Janine, under the name Ofwarren, is assigned to Commander
Janine has endured traumas ranging from sexual abuse to physical abuse (her eye was removed as a form of punishment), and she has lost two children. Her first, a son, died in a car accident after they were separated in Gilead.
The Handmaid's Tale Mrs. Keyes character is scheduled to have a hysterectomy, only for the doctors to find out that she's three weeks pregnant. Aunt Lydia proceeds to fiercely question the Handmaid, when Esther finally admits that she's pregnant because she was raped by Warren Putnam.
“What happened to her?” June asked the Commander. “She killed herself,” said Fred.
In the Hulu series
Rita discovers the Waterford's handmaid hanged herself in her room. Nick quickly tries to cut the rope and gets her down but only to find that she is already dead. As the body is carried away, Serena asks Fred "What did you think was going to happen?"
Fred Waterford Got Serena Joy Pregnant
The rekindling of their love life began with Fred offering to let Serena drive on the trip — a flagrant breaking of Gilead's terrifying laws against women being permitted to drive.
The childbirth scene is primal and intimate and prompts the women to confess their secrets: June tells Serena that she didn't kill her when she had the chance because she simply didn't want to, and Serena realizes she has been forced into essentially being a handmaid in the Wheelers house and begs June to take her baby ...
Inside the package were Fred's finger and his wedding ring. The finger served as something of a taunt. It was very evident who it came from, so June was telling Serena she murdered her husband,...
Selection and Classification
June, for instance, relates that she was forced to become a handmaid because Gilead outlawed divorce and invalidated any marriages in which one of the partners was divorced; she was thus deemed to be an adulteress because her husband, Luke, divorced his first wife to marry her.
June Osborne
Luke and June first began seeing each other when Luke was still married to Annie (Kelly Jenrette), whom he later divorced. Due to their marriage being Luke's second, June is considered an "adulteress" in Gilead, and because of her fertility, is forced to be a handmaid as reparation for her sin.
He had been issued an even sweeter deal than her, yet he still turned it down, and she demands to know why he expects her to uproot her life and not his. Crestfallen, June acknowledges the primary reason for Nick's inability to leave: Rose (Carey Cox), his wife, is pregnant.
It is implied that some Wives are capable of bearing children, but most are older women and thus have difficulty conceiving (or their husbands are infertile), which is also hampered by widespread infertility. As a result, Wives have to 'share' their husbands with Handmaids, in order to get a child.
Before Gilead
Moira gives birth to a boy named Gavin as a surrogate and gives him to the new parents (the Wilsons) who eventually move back to England with him. She mentions to June that she is being paid $250,000 upon the birth of a healthy baby.
She is the wife of Luke Bankole and the mother of a young daughter, Hannah. She is also the mother of Nichole who she had with Nick in Gilead.
10 They Must Dress In Teal
Wives are dressed in modest dresses of varying shades of teal/blue, indicative of their supposed 'purity' as non-sinners (compared to the violent, but fertile, shade of red the handmaids wear).
On the surface, Marthas are a downtrodden lot — not powerful enough to be Wives or Lydias, not fertile or young enough to be Econowives. The name "Martha" comes from the bible, after one of Jesus' friends who is a pragmatic and focused on domestic concerns; hence the Marthas' role as housekeepers in Gilead.
That last one is the cost Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski) pays in the season two finale of The Handmaid's Tale, as Gilead's leadership orders the severing of one of her fingers for the simple act of reading a Bible verse aloud.
Fred tells them that he knows that Serena forged his signature so that the Martha could see the baby. He asks Offred if that's her handwriting on one of the papers and she says yes. As punishment, Fred whips Serena with his belt and forces Offred to watch as he does.
Story. Following the events in Household and prior to the events of Season 5, Rose married Nick Blaine, who had recently been promoted to a Commander.
Despite seeming to be a true believer at the start of the story (at least in June's eyes, indicating that she might not always be a reliable narrator), Lydia is actually a part of Mayday, working against Gilead in the long game.
Serena Waterford gives birth to Noah in a barn in No Man's Land, with the help of June Osborne. Noah is born in good health and eventually is taken to a hospital in Canada to receive treatment in the Newborn ICU. After Noah's mother, Serena, gets detained, he gets moved into Child Protective Services.
This article contains spoilers.
There's a new Serena Joy Waterford in the fifth season of Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale. Not only has she been edged out of her protected position as the Wife of a powerful Commander, but as a single pregnant woman, she soon became a Handmaid.
“It didn't feel healthy, but it felt correct,” says Miller of Emily's decision to go back to Gilead and continue the fight, even if it means she likely wouldn't survive there on her own. The punishment for participating in the murder of a commander would likely see Gilead putting Emily on the wall once she is captured.
Nichole Holly Osborne, temporarily named Nichole Waterford, is the biological baby daughter of Nick Blaine and June Osborne. She was initially named Holly by her mother when giving birth (after her maternal grandmother) and renamed Nichole by the Waterfords. June later approved the latter name.
As mentioned, Commander Waterford is likely to be infertile as well. If such infertility is rampant among the Commanders, then their handmaids are almost for set decoration.