‘Handmaid’s Tale’ is a hit show based on 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood. Dystopian world, totalitarian regime and goodbye United States. Story centers on Offred, forced into sexual servitude as a ‘handmaid,’ searching for her lost daughter. Intense plot, thought-provoking stuff. It has become a cultural phenomenon, winning awards for performances and storytelling. Who knew misery could be so popular?

Meet the women from The Handmaid’s Tale

Emily Malek

Okay, Emily is the absolute electric nerve of rage and resilience — the kind of person who looks like she might snap but secretly has an artist’s patience for plotting things (or maybe she doodles revenge in the margins, who knows?). She’s brilliant and brutal and heartbreakingly tender, a woman who’s had her world stolen but keeps somehow forging a new one with tiny, furious acts. She laughs rarely and when she does you can tell it’s genuine, though sometimes it slips into something sharper, like a weapon. Also she collects tiny souvenirs (pins? weird bits of string?) and will absolutely correct you on a detail you didn’t even think mattered.

Rita Blue

Rita is the soft-handed Martha who looks like a grandmother and has the spine of a referee — practical, motherly, and suspicious of anything fluffy, but also secretly sentimental about old radio jingles or whatever (I can see her humming in the kitchen). She’s steady in a way that feels boring until you need someone to hold the line, and then oh my god she’s everything: stubborn, quietly subversive, protective to the point of theatrics. She makes tea like it’s an act of defiance and tucks a dish towel into her apron like a talisman, which is somehow both silly and heroic. She’s not flashy but she changes outcomes with a look sometimes, really.

Janine Lindo

Janine is this dizzy, bright, painfully open person who can go from giggling about something small to unraveling completely in two breaths — you want to hug her and also give her a megaphone because she’s wild and honest. There’s a childlike quality (and also a terrifying clarity) where she says exactly what everyone else is thinking but won’t — it’s both funny and heartbreaking. She reinvents herself a lot; one minute fragile, next minute prophet, next minute reckless little firecracker, which makes her impossible to pin down. Also she’s got these weird little rituals (button arranging? singing in the dark?) that are adorably specific and kind of sad at the same time.

June Osborne

June is the furious heart of everything — stubborn, brilliant, maternal in the most complicated ways, and she will do anything for her people (and then argue about it loudly afterward). She’s brave without wanting to be a hero, which is the best kind of messy; she makes terrible choices sometimes and brilliant ones other times, and those contradictions are the whole point. She keeps lists in her head, insults for every occasion, and a soft spot for cigarettes she swears she’ll quit (probably). Also she hoards small comforts like a smuggled piece of chocolate or a phrase from an old song — part strategist, part scab patching the past.

Moira Strand

Moira is the friend you want at your back in a bar fight and the roommate you can’t predict — sharp, sexy, endlessly inventive, and chaotic in the best possible way. She absolutely refuses to be tamed; she uses humor like armor and has a hundred escape routes planned just in case, some of which are impractical and brilliant. She’s loyal to a fault and will mock you into survival; also she has this habit of stealing the good coffee mugs, which I swear she does for emotional reasons. When she walks into a room everything gets louder and a little more dangerous — in a fun way? Mostly fun.

Serena Joy Waterford

Serena Joy is icy in public and fragile in private, all clipped words and carefully tended roses — and yet you can see her smoldering with contradictions, like a sermon turned inward. She helped build the system and now it traps her too, which makes her bitter and suddenly almost tender at weird moments (therapeutic piano? gardening? maybe both, yes). She’s authoritarian but also wistful, the kind of person who arranges silverware perfectly and then feels an ache that surprises her. Don’t be fooled by the pearls; there’s a storm behind them, and she’ll use a whip of guilt if it suits her.

Aunt Lydia

Aunt Lydia is terrifyingly devout and meticulous, with a voice like a hymn you never wanted to hear — she believes with every fiber that she’s saving people, which makes her cruelty feel organized and cold. She can switch from faux-sympathy to calculated cruelty in a blink, and she’s extremely good at making rules feel like comfort. There are tiny contradictions — she’ll offer a biscuit with one hand and condemnation with the other — and that’s what makes her so unsettling. Also she collects stories like trophies and will tell you why you deserved whatever came for you, in excruciating detail.

Alma

Alma is quieter, the kind of character who shows up in the background but leaves this weird, stubborn impression — soft-spoken but with eyes that have catalogued everything. She’s practical, keeps to small rituals (lining up spoons? humming when she folds?) and then suddenly proves herself capable of a brave, small rebellion you didn’t see coming. She might contradict herself a lot — apologetic one minute, fierce the next — which is oddly endearing and very human. Also imagine her with a secret stash of poems or a ridiculous sweater she refuses to throw out, because why not.

Brianna

Brianna is one of those characters who feels like porcelain until you look closer and see the hairline cracks full of stubborn color and weird humor. She’s often underestimated, a little awkward socially, but she surprises people by being pragmatic and quietly defiant; she’ll knit you a scarf and then sabotage a rule with a wink. There’s a nervous energy — likes lists, dislikes being patronized — and she clings to little comforts (safekeeping a matchbook? a tiny notebook?) that make her human. Also she’s the person who will start a whisper-campaign with ridiculous efficiency, which is oddly admirable.

Naomi Putnam

Naomi is the icy, well-groomed emblem of the old guard — polished, certain, and fiercely protective of appearances, like someone who learned to scold people before she learned to cry. She believes in order and in the sanctity of the home (or at least the idea of it) and she’ll deploy moral outrage with surgical timing. There’s a loneliness under the gloves — she misses a world she helped make and resents that loss with sharp, shiny eyes. She also probably has an immaculate rose garden she talks to, which is both sinister and a little sad.

Beth

Beth has this soft, haunted vibe, tiny in the way she occupies space but huge in the way memories seem to stick to her; she’s quiet but you can tell she’s cataloguing every slight and kindness. She’s prone to small rituals (stacking matchboxes, straightening collars) that feel like anchoring in a storm, and when she speaks it’s usually worth listening to. Sometimes she’s tender and almost naive, other times she flashes a stubbornness that makes you sit up and notice. Also she collects buttons in a jar for reasons that might be superstition or habit or both — who knows, it fits.