The Most Love-To-Hate Characters In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ That’ll Rile You Up
The Handmaid’s Tale is filled with characters who make us furious one minute and tug at our heartstrings the next.
Watching The Handmaid’s Tale means getting emotional whiplash from these complex characters. You hate them, then somehow understand them minutes later. The show never lets you settle into comfortable hatred – instead, it keeps shoving their humanity in your face.
Serena Joy Waterford
Serena preached about women’s “domestic power” for years, then helped create a world where she couldn’t even read her own books. One moment, she’s holding June down during rape. The next – she’s breaking rules to let June write speeches for her.
Most infuriating is that Serena KNOWS better. She has these moments where you think, “This is it, she’s finally waking up!” Then she chooses comfort over courage. She could be a revolutionary but keeps choosing to be a monster instead.
Fred Waterford
Fred is a mediocre man who finally found a system that thinks he’s special. His smug smile when he invites June to play Scrabble – like he’s doing her some huge favor while keeping her as a sex slave – is Infuriating.
What’s so skin-crawling is his need to be liked by the women he oppresses. He commits state-sanctioned rape and then expects gratitude because he lets her use moisturizer. When June doesn’t play along with his “nice guy” delusions, his fury reveals the truth – Fred doesn’t want women to be respected, he wants them to have no choice but to respect HIM.
Aunt Lydia
Lydia electrocutes women and sends them to die cleaning toxic waste, all while calling them “my girls” in a creepy, possessive way. Then the show gives her humanizing backstory moments that make you briefly wonder if she believes she’s protecting these women.
Her pre-Gilead story as a family court judge who saw the worst of humanity adds another layer. You can almost trace how someone might break this way – convinced that harsh structure is better than chaos. Almost. Then she cattle-prods someone, and you’re back to hoping karma catches up with her.
Commander Joseph Lawrence
Lawrence is that worst kind of intellectual – brilliant enough to design a genocidal economy but somehow above getting his hands dirty. His sarcastic commentary on Gilead’s stupidity would be funny if he hadn’t designed the place.
He refuses the Ceremony (bare minimum decency award) but keeps collecting Handmaids. He helps women escape while sending others to the Colonies with a pen stroke. Lawrence represents something uniquely dangerous – the amoral architect who turns human suffering into economic models.
Janine Lindo
Janine’s retreat into childlike behavior isn’t stupidity; it’s survival. What’s fascinating is how her apparent brokenness masks a different kind of strength. When she seems most lost in fantasy – like with her bizarre attachment to Warren Putnam – she’s actually creating a mental escape from unbearable reality.
The gut punch comes when Janine occasionally snaps back to clarity. Her brutal honesty cuts through others’ delusions. She tells June hard truths nobody else will. Somehow, the most “damaged” woman in Gilead often sees things most clearly.
Eden Blaine
Eden did everything “right” by Gilead’s standards and died anyway. This teenager showed up fully brainwashed, genuinely trying to be a good wife to Nick, who treated her like furniture with a pulse.
Her decision to run away with Isaac wasn’t rebellion – it was teenage love, the same Romeo and Juliet stuff societies have romanticized forever. Except Gilead executed her for it. Eden’s brief story reveals Gilead’s hypocrisy better than any other character.
Commander Warren Putnam
Putnam’s emotional manipulation of Janine went beyond the required rape ritual, making her believe he’d run away with her. When she attempts suicide, he advocates for her execution… after he drives her to it! Then he shows zero interest in his daughter beyond using her as a status symbol.
His punishment – losing a hand instead of his life – highlights Gilead’s double standards. A Handmaid would be executed for what he did. His shocked face during his punishment is one of the show’s most satisfying moments.
Mrs. Putnam (Naomi)
Naomi’s extreme coldness toward Janine is uncomfortable to watch. But flashes of her perspective complicate things – she’s forced to raise a child born through violation and pretend it’s a blessing.
Her most compelling moment comes when baby Angela/Charlotte falls ill. Suddenly, the ice queen mask cracks, revealing actual maternal love. Naomi represents how privileged women in oppressive systems direct resentment horizontally at other women rather than upward at the men who designed their prisons.
Ofmatthew (Natalie)
Ofmatthew initially seems like the perfect Gilead drone – pious, obedient, and eager to report other Handmaids. Her conflict with June makes her easy to hate until her pregnancy triggers a breakdown that reveals the impossible psychological cost of compliance.
Her character forces uncomfortable questions about survival tactics. Is June’s resistance morally superior to Ofmatthew’s conformity? Both are attempts to survive trauma – they just chose different strategies.
Ofmatthew’s end is perhaps Gilead’s most dehumanizing moment – brain-dead but kept alive as an incubator. Her transformation from antagonist to victim challenges simplistic judgments about moral choices under extreme oppression.