The season finale of the fourth season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” has been released and, surprise, it featured a number of unexpected twists and turns. I mean, that’s “The Handmaid’s Tale’s” signature. If Bruce Miller‘s Emmy-winning series didn’t tease audiences with a shocking finale it would be incredibly deflating. One character attempting to use her smarts to extract herself from a delicate situation was none other than Gilead’s favorite first lady Serena Joy Waterford, played by the consistently impressive Yvonne Strahovski.
READ MORE: Joseph Fiennes teases an optimistic future for “The Handmaid’s Tale” [Interview]
Serena’s has evolved over the years and this season saw a character closer to the pre-Gilead incarnation. A woman using her people skills to try and manipulate former indentured servants, lawyers, her husband, and the Canadian and remaining American public to her cause. That did not go unnoticed by Strahovski.
“I think it is probably the most manipulative. I find that every single one of her interactions with each of the characters that she gets to see is highly strategic,” Strahovski says. “Even though there are emotions involved, and she might be presenting herself to be genuine on some level, I do think it is all strategic. I do think she has real feelings and emotions, but I do agree with you, that at the end of the day, it is pretty much a manipulation.”
Strahovski jumped on the phone last month to discuss this season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” before the events of the finale were even revealed to the press.
“I think her priority is just to get herself out of the situation that she’s in, given that she’s in detention,” Strahovski says. “She’s pregnant now. I think her greatest priority is to get her and that baby out and living life somewhere where she can be free. And what you’re suggesting, I think she’s realizing along the way as like an added bonus, because we’ve seen the Serena and Fred fan club now, at this point, out in Canada, or at least I think we have, I’m not sure if that episode has aired. But they’ve actually garnered some attention in a good way for them. And I think that that’s a surprise, doing that. It’s a bonus at that point. And I think she definitely tucks that away in her back pocket, and we’ll definitely be using that to her advantage more at some point.”
More importantly, Serena may be backed into a corner with continued detention by Canadian and United States authorities her best chance at survival.
“I don’t think she wants to go back to Gilead at all,” Strahovski says. “I think she’s afraid to go back. I just think she knows she’ll die if she goes back for what she did to Fred. I think there’s no way in her mind that she knows she can survive Gilead after everything is. So I think she has her mindset on getting where she needed to be in Canada and just being able to set up shop somewhere in Canada with her baby.”
A 2018 Emmy nominee for her work on “Handmaid’s,” Strahovski has been able to use the offseason to star in big-budget flicks like Shane Black’s “The Predator” and the acclaimed Australian television mini-series “Stateless.” Fans of her early genre work will get a chance to see her flex those muscles again with “The Tomorrow War” opposite Chris Pratt. Strahovski notes, “I mean, this is no Serena Joy Waterford in ‘The Tomorrow War.’ So, it’s really awesome, just personally for me, changing it up and have some fun and being a big alien movie.”
Originally a Paramount Pictures release, but sold to Amazon Prime Video when it was unclear how long the pandemic would begin, “The Tomorrow War” finds soldiers of today being asked to travel a few decades into the future to fight an alien invasion. Strahovski was cagey about her character, Vicki Winslow, but described the experience as an “absolute blast.”
“I don’t know if many people know this about me, but my favorite films are Alien films,” Strahovski reveals. “It was really exciting for me to be part of one. Everyone was so lovely. We had a really lovely time, and I definitely put my action skills to the test, which I don’t think I’ve tested them since the good old ‘Chuck’ and ’24’ days.”
“The Handmaid’s Tale” season 4 is available on Hulu.