Elizabeth Moss and Yvonne Strahovsky face off in Season 5 of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The inevitable showdown has been going on for four seasons, and both actresses agree that it was only a matter of time before both women reach their breaking points.
“Lizzie and I joke that it’s Juliet and Juliet’s love affair that we have,” Strahovsky told TheWrap of their characters’ relationship. “We call it romance, because it sounds like it. It sounds like a completely useless, toxic romance that they’re just going back.”
At the end of Season 4, June Osborne of Moss leads an army of Maid Regufi to kill Commander Fred Waterford, leaving Strahovsky’s Serena Joy widowed. In doing so, June assumed that she was paying them both, and was taking only a fraction of what was taken from her during her forced servitude at Gilead.
“I want her to know it was me,” June says in the upcoming season’s trailer, undoubtedly referring to Serena who is pregnant and publicly mourning the death of her husband. The clip also makes it clear that Serena is preparing to take revenge on June, who is ready to fight.
Regarding the upcoming face-off, Moss told TheWrap that the past four seasons of character development brought both actresses to a place where they finally felt ready to take on such explosive scenes together.
“The number one thing I love about doing TV is it’s where my heart is because you get to spend time with the characters,” Moss said. “There are scenes that Yvonne and I did this year that we couldn’t do in Season 1. We are no longer actors. We are not the friends we are now. We are not the partners we are.”
Throughout the series, June and Serena have had a somewhat complicated relationship. While it’s always been full, there are times when it seems like they might finally see each other face-to-face (like at the end of Season 2 when Serena agrees to take Nicole out of Gilead on June). But each truce is ultimately short-lived, once women realize that their core values will never align.
Those moments have led so far, where all their wounds will be on display as they take shots at each other until one eventually breaks down. Moss said that if these intense moments were filled with the complexity of emotions, the actresses might not have been prepared to bring them to life.
“There’s a relationship I have with Yvonne that has deepened and developed over the years. I love her. I love her. I have a lot of respect and admiration for her,” Moss continued. “If you don’t have that history you don’t get that. So you don’t need to create tension. You don’t need to build depth or complexity. You have five seasons of complexity to draw from.”
Season 5 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” debuted on September 14 with two episodes. An additional episode will premiere weekly.
