Yahoo Movies Handmaid's Tale star Madeline Brewer says Janine uses up more of her 'nine lives' in 'wild' season 5
Buckle up Handmaid's Tale fans: Season 5 is going to be another wild ride, especially for one character in particular.
Fans will recall that last season, Janine (Madeline Brewer) went missing after she was separated from June (Elisabeth Moss), and it wasn't clear if she survived the bombings in Chicago. Later in the season, we learn she did survive and was a fugitive before she was ultimately recaptured and taken back to Gilead (the poor woman just can't catch a break!).
Not much is known yet about the forthcoming season, which started production in Toronto in February, but Brewer — who will appear in this Friday's episode of Apple TV+'s Shining Girls — teases that it's going to once again put her character through the wringer.
"As per usual, Janine is a cat with nine lives," Brewer tells EW. "And if you've been watching the show, you know she used up several of them already. And I'm going to just say this season is no exception to that." The star also reveals that we will "see a side of Janine this season that we haven't seen before," which she's excited for audiences to experience.
When asked to describe the new season, Brewer says one word in particular comes to mind. "The word wild is in my brain. It's wild. It's a little wild. I truly don't know how to describe it... I mean, we're so much out of Gilead. And everyone is experiencing things that they have not yet experienced. Everyone's going through a transformative period."
She continues with a laugh, "You know, everybody's experiencing their Saturn return, okay? Right now all of these characters, their Saturn is returning."
Hulu Madeline Brewer as Janine on 'The Handmaid's Tale'
At the end of season 4, June finally exacted her revenge on the Waterfords by brokering a deal with Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) for the release of 22 women of the resistance in exchange for Fred Waterford's (Joseph Fiennes) return to Gilead. Only, instead of getting Fred back to Gilead, Lawrence, with the help of Nick (Max Minghella), let him slip through their fingers and right into the murderous clutches of June and her fellow handmaids. The women took turns beating him to death, and the last we see of Fred, his headless corpse is hanging from The Wall, where misbehaving handmaids were hung in previous seasons.
Because of this, showrunner Bruce Miller previously told EW that the series will now be a bit like Sophie's Choice: The Series. "You're moving on with someone who's made these terrible choices. And unlike a movie version, we know what her choices were; we're in her pain and her trauma. So that's really interesting," he explained, adding, "the story moving forward is about the long fight, and how do you keep up energy, enthusiasm, sanity, all of those things, while you're trying to fight for something that you may never see the end of, or you may never see the good from it?"
A release date for season 5 of The Handmaid's Tale has not yet been announced — stay tuned.
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