grace) attempted poisoning and Lydia’s concern over the way the handmaids are being treated by their commanders.
Reflecting on what’s happened, Brewer tells ET that it “sets up something very important.” And now that episode four (“Dear Offred”) is streaming, she and Dowd open up about the two coming together. [Warning: Spoilers for the first four episodes of season 5.]
Formerly a commander’s wife, Esther’s ranks have been downgraded with the young bride now a handmaid alongside Janine, who was asked by Lydia to help train her. “Janine is the only one who knows where Esther came from and who she is and what she’s experienced outside of coming to the Red Center,” Brewer says, explaining that “there are elements of Esther’s past and history that Janine identifies with and empathizes with.”
She adds that “Janine sees her as a little baby bird with a broken wing, and in reality, Esther is like a velociraptor.”
That said, Esther turns against Janine by poisoning her with the similar chocolate treats that Esther’s new commander tried to force her to eat earlier, during a humiliating moment for the young handmaid. The attempt on Janine’s life deals a great blow to Lydia, who has, time and time again, come to Janine’s aid.
And it’s this moment “that sets a whole thing going off for her that is important,” Brewer says of a remorseful Lydia, who helps Janine with her recovery. “Aunt Lydia, for all of these seasons now, pretty much has operated with the idea that this is God’s will and we’re enforcing God’s will and this will help these girls.”
As she reflects on what’s happened to both Janine and Esther, as well as the way other handmaids are being treated, “it just gets to a point for Aunt Lydia where she can no longer operate under that delusion,” Brewer says. And it takes Janine, who has been through so much, “quite literally yelling in her face” that Lydia realizes “something needs to be done and that sort of stirs Aunt Lydia into action in a way that we’ve not seen her.”
“What started as, ‘All right, I gotta look after her; it’s my duty now,’ gradually turned into, ‘My goodness, I love this child; she’s my own.’ And that changes everything,” Dowd says of Lydia’s feelings for Janine.
“What she’s realizing, of course, is there are pious men who want power and are very happy to have it, who want wealth, who want control over women,” the actress continues. “And I think now she’s opening her eyes… and she’s starting to see what’s really going on rather than choosing to keep the blinders on.”
As a result, Lydia tells Commander Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) that the handmaid system, as it currently stands, must be reformed. “A new protocol to prevent such harmful events from happening in the future,” she says, suggesting that the women remain under the Aunt’s care at the Red Center, and that the commanders and wives only visit “when it’s time to perform the ceremony.”
Unsurprisingly, Lawrence pushes back on the idea that the handmaids would no longer be stationed at their respective homes, and tells Lydia “it’s not changing, not now.” Undeterred, Lydia later turns to Janine and tries to recruit her help with caring for the handmaids. “I want to do things differently,” she says. “We can shepherd these girls together.”
“Her eyes are opening, and the walls are dropping,” Dowd says of Lydia, adding that “she wants to get busy.”
New episodes of The Handmaid's Tale season 5 debut Wednesdays on Hulu.
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