Rebellion comes with a price.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” killed off two major characters during Tuesday’s penultimate episode of the hit Hulu series.
Warning: Spoilers below!
Nick (Max Minghella) and Commander Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) were both killed by a bomb that detonates on a plane carrying some of Gilead’s most villainous High Commanders, including Commander Wharton (Josh Charles).
Comm. Lawrence intentionally got on the plane to blow it up, and he was joined by Nick shortly before takeoff.
June (Elisabeth Moss) tearfully watched as her lover and father of her daughter, Nick, and her ally, Comm. Lawrence, both perished onboard the plane.
Minghella, 39, revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he learned of Nick’s death from Moss (who directed the episode) long before they read the scripts for the final season.
“This is a very poignant way to end to me,” the actor said. “I felt like a grounded version of Nick, and what I was really impressed by was how much it was not what I thought it was going to be. It’s such a compliment to everybody who works on the show that they came up with something really inventive and still very much within the context of the show.”
“It was really a blessed and wonderful way to finish, to have Lizzie directing my last scene in the show. It was fitting to finish with Brad, too,” Minghella added. “We’ve become so close. I just adore him. I didn’t know him before ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ and now I consider him one of my nearest and dearest friends. To do our last scene together was perfect.”
Whitford, 65, told THR that he was “dreading” filming Comm. Lawrence’s final moment on the show.
“I was very happy that Lawrence made the choice that he made,” said the Emmy winner. “I think as he’s listening to Nick and sitting on the plane [in the final scene] he’s thinking, ‘This poor kid is another victim of this hellscape that I created.’”
While he wasn’t sure if Comm. Lawrence would got out as a hero or a villain, he always believed his character was “redeemable” despite his involvement with Gilead.
Moss, 42, revealed that she “humbly requested” to direct Episode 9 after learning of the double character deaths.
“With the final season, we were all constantly making sure the show moved forward,” Moss shared. “‘Do we end in a different place than we began? Don’t be stagnant. Keep going forward, because this is it. There’s 10 episodes left to get to the end.’ No character this season ends in the same place that we begin.”
Some show viewers complained about how Nick’s death was handled on X (formerly Twitter).
“5 seasons of Nick disliking Gilead but being stuck regretting his past just for them to completely villainize him in 3 episodes & kill him. HE WAS A PLANT THAT HATED GILEAD IN THE BOOKS & WORKING WITH MAYDAY. WHAT WERE THE WRITERS THINKING WTF,” one fan wrote.
“Nick was never a hero. He was complicit from the beginning and deserved his fate, especially after betraying June. Boy bye,” another person said.
A third person tweeted, “Honestly, what’s wrong with writers who can’t stick to the original material? In the books, Nick’s from mayday and reunites with Holly, but now he’s suddenly a nazi and just got blown up? And Serena’s a sweet pie??”
“Well, that just ruined my night. Nick Blaine, you deserved better than whatever that was. The one person who literally sacrificed everyone and everything he had every season for her and that’s what he gets,” a different fan wrote.
The new episode also featured Taylor Swift’s song “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)” from her upcoming rerecorded album, “Reputation (Taylor’s Version).”
Moss said in a statement to Billboard that she’s wanted to include Swift’s music in the dystopian series “for many years.”
“We finally found the perfect spot for a track from her, and I’m so glad we waited because there could not be a more perfect song for a more perfect moment,” Moss said. “Taylor has been such an inspiration to me personally. It’s such an honor to be able to use her music in the final episodes of our show.”
The series finale of “The Handmaid’s Tale” airs next Tuesday on Hulu.
