It’s easy to write off The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Serena Joy as a villainous bitch; the barren wife of Commander Waterford spends her days terrorizing Offred (Elisabeth Moss) in pretty much every way she can. If she can throw her around, she does. Now that Offred’s pregnant, she’s more inclined to emotional terrorism, and boy, is she a master of it. The ironically named Serena Joy, neither serene nor joyous, could have easily slipped into one-dimensional nemesis territory, but thanks to Yvonne Strahovski‘s performance, we’re given something much more sinister – and much more heartbreaking. She may draw the ire of viewers far and wide, but like Offred, she’s a victim – and Strahovski, evil-seeming as she may play her, never lets us forget that, even when she’s at her most malicious.

For each withering look and clenched-teeth threat, there’s a striking amount of sadness and resentment beneath it all. In the first season, we get a glimpse of the life she once shared with Fred (Joseph Fiennes). She was an educated, excitable woman, one passionate about her beliefs (no matter how toxic they may have been). She is complicit in the rise of Gilead and the subjugation of women the Handmaid’s, but she does not escape the wrath of this new world unscathed. All women are lesser in this dystopia, and she’s forced to give up her books and her voice and her husband. If Serena’s Season 1 story had you sour on the Commander’s Wife, the most recent episodes of Season 2 may have you reassessing your feelings for her in surprising ways.

After her runaway plans are thwarted, Offred returned to the Waterford home, and it’s predictably a rather grim reunion. While Aunt Lydia ( Ann Dowd ) and Commander Waterford refer to her absence as a kidnapping, they all know the truth. Serena is icy when she comes face to face with the woman absconded with the child she considers hers, and when she finally gets a moment alone with Offred, she quite literally chokes her. “Ninety-two days,” she spits out, trembling. In that moment, there’s nothing but rage, pure fury as she forgets for a moment that the woman she’s squeezing the life out of carries her unborn child, and that this entire confrontation is counterproductive. When her eyes well up, we see a world beneath Serena’s surface. All the fear and panic she’s felt wondering where Offred might be, the resentment that never goes away because she can’t have a child of her own. That’s all Strahovski, showing us the heart beneath the steely, domineering exterior, a woman searching for power anywhere she can find it.

If her trembling hands, chainsmoking, and unsettling baby shower at present weren’t enough, “First Blood” showcases a side to Serena rarely seen at present. After speaking at a college event and being essentially shut down by protestors (in a moment that feels slightly too on the nose, but works regardless), we see a passionate Serena reminiscent of all the blonde Fox News pundits and conservative wives who spew “snowflake” speeches at young people, and yeah, it’s infuriating. But what follows – a triumphant moment cut short by gunshots – suddenly informs Serena further than perhaps anything we’ve seen so far. Serena’s own chance to have children is ripped away from her from the resistance she tried so desperately to convince of their impending doom. Of course she’s furious. Of course she’s cold. Nothing can justify what she’s done to Offred and other women, or how complicit she’s been in Gilead’s rise, but Strahovski’s performance and the show’s writing prevents Serena Joy from being a straightforward villain – and instead produces something extremely unique.

Serena is a woman only slightly better off than the women she torments. She’s a woman who can hardly call anything her own. And watching her grasp at straws of power the only ways she knows how is what makes her such a damn compelling, enraging, and heartbreaking character. It’d be uninteresting, frankly, to watch a Serena Joy without a semblance of a soul, but Strahovski guarantees that never happens. She goes from disarmingly warm to ice cold in a matter of seconds, tearing up in what appears to be sympathy for her Handmaid and turning on her almost immediately after. Beneath her religious fanatic surface, there’s a conflict, a deep unrest, a fury, perhaps one driven by self-loathing that she’d never dare let us in on. And that’s the magic of this performance. Due to the callous nature of her character, she may certainly not be the first person who comes to mind when discussing the wide array of The Handmaid’s Tale‘s incredible performances, but Strahovski is doing a thankless, never-ending routine of emotional gymnastics. It’s time we gave her the applause she deserves.

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