The Handmaid's Tale Character Who Doesn’t Deserve a Redemption Arc (And It's Not Fred) 

From its debut in 2017, The Handmaid's Tale made it pretty clear to the audience who the villains of the story were, and who we were supposed to feel sorry for. And for a long time, it actually worked.

We had the insanely twisted Gilead elite on one side, and June with the other handmaids (not all of them, but the most part) on the other. It was easy to love and hate certain characters because they were portrayed as good guys vs. pure evil.

At the beginning of the show, in the early seasons, the showrunners made sure that fans always had strong opinions about every character. So it was easy to hate Aunt Lydia, for example, at least before we got a glimpse of her life before Gilead.

And it was definitely even easier to hate Serena Joy and Fred Waterford. They both deserve a special place in hell. But still, it seems like Serena should be punished even more than her villainous husband.

As for now, even after committing so many crimes against humanity, she still kind of gets away with it. What’s more, the writers are playing with her destiny back and forth, sometimes even trying to redeem her character.

“She bounces between "good person" and "evil witch" like she's a tennis game. And I honestly think that's intentional. I think she's a very self-serving character - she only really cares about what is best for her, at that moment. Her behavior changes to suit her needs,” Redditor lordmwahaha said.

And even though there are actually some fans who are sure that the twisted (to say the least) relationship between Serena and June is more than simple hate, and in the end they might find themselves very similar to each other, the majority of critically-thinking fans just do not buy the idea of making Serena a human she once was.

“Serena doesn't have June's heart, and June doesn't have Serena's. It's a weird twisted Stockholm Syndrome relationship at best. I hate that showrunners did this. But Serena needs to get the f**k out of June's life once and for all. June should never become lovers or besties with her rapist abuser,” Redditor strange-swimmimg-800 said.

So fans are strongly against the idea of any kind of redemption for the horrible rapist who only ever serves her own agenda and cares about no one. Every "good" deed she has done over the course of 5 seasons has only served one purpose: to achieve something for herself.