The Wicked Stepmother of 'The Testaments' Is So Much Fun to Hate

One of the standout characters in The Handmaid’s Tale was Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski). At first, viewers were encouraged to loathe her. We saw her cruelty and complicity in Gilead’s system of sexual slavery through the eyes of June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss), the Handmaid forced to serve Serena and her husband, Fred (Joseph Fiennes), a powerful Commander. But as The Handmaid’s Tale unwound its six seasons, we learned there was a surprising depth behind Serena’s mask of icy perfection. While her willing participation in Gilead’s misogynistic nightmare was never excusable, we saw how her genuine despair over not being able to conceive her own child helped blind her to the horrors she was helping facilitate, at least in the beginning. We also got a glimpse at her background. Once a powerful author and political figure, she agreed to curb her ambitions to support her husband and the Gilead movement, eventually submitting to a culture that wouldn’t even let women read, much less have opinions or careers. Though she ostensibly knew what she was signing up for, Serena learned quickly just how oppressed she really was, despite being married to one of Gilead’s top leaders. While