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PORTSIDE CULTURE

MADELINE BREWER REFLECTS ON THE TIMELY LEGACIES OF YOU AND THE
HANDMAID’S TALE  
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Saloni Gajjar
April 28, 2025
AV Club
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_ "These shows have become about getting through tough times with
community and sisterhood." _

You , (Photo: Clifton Prescod/Netflix)

 

_You _and _The Handmaid’s Tale _are two very different TV shows.
One is a guilty-pleasure thriller about a freaky serial killer; the
other is a dystopian series about a country ruled by religious
fanatics. Yet there’s an underlying (and timely) parallel in how
they focus on the horrors faced by female characters at the hands of
toxic, abusive men. _THT _star Madeline Brewer, who joins _You_‘s
final season [[link removed]],
tells _The A.V. Club _that she’s proud of how both shows emphasize
the power of women standing up for themselves.   

Brewer has played the unpredictable, sympathetic Janine Lindo
on _THT _since the show’s beginning, with her performance earning
her an Emmy nomination in 2021. In the ongoing sixth season
[[link removed]],
Janine is now a Jezebel in Gilead and ready to fight for her freedom,
particularly upon reuniting with some old friends. The actor also goes
toe-to-toe in _You_ season five (which premiered April 24)
alongside Penn Badgley
[[link removed]].
She portrays Bronte, the final girl of sorts who finally ends up
getting Joe Goldberg captured and arrested. 

_The A.V. Club _spoke to Brewer about why she “felt ready” to
join the Netflix series, filming Bronte’s violent confrontation
with Joe in the woods, Janine’s fate, and what she hopes audiences
will take away from _You _and _The Handmaid’s Tale_.  

THE A.V. CLUB: I READ THAT YOU WERE A BIG FAN OF _YOU_ BEFORE
JOINING THE CAST IN SEASON FIVE. WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THE SHOW THAT
RESONATED?  

MADELINE BREWER: Yeah, I have been a fan of the show since it was on
Lifetime. It taps into that question of what’s the reason we love
true crime. I’m sure there have been psychological studies on why
women find true crime so comforting and engaging. While eating
breakfast today, I watched the new Netflix documentary about the Long
Island serial killer. If there’s a cult or murder documentary,
I’ve watched it. It’s morbid curiosity, right? _You _is what I
love about television in that sense. It’s got everything. 

AVC: WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF BRONTE WHEN YOU HEARD ABOUT THE
CHARACTER? WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO PLAY HER? 

MB: I have the best agent in the business, Andrea Weintraub. She also
represents Penn Badgley, so she has been working with [executive
producers] Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Sera Gamble for a very
long time. I think probably she had their ear a little bit to tell
them I’ve loved _You _this whole time. It just so happened that
this role they created in the final season was a character that I felt
very prepared to play. So in initial discussions with [season-five
showrunners] Justin Lowe and Michael Foley, they told me Bronte
isn’t really what she seems, and I loved that. I’m an actor; I
love a little duplicitousness and layers. But they also said that by
the series finale, Bronte will hold Joe’s fate in her hands. As a
fan and as an actor, I was excited by that. I was in and felt ready to
play the part. 

AVC: HOW DID YOU WANT TO PORTRAY BRONTE BEFORE AND AFTER THE REVEAL
THAT SHE’S CATFISHING JOE? 

MB: There were some elements that thankfully they did keep me in the
dark about. I did know there would be a switch, but I didn’t know
the specific detail of the catfish scheme and to what degree it was
happening. So it was just about playing the moments as they are on the
page because once you start trying to involve too much of the other
stuff, then you’re getting in too deep. It’s good for me as an
actor to know the layers, but if you’re not playing the truth of the
moment, then why do we care? As an audience, we want to believe that
Bronte is who she is. We have to be as surprised as Joe is when the
switch occurs. Walking the line afterward was fun because I think that
there was still a little bit of trepidation, but mostly love, before
everything goes down in episode 10.  

AVC: BRONTE IS PERSUASIVE AND PERCEPTIVE, BUT SHE LETS HERSELF BE
DRAWN INTO HIS WEB OF LIES DESPITE KNOWING HE MIGHT BE A PSYCHOPATH.
WHY DO YOU THINK SHE FALLS FOR HIM?

MB: When you look at almost any relationships between men and women
where the man is an abuser, how often do women return to them? Not
only because they have been debilitated so much that they don’t feel
stable without them, but there is something that keeps making them go
back. Joe is excellent at manipulation. Time and again, it’s that
same formula, but it works for him. Against Bronte’s better
judgment, she wants to believe that she can be loved in the way that
Joe’s offering to her. When you look at Bronte’s life, or the life
she led as Louise before she met him, she has been touched by grief,
sorrow, and loneliness. And then she has this opportunity of a
wealthy, good-looking man offering her safety, stability, and
structure. They have a common interest, and they inspire each other.
What’s not to fall for? Luckily, she sees the light as we know it

AVC: BEFORE TALKING ABOUT THE FINALE, I WANT TO BRING UP BRONTE’S
CONVERSATION WITH MARIENNE IN EPISODE NINE. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE
IMPORTANCE OF THAT SCENE AND WHY IT’S A TURNING POINT?  

MB: Working with Tati Gabrielle is a gift because she’s a present,
emotional actor. She’s been playing Marienne for a long time now and
knows the character so well. Also, props to Tati; she was
shooting _The Last Of Us_
[[link removed]] at
the same time. As for that scene, for Bronte, we know her backstory.
We know she’s been researching Marienne for years and assumed her to
be dead. But then she walks into Mooney’s and Marienne’s right
there, and I think seeing her starts the dissolution and the
demystification of Joe Goldberg. When she sits down with Marienne,
who, step by step, tells Bronte’s love story right back to her,
she’s thinking that this woman has no reason to know this. So when
Marienne says something along the lines of “If you’re still alive,
it’s not too late,” it’s an important moment of clarity that
then sets off the entirety of the finale. 

AVC: WHAT WAS THE EXPERIENCE OF FILMING THE FINALE AND THAT CHASE IN
THE WOODS WITH PENN LIKE? 

MB: It was amazing. The writers came through with what they had told
me about how she’ll hold Joe’s fate in her hands. I love that
Bronte eventually does what she set out to do all those years ago when
she got on the message boards, noticed something was strange, and
followed through. She didn’t stop until she got her answer. For
better or worse, she did not let that story end until she had her
answer about what happened to Beck, who meant a lot to her. With the
finale, we felt like we were shooting a movie. [Episode co-directors]
Neil Reynolds and Michael Foley let us dig our fingers into it. It was
fun to stay up all night in the middle of the woods in the summer,
constantly checking myself for ticks . 

Oh god, I can still feel my body tense up remembering how it felt to
shoot the finale scene where Joe is on top of Bronte, and he’s
saying, “You want to know how I killed Guinevere Beck? I’ll show
you.” It still sends a shiver down my spine and makes me want to
cry. Not only is it a testament to how brilliant Penn is because I
don’t think that he has a representation of Joe in his body
anywhere, but also I felt [a responsibility] for all of the women I
know and I don’t know who have been afraid for their life at the
hands of someone they once trusted and loved. Shooting that put my
feet on the ground of this feeling of “This is not just a TV show;
it’s more than that.” 

AVC: SPEAKING OF THAT SENTIMENT, IT’S STRIKING THAT THE FINAL
SEASONS OF _YOU _AND _THE HANDMAID’S TALE _ARE AIRING AT THE
SAME TIME, AND THEY DO SHARE CERTAIN THREADS ABOUT WOMEN STANDING UP
FOR THEMSELVES AND FIGHTING MISOGYNY. 

MB: I know. I’m immensely proud of that, especially considering
both shows are premiering at this moment in time in the world and our
country, and that both talk about the importance of believing women
and having a community amongst each other. One of the main things that
women aren’t allowed to do in _The Handmaid’s Tale _is to write
and speak to each other. But we are our saviors. We pull each other
up. It’s like the scene from _You _we talked about with Bronte and
Marienne. I also love that scene with Bronte and Kate [Charlotte
Ritchie] because it’s representative of the way that we pit women
against each other in society, give them roles like the jealous
ex-wife and the mistress, whereas all Kate is trying to do is tell
Bronte to run and warn her that she’s in deep. But Bronte won’t
believe her because of what we build up in our minds and our culture
about why we don’t like certain women or some crap like that. So I
like that it’s a conversation with Marienne where it finally hits
Bronte that she might end up as another Joe Goldberg victim. Without a
conversation between these two women, Joe would be free, and there
would be like six more seasons of _You_. 

AVC: DID YOU FILM BOTH SHOWS BACK-TO-BACK? WAS IT TOUGH TO GET OUT OF
EITHER CHARACTER’S HEADSPACE? 

MB: I had a few weeks’ break between filming both shows. And I’m
not by any means a method actor, but I did find it strangely more
difficult to shake off Bronte at the end of the day. It also seemed
dependent on the day. Some scenes were so emotionally easy and fun.
With Janine, I’ve known who she is for so many years now. But there
are certain scenes where my body has had difficulty processing that
someone didn’t just try to kill me.

AVC: WHAT CAN YOU SHARE ABOUT WHERE THE REST OF _THE HANDMAID’S
TALE_‘S FINAL SEASON IS GOING AND WHAT JANINE’S FATE MIGHT BE? 

MB: I just did my final session of ADR the other day for Janine, so
I’m still processing that it was my final piece of work ever
for _The Handmaid’s Tale_. I’ll be honest, the night we wrapped
filming season six in the middle of nowhere in Canada, it was 3 a.m.
and it was freezing. So it was just another night. But to watch
Janine’s final scene now, I was distraught. I’m so proud of
Janine, and I’m honored by where the show ends her story. Episode
six has one of the more horrible scenes with her, but I don’t think
I can say more about [the remaining episodes] yet. But it didn’t
ever seem like it was going to go the way that it went for her. I
called our series creator, Bruce Miller, after I was done and just
wept on the phone to him and thanked him. The way Elisabeth Moss has
shot my final scene also means so much to me.

AVC: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT JANINE’S EVOLUTION OVER THE YEARS?

MB: I’m grateful to our writers that they allowed Janine to grow.
They could have kept her as like a little bit of a screw-loose crazy
girl, but they allowed her to become grounded as she would necessarily
be after what she keeps going through. I think things change for her
in season four when June gets out after Chicago, and Janine has to go
back into service. We can see she’s lost that flighty, disengaged ,
and she’s got her feet on the ground, trying to deal with what’s
in front of her. I’m proud that as I have grown as a person and as
an actor over the years, the writers have allowed Janine to evolve
with me. This final season has some of my favorite Janine moments. She
takes on a little bit of that June energy. She’s learned from the
best, strongest character in this series and embodies a little bit of
that now. 

AVC: WHAT DO YOU HOPE THE LEGACY OF A TV SHOW LIKE _THE HANDMAID’S
TALE _WILL BE? 

MB: I hope what’s reflected in this final season, at least in what
I shot, because I haven’t seen the whole thing yet, is the similar
stuff we spoke about with _You. _These shows have become about
getting through tough times with community and sisterhood. The
takeaway is we need each other despite everything in our world telling
us to turn our backs on each other, to envy and belittle and hate and
gossip about each other. Women are at our most powerful when we’re
together.

* You
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* the handmaid's tale
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* community
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* Solidarity
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