Madeline Brewer, who plays Janine in The Handmaid’s Tale, opened up about her character’s journey ahead of the show’s upcoming series finale. The Handmaid’s Tale is set to take its final bow later this month.

“Janine, once again, is a survivor — she plays the part that she needs to play to get through this,” Brewer tells The Hollywood Reporter about her character in the hit Hulu series. The character of Janine entered the Red Center at the same time as the series’ lead, June (Elisabeth Moss), and later had her eye removed as a punishment for noncompliance. In the most recent season, she was taken to work as a sex slave, becoming a Jezebel, which has made the character’s journey even darker.

“We turned it a bit darker this season. We showed a true kind of brothel atmosphere, which, when you think about it, is that going to disappear in favor of only classy dresses? No, these things exist for a reason,” Brewer said. “And ironically, I think it’s some of the most freedom Janine has had within the walls of Gilead. […] Other girls look to her for what to do, and she keeps them in line, and she feels like a protector. You can make a life out of that, in Janine’s eyes.”

Brewer wanted viewers to be reminded that Janine is a survivor as The Handmaid’s Tale heads into its final three episodes. “She’s always trying to hold on to some semblance of normalcy or purpose in this world,” Brewer said, referring to the drawing from her daughter that Janine has kept throughout the series, calling it “the sign of a survivor.”

“You can only have gone through the deepest dark and come out the other side to have that kind of hopeful view on things,” Brewer believes of her character’s resilience. “If you’ve never experienced anything difficult or any adversity or grief, your first experience with something like that can feel like the world is falling apart, and it’s harder to get through. Janine has been through so much already. She knows that the only way out is through and, why not try to hope for something better? There’s no hurt in hoping.”

Brewer Says Janine Experienced a “360” Journey

Brewer also recently spoke with CBR about the upcoming series finale of The Handmaid’s Tale, where she talked about her thoughts on Janine’s character arc coming to a close. “Janine has gone on an incredible journey. It’s a 360 from the moment where we first meet her in Season 1, in the pilot, with that really powerful spirit that we think is gone — but it never left her,” she said. “It just took a different shape. And so it’s really, really fulfilling and satisfying to find her where we find her at the end of Season 6.“

The Handmaid’s Tale first premiered in 2017 and has run for six seasons on Hulu. Back in 2019, Hulu and MGM announced plans for a sequel series based on The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s follow-up novel to the original The Handmaid’s Tale book.

New episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale air Tuesdays on Hulu.