By Jocelyn Noveck
Not long ago Yvonne Strahovski, who plays beautiful, ruthless, deeply complicated Serena on “The Handmaid’s Tale,” was forced to watch early scenes of her character’s cruelty.
Of course, Serena was being cruel to long-suffering heroine June (Elisabeth Moss). It wasn’t a nice experience to relive.
“I was dying. I wanted to vomit! It was horrible,” Strahovski said in an interview, of footage played at a panel event. “To go back and look at that was insanely jarring.”
To which longtime “Handmaid’s” fans would likely reply: Tell us about it, Serena! We’ve gone through hell and back ourselves, for 56 episodes.
Rapes. Mass hangings. Shootings. Torture. Kids torn from mothers, tongues from mouths. And more. The searing Hulu drama about a totalitarian state that treats women as property, based on the Margaret Atwood novel, may have been brilliant. But the brilliance came from abject darkness.
So praise be, loyal fans: Creators of the
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