This show is based on a book by Margaret Atwood. It shows a world gone mad where women are treated like livestock. Offred is our hero, stuck in this nightmare called Gilead. She dodges danger while trying to survive in a place that forgot what freedom means. It’s all about power, control and the struggle to resist. Fun stuff, huh?

Meet the evil twins from The Handmaid’s Tale

Serena Joy

Serena Joy is this brilliantly wound-up, brittle force of nature — former televangelist turned high-ranking wife who runs half the house with a look. She’s regal and unforgiving but also petty and achingly lonely, like someone who built a castle and then realized it has no windows. She loves her garden and vintage hymnals, and yet she can slash a conversation with a single, surgical insult (and then apologize in a way that makes you more uncomfortable). Honestly, she feels like a tea set full of contradictions — polished, chipped, and somehow still steaming.

Commander Waterford

Commander Waterford is the textbook authoritarian with a smooth voice and a terrifying patience; he wants order, prestige, and obedience in equal measures. He’ll quote scripture at breakfast and then make policy over brandy at midnight, all with that same calm, almost smiley tone that makes you realize you should have left much earlier. He’s clever and petty, the kind of man who uses small humiliations like chess moves — and yes, he probably plays chess compulsively, or at least wants you to think he does. There’s a disturbing charm to him that makes him magnetic and appalling at the same time.

Aunt Lydia

Aunt Lydia is a walking sermon in sensible shoes, terrifyingly devout and terrifyingly pragmatic — she can make cruelty sound like comfort. She bangs rules into people with a hymn in her head and a ferocious, almost maternal zeal, which is what makes her so effective and so chilling. She collects phrases, looks, and grudges, and has a knack for turning kindness into a trap (not always on purpose? maybe). Honestly, she’s the type who would offer you tea while rearranging your life, and you’d accept because she’s convincingly kind and devastatingly firm.

Commander Cushing

Commander Cushing is the quiet bureaucrat of the regime — not flashy, but the kind of man who makes the law feel like a spreadsheet and then smiles about it. He seems polite and almost apologetic, which is worse somehow, because his mild manners hide a real appetite for control and protocol. He likes committee meetings, little stamps on papers, and probably has a neatly labeled cupboard of regrets. Sometimes he comes off as competent and almost harmless, then you remember the policies he signed and it lands like a cold plate.

Commander Putnam

Commander Putnam is noisy in that old-money way — bluster, a laugh too loud, and convinced that tradition equals rightness. He’s got a hunting-lodge ego and a taste for trophies, which might be literal or metaphorical (or both). He’s also the kind who would tell long stories to justify cruel things, and somehow sound charming doing it, which is infuriating. There’s a warmth to his nostalgia — like a man who misses simpler times — but it’s the dangerous kind of nostalgia that erases people.

Commander Guthrie

Commander Guthrie gives off more practical, small-town tyranny vibes: not theatrical, just quietly authoritative and oddly paternal in a worn-jacket kind of way. He drinks whiskey out of mason jars and says “boys will be boys” in a whisper when he wants to be taken seriously, but also seems genuinely baffled when plans unravel. He’s pragmatic, a problem-solver, and sometimes it feels like he’s trying to do the “right” thing within a rotten system — or at least that’s his angle. Also, I’m 90% sure he has a faded war medal and a cat nobody is allowed to touch.

Mrs. O’Connor

Mrs. O’Connor is like the neighbor who knows everyone’s business and pretends not to, in the most social-climbing, quietly vicious way possible. She smiles at town events, bakes too-sweet cookies, and has opinions about the proper way to dress a Handmaid — which she will share uninvited. She’s small but relentless, the kind who keeps lists in her head and names in her mouth, and she loves a scandal almost as much as her own reflection. Also — and this is random but vivid — she always wears a brooch shaped like a lily, which she calls “subtle.”

Commander Pryce

Commander Pryce is the slippery new-breed commander: efficient, a bit secretive, and definitely the kind of guy who reads reports at midnight just to feel superior. He’s colder than some of the older men, more interested in systems than ceremonies, which makes him scary in a different, smoother way. He collects favors the way other people collect stamps, and smiles like he’s plotting something clever even when he’s just thinking about lunch. Sometimes he almost seems human in a blink, and then the blink passes and you remember he’s not.

Commander Monroe

Commander Monroe is all protocol and posture — very concerned with rank, with appearances, with the exact right way to hold a glass. He’s formal almost to the point of caricature, which makes his small cruelties seem like officiating rather than meanness. He likes medals, speeches, and the sound of his own decisions being approved, but he can also be oddly awkward in private, like a man who learned power before he learned people. It’s the kind of tight-lipped arrogance that creaks when pushed.

The Judge

The Judge is this implacable, robed figure who makes laws feel inexorable — equal parts moralist and technician, and deeply convinced of his own righteousness. He hands down sentences with the calm of someone solving a crossword, which is both mundane and absolutely chilling. He has a fondness for old case law and a habit of cleaning his glasses at the most dramatic moments, which makes him annoyingly theatrical. You get the sense he believes in the system like a religion, and that belief is very, very dangerous.

Naomi Putnam

Naomi Putnam is the social queen with a brittle crown — hostess, philanthropist, and quietly savage when crossed. She keeps up appearances like oxygen, arranging charity teas and smile-lines while quietly resenting anyone who upstages her. She can be warm — in a poised, rehearsed way — and then flip to icy and petty over something as small as a misplaced napkin. Also she collects butterflies (real or framed?), which somehow makes her both sentimental and a little creepy.