The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 attempts to build a friendship between June and Serena, discounting all of their history and June’s past actions.
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 focused more on Gilead’s influence on the outside world, but it still found time for its most prominent rivalry. Following the murder of Fred Waterford, Fred’s widow Serena was the next person on June’s hit list. Yet during the season, June didn’t get her revenge; instead, the Hulu series tried to paint the two characters as unlikely allies.
In Season 5, Episode 7, “No Man’s Land,” June helped Serena give birth to her child when Serena unexpectedly went into labor. The episode included many flashbacks that attempted to paint a picture of June and Serena having had friendly relationship when they were in Gilead — and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The Handmaid’s Tale suggesting that June and Serena were ever friends failed for a wide variety of reasons.
The Handmaid’s Tale Had June Contradict Herself
This sudden “friendship” disregarded June’s established desire to kill Serena. The beginning of Season 5 characterized June as satisfied by murdering Fred, but wanting to kill more people who wronged her out of revenge. She even shot off a gun near Serena’s newfound location in Toronto. While it’s fine for characters to have a natural change of heart, the flip in June’s established attitude in previous episodes meant that her empathy toward Serena made no logical sense — unless the writers were trying to make them allies for Season 6.
The Handmaid’s Tale Overlooked Serena Abusing June
The flashbacks shown in “No Man’s Land” featured June and Serena smiling fondly towards one another, as if they had a healthy relationship. This completely ignored how Serena treated June from the beginning of the series. She violently beat June and held her down while Fred raped her. She demeaned June mentally and physically, and was so nasty toward her that she quickly became one of the show’s most hated characters. Similar to how the series attempted to redeem Aunt Lydia, this attempted friendship tossed out all of Serena’s past abuse and undercut The Handmaid’s Tale’s credibility in the process.
The Handmaid’s Tale Needed Serena as an Antagonist
The marketing for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 positioned Serena as an exciting villain who would take the series in new directions. While the season covered new ground exploring life outside of Gilead, there wasn’t a cohesive antagonist for the viewers to root against. Serena had her moments — like taunting June by holding Hannah’s hand at Fred’s funeral — but failed to live up to the expectations laid out in the promos. Without an antagonist, the season had a lack of tension and stakes in general. And since Serena was not the villain of the season after all, it became hard for the audience to understand what role she actually had to play. Making her June’s “friend” seemed to be an awkward attempt to find her something else to do.
Since The Handmaid’s Tale has been renewed for a sixth season, the series has a chance to fix its mistakes made in Season 5. The show spent its past four seasons developing nuanced characters, but the attempted friendship between June and Serena went against everything the series had successfully established. Not only was it not moving the story forward — it actually went backward.
June has been out for revenge ever since Season 1. While the writers may want June and Serena to become friends in Fred’s absence, they’re much better off as rivals. That preserves the history between the two characters and ensures that the series has genuine tension and actual stakes going into its final season.
