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.
Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: The Commander whips Serena Joy with his belt. Domestic Abuse: Commander Waterford whips his wife Serena Joy for going over his head to have Charlotte/Angela treated by Dr. Hodgeson, a woman.
In the end, the action of June sending Fred's finger to Serena has to do with the fact that she simply wanted to show her what she's capable of.
Their sex life wasn't particularly active, so the child was presumably conceived in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 11, "Liars," when Serena and Fred had intercourse while staying at a bed and breakfast.
Following Fred's death, Serena initially believed she could become an international flag-bearer for Gilead values. That's not how things have worked out. Once she was forced to move in with the Wheelers, it became apparent pretty quickly that her only currency was her child.
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,...
And in the midst of this, she's bluntly told that her husband has been killed. At the safe house, Serena-sympathizer Mark Tuello tells her exactly what happened to Fred, including the fact that his ring finger had been cut off and mailed to her.
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 ...
Noah Waterford is a character in The Handmaid's Tale. He is the son of Serena Waterford and Fred Waterford.
A Purely Strategic Decision
Serena is not being benevolent by letting June go. Although Serena is far from a saint, she isn't stupid. She just knows June can be of some help to her in a different capacity. Maybe she just wants June to be her ally instead of her enemy, because June is a strong one, one way or the other.
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.
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.
Emily's partner informs her that she's fled to Gilead to hunt down the evil-doing aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd). Feeling guilt over Emily's rash decision, and with the high of Fred's murder wearing off, June scrubs off the blood and turns herself into the Toronto police.
The Commanders knew, Serena knew, even Nick knew that right from the off, Fred was abusing the Handmaid system he'd helped to design and market. Instead of performing one ritual rape a month as Gilead's laws decreed, he was getting his rocks off by forcing his Handmaid to be his live-in mistress.
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.
Serena staying in Gilead was never an option for her for several reasons, the first being that her husband is a known traitor. It's likely that the Commanders at least assume that she is a traitor, too, although they have yet to indicate whether they know this. Serena also being pregnant and unwed is another factor.
She is a woman in her 30s who was forced to serve as a Handmaid in the early years of Gilead, due to the fact she is still capable of bearing children. 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.
“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.
Given Lydia's incredibly cruel behavior towards the handmaids, she clearly couldn't be further removed from the name that she was born with. However, she does begin to show a change of heart as time goes on.
Serena's obvious unhappiness means that she teeters on the edge of inspiring the reader's sympathy, but she forfeits that sympathy by taking out her anger on Offred. Serena Joy seems to possess no compassion at all for Offred. She can see the difficulty of her own life, but not that of another woman.
Serena Helped Create Gilead
As a writer and activist, Serena didn't condone rules such as the ban on reading and writing; instead, she envisioned a world where religion and childbearing were at the forefront, without sacrifices to everyday freedoms.
Then, at the end of season four, she managed a more shocking reversal. Through a combination of fierce determination and knowing the right people, she got Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) out in the woods at night unprotected, where she and a group of other former handmaids beat him to death.
When Serena visits them, June attempts to stab her with a scalpel she had stolen from the medical waste disposal box. Serena fights back and cuts June in the arm. Serena alerts Dr. Yates and reports a self-harm instead of an attack on her.
Fred was considered a traitor among the other Commanders as he agreed to reveal the inside information about the state in exchange for immunity. Therefore, it was hard for Serena to convince the Gileadean government to give him an outstanding funeral.