‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Star Madeline Brewer on Janine’s Final Scene: “I Was Inconsolable”

[This story contains major spoilers from The Handmaid’s Tale series finale, titled “The Handmaid’s Tale.”]

Now that The Handmaid’s Tale has finished telling its tale, Madeline Brewer can react to Janine’s ending.

The final episode had the tricky task of ending June’s (Elisabeth Moss) story while also setting up Hulu’s Gilead TV universe with the forthcoming sequel series, The Testaments. Margaret Atwood‘s follow-up story to her 1985 Handmaid’s Tale novel focuses on June’s daughter, Hannah, who has been renamed Agnes in Gilead. The Testaments sequel novel, which published in 2019, influenced how series creator Bruce Miller and co-showrunners Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang could end the series: The show couldn’t end with June getting Hannah back, because Hannah is still in Gilead in The Testaments. But the writers did deliver another blessed mother-daughter reunion.

In the series finale “The Handmaid’s Tale,” written by Miller and directed by Moss, Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) brokers an exchange to return baby Angela (real name Charlotte) to her birth mother, Janine. Angela’s Gilead mother, Naomi (Ever Carradine), is present and consensually gives the child back to Janine after Janine has also been rescued herself from Gilead captivity and returned to June. Janine’s baby was heart-wrenchingly taken away from her when she birthed her as a handmaid back in season one.

When speaking to Brewer about Janine’s ending, she says she was “inconsolable” when she watched the scene for the first time. Looking back to some of her first days on set playing Janine, she remembers feeling about the dystopian saga back in season one, “I can’t believe that we get to tell this story. I can’t believe that we get to be the ones to bring it onto a screen this way.”

Now that she has her ending, Brewer unpacks her time on the series with The Hollywood Reporter below and imagines what Janine and daughter Charlotte might look like in the future — even if that may not be shown on The Testaments.

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Looking back at the sixth episode of this final season, Janine predicted the ending of the series when she was arguing with Aunt Lydia at Jezebel’s.

When I say “we’re going to burn this place to the ground,” right?

Yes. Janine tells Lydia that Gilead is going to crumble and the only way she can make things right between them is if Lydia gets Charlotte back: “I want Charlotte, you stole her from me.” Did you know how the series was going to end when you filmed that episode?

No. I didn’t know that when we were shooting that episode — we hadn’t read the finale yet. I thought Janine was just trying to dig at Lydia a bit. Because by that point, Janine knew what June and Moira were planning [with the Mayday attack on Jezebel’s]. But I don’t think Janine was operating under what would have been a delusion thinking that she would get her daughter back.

So when you then read the finale, how did you react to seeing that Janine actually does get Charlotte back, with Lydia’s help?

I was relieved, but also appreciative of our writers. It’s not a ton of fanfare. Naomi [Ever Carradine] makes this incredibly difficult decision, and Lydia looks after Janine until the very final moment. I thought it was so beautiful. I’m so satisfied with the ending for Janine. It could have gone a lot of different ways and it’s all she’s ever wanted. There is so much love between June and Janine — I always call them “Janune”!

Janine is like June’s surrogate daughter; June is also always fighting to get Janine back. Have you begun to picture what Janine’s life could look like from here. Would she join the resistance fight?

I think she’d get involved with Mayday in some way, but I don’t think that it would ever be in a way where she would have to leave her daughter. If she stays in Canada, I see Janine doing refugee support. Or working with people who have been handmaids and reintegrating them into this society. And Lawrence said her daughter was a genius, so there could be big things ahead for Charlotte!

You and I have spoken throughout the seasons and even in season four you were aware that Janine could die at any point in the show. Janine’s been put through so much — arguably more than any character. So to see that she gets this happy ending, one that June can’t get yet…

Right.

It felt so deserved. How did it feel for you throughout the process, since you never know what they had planned for Janine?

I had my hopes. But I don’t think I really, truly hoped for anything because I couldn’t even imagine. That’s also not my job (laughs) [to write the show], but it’s the same reason why I never made too many decisions about Janine’s life before. I had hoped eventually we would flash back and I didn’t want what I decided to conflict with what they wrote. So I didn’t want to make too many decisions. I wanted it in ways to surprise me.

And it did. I watched Janine’s final scene with Charlotte in ADR [automated dialogue replacement]. I was inconsolable. Not even because it’s over or because it felt so happy, or sad. But because I’m so proud of her. I’m just so proud of Janine for always being herself and not letting them take the fire away from her. And for being a good friend and a good mom and a good person.

I was actually told by one of our writers a few years ago, “Listen, I don’t think we’re ever going to kill you. That’s not the ending we want her to have.” I always felt that [if they did kill Janine] that I understand how story structure works and it might be necessary. But I also felt really honored that they wanted to see Janine through to the end.

We know that Lydia makes a big change because of The Testaments book — she becomes someone who tries for redemption herself. How much do you think Lydia’s relationship with Janine motivated her to see the light, particularly in this final season where Janine is pushing her to confront what she’s done and Lydia’s been listening in a new way?

I think it could only truly be Janine who would change Lydia’s mind fully because of their relationship. Even in episode three when she first came to Jezebel’s and Janine’s like, “That’s OfKyle. These are your girls. They lied to you. What were you thinking? You just went on believing them. Why do you believe these men?” And that especially shows in episode eight [when they confront her at the Red Center]. We positioned it as June would be in there first and then I’d come in as the final plea; the ringer to really tug at Lydia’s heart. I think there is some redemption for Aunt Lydia, at least in my eyes. She makes sure that Janine gets her daughter back. That’s the ultimate promise for her.

So Lydia is working undercover and has some relationship with Tuello (Sam Jaeger) and the good guys. Do you think this sets up Janine to have a role in The Testaments sequel series? Is that anything you have had conversations about?

No, I haven’t. I don’t think that Bruce [Miller, creator of both The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments] has closed the book on that conversation. I don’t think he’s closing the book on any of those conversations [with the characters], because I think in his eyes if they’re in Canada, why not? But also, I love my ending with Aunt Lydia. I don’t know that I need another one, but I’m not ruling it out either, of course.

I want to see Janine raising Charlotte. I want to see her be a mom.

I know. I just don’t want to wear an eye patch anymore! I’m so tired. There were so many times when I was shooting You [Brewer starred in the final season of the Netflix series, which filmed before the final season of Handmaid’s] where they’d call “Action” and I’d be like, “Oh, shit. I’m missing something.” I thought I needed my eye patch on.

Did you keep your eye patch?

I do have my eye patch. There were two we tried out, but then we ended up just sticking to the one because it fit perfectly and worked really well. So by the end there was just the one, and I have that.

Janine lost her eye in the pilot. So you’ve been wearing that eye patch from the very beginning, for nearly a decade.

I knew that she would lose one eye when I auditioned. Janine is in the book with one eye. In the show, I arrive at the Red Center and that night, they take my eye out. But my first day on set I didn’t have an eye, because we shoot out of order. And I actually didn’t film on my first day, because there was so much to shoot that we didn’t get to it. But I remember I was wearing a gigantic silicone pregnant belly [watching] that scene when all the handmaids kill an Eye. They bring out this guy who was an Eye who raped a girl and Lydia tasks the handmaids with basically beating him to death. There were so many handmaids. Still to this day, seeing a sea of red robes walking in twos is jarring. It’s eerie and uncomfortable, but also beautiful the way those robes move and to see an army — we obviously didn’t know at the time that this [final season] would see them becoming an army of handmaids.

We discussed the timeliness of the series for THR‘s oral history on The Handmaid’s Tale. Looking back, have you felt thrust into political activism because of how much the show has resonated ever since it first launched in 2017?

Absolutely. I think we all felt a sense of duty to become more politically active and involved and vocal. Then, you hire someone like Bradley Whitford [who came on in season two as Lawrence]. He’s someone who spoke in Michigan in the final stages of the election in support of Kamala. He’s so very active. But [the rest of us] ultimately we’re actors. We’re creating a television show for entertainment. We’re not politicians. We’re not activists as a career; we are entertainers.

But when you work on a show for that many years and live inside the body of these characters — you want to fight for them. We partnered with places that are doing the real work to help us tell real stories, like Planned Parenthood. Janine, in her season four flashback, went to a crisis pregnancy center. Crisis pregnancy centers exist. They’re all over the country and are there to bait and switch scared and vulnerable women, people who are pregnant and looking into their options. They are there to shame them and try and convince them to keep a pregnancy that they might not want. In researching these centers, I did feel a sense of duty to talk about them and to tell people: This exists. This is not made up. So, you can’t help it.

Well thank you, because if we weren’t going to see June get her daughter Hannah back, we needed to see this ending with Janine.

You needed Charlotte, at least!

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The Handmaid’s Tale finale is now streaming on Hulu. Read THR’s series oral history, and finale explainers on June and Serena’s endings, as well as Alexis Bledel’s return.