Interview
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: Josh Charles Talks Serena-Wharton Romance’s Chances of Survival
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Episode 4, “Promotion.”]
Please don’t think I’m being positive when I say that everything’s coming up roses for Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski) in The Handmaid’s Tale. The widowed wife and new mom has a cushy new position leading the newly promoted High Commander Lawrence’s (Bradley Whitford) New Bethlehem, dubbed as a more “progressive” Gilead community (not that anything in Gilead can be considered progressive). In Episode 4 of the final season, available April 15 on Hulu, Serena gets courted by a new man, High Commander Gabriel Wharton, played by series newcomer Josh Charles.
Charles tells Swooon that Wharton “goes on a pretty substantial journey” this season, starting with his entry into the series as Nick’s (Max Minghella) father-in-law and continuing with this new romance with Serena. He’s appeared to be a better man than the other commanders so far, but can he be trusted to be more humane than the power-hungry extremists he leads?
Both widowed, Wharton revealed to Serena in Episode 4 that he’s long carried a torch for her ever since first seeing her dance with her late husband, Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes), years prior. They shared their own dance on the streets of New Bethlehem in “Promotion,” injecting some romance back into Serena’s life. Charles gives a glimpse into his character’s arc in this final season.
“I think there’s a lot of conflict inside of him,” Charles says. While it would be easy (and with show’s history, probably correct) to assume that Wharton is evil, Charles sees “much more ambiguity” in Wharton.
Hulu / Steve Wilkie
It’s less about if he’s just plain evil, Charles says, and more about his true “desires” that have yet to be revealed. “What happens if they get what they want? What happens if they don’t get what they want?” he wonders.
Charles implies that Wharton is connecting with Serena despite his better judgment. There’s a “conflict of this man who is a true believer, who really sees a very specific Gilead that goes in a different direction than maybe where it’s heading,” he says. “And at the same time, reconnects with a woman who he’s held a torch with for a while, who he’s just enthralled with and taken with in a way that he maybe goes down a path despite his own ethics and morals.”
Wharton will continue to grapple with the “tension between this hole inside of him that is lacking a family of his own since his wife passed” that he really wants to be filled and his “desires to be a leader.”
Apparently, with Serena, those two things can’t go hand-in-hand. For Charles, this “was very interesting to play.”
The Handmaid’s Tale, Tuesdays, Hulu
