The Most Brutal Deaths In The Handmaid's Tale

Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) is on a power trip from the very beginning. In order to survive, June is forced to submit to him in a variety of awful ways. That kind of trauma sits with a person, something made very evident in Season 4. Once June has escaped to Toronto (where Fred is in jail), she finally has the chance to confront her rapist in court. However, Fred strikes a deal to inform on Gilead in exchange for his freedom. June snaps. Rather than roll with another punch, she strikes a deal of her own.

Working with Tuello (Sam Jaeger) in the Season 4 finale "The Wilderness," June convinces Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) to release known female Mayday supporters in exchange for Fred, who has betrayed Gilead with his testimony. All parties agree, and suddenly, Fred Waterford's deal is off.

Once Fred is back at Gilead's borders, however, Lawrence turns Fred over to Nick (Max Minghella). Nick takes Fred to No Man's Land, where June, Emily (Alexis Bledel), and a slew of other former Handmaids have congregated in the woods. They beat a terrified Fred to death with their bare hands. Later, in one final act of rebellion against her former tormentor, June cuts off his finger and sends it to his incarcerated wife, Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski).

The various underground networks June interacts with become more prominent as the show goes on. Things reach a high point in the Season 3 finale "Mayday," when our heroes manage to spirit away a flight full of children to Canada.  

Alma (Nina Kiri), and Brianna (Bahia Watson) are among the women who make this happen. While Alma is one of June's closest rule-breaking confidants, Brianna is more meek. Regardless, both women want freedom. After they're recaptured in Season 4, they're ready to do whatever it takes to get it.

In Episode 3, "The Crossing," Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) rounds up Alma, Brianna, June, and Janine (Madeline Brewer), putting them in the back of a truck to transport them to a newly conceptualized birthing commune. When the train crossing lights up and the guard driving them takes a bathroom break, the women overpower Aunt Lydia and make a run for it. In a slow-motion scene directed by Moss herself, June and Janine make it across the tracks and turn around to grab their friends ... only for the scene to speed up as Alma and Brianna are hit by the oncoming train. It's an utterly shocking end for these characters, who have survived so much else.

As one of the architects of Gilead, Commander Lawrence is majorly responsible for the way things have become. Yet he refuses to participate in the monthly ceremony with Emily, and even helps her and Baby Nichole escape to Canada. He's dangerous, strange, and unpredictable — an explosive combination in Gilead.

One thing that makes his character more sympathetic, however, is his wife, Eleanor (Julie Dretzin). From the moment she makes her first on-screen appearance in Season 2's "Postpartum," it's clear her mental health is in decline. She blames her husband for his part in this new society, and his guilt over her hatred is potentially what drives him to try and make things right.

During her time in the Lawrence household, June bonds with Eleanor. But in Season 3's "Witness," Fred Waterford decides to make it his mission to ensure the ceremony is proceeding as ordered. Lawrence is forced to rape June, much to Eleanor's disgust. Later, in "Liars," June finds Eleanor pointing a gun at her husband, further proving Eleanor's fragile state of mind.

Perhaps that's why, in "Sacrifice," June decides not to help Eleanor after she finds her dying from an overdose of medication. In a move straight out of "Breaking Bad," June leaves her mistress to perish, either out of mercy, or because she doesn't want her ruining her big escape plans. Either way, it's a tragic ending for one of the few "good people" left in Gilead.

We never learn this character's name, but her death is one of the most devastating of the entire show. Martha 6715-301 (Laura Wilson) is Emily's lover back in Season 1. Their affair takes place offscreen, but is thrust into the center of the story in Episode 3, "Late."

Ofglen, a.k.a. Emily, and Martha 6715-301 are arrested for being "gender traitors" in this episode. During their trial, they're found guilty (big surprise), and the Martha is brutally hanged right in front of Emily's eyes. As though that isn't awful enough, Emily is forced to undergo female genital mutilation. She's then sent right back into service as a Handmaid. Unsurprisingly, she holds onto the trauma and anger of this moment for years.

It all comes bubbling up in Season 4's "Testimony," when the Aunt who informed on Emily and her lover, Aunt Irene (Carly Street), surfaces in Toronto. She wants Emily to forgive her, which Emily cannot do. In the end, just as Emily decides to seek out Irene and attempt to forgive and forget (or at least convince the former Aunt to rat on Gilead), Irene kills herself.

If we've learned anything from watching June, it's that she cannot stand "pious little sh**s." That's exactly how she pegs Natalie, a.k.a. Ofmatthew, especially after she rats out Frances. After Natalie tattles to Aunt Lydia, resulting in Frances' death, June and the other Handmaids shun and mock her, leaving her distraught.

That isn't the worst of it, though. Prior to coming into June's life, Natalie gave birth to three children. When she learns she's pregnant again, she has a hard time coping with the thought of giving another baby up. Her mental health is in serious decline by the time she arrives at the grocery store in Season 3's "Unfit." Finally, she snaps: Natalie beats Janine with a can, then attacks a guard with a jar. Eventually, she gets ahold of a gun and aims it right at June and Aunt Lydia, before she's shot through the shoulder.

In the following episode, "Heroic," June is forced to sit vigil with Natalie, who has been left brain dead. She is being kept alive long enough to give birth. The entire, months-long ordeal leaves June more than a little emotionally damaged.

It isn't often that you see a Guardian help a Handmaid in Gilead, but in Season 4, David (Samer Salem) becomes an exception. Not only does the man help June and company out at the Keyes' farm, he transports June back and forth to the makeshift Jezebels located nearby.

When the Commanders and other Guardians learn of June's whereabouts, his life is immediately deemed expendable. Capturing June and the other escaped Handmaids is their number one priority. When June and David return from a field trip to the bullet-riddled Keyes farm on the night of their escape in "Nightshade," no one thinks twice about shooting him — not even Nick, who coolly emerges from the shadows to promise June that he'll do what he can to protect her now that she's back in custody. And no, for the record, he doesn't help her wipe David's blood off of her face first.

Gilead has always been brutal, evidenced by many of the series' flashbacks. But it is Season 1's "The Other Side" that fully explores how vicious Gilead's beginnings were. A majority of the installment is dedicated to June's husband Luke (O.T. Fagbenle) and his escape from Gilead, but it also explores how he and June tried to escape before things got really bad.

One person who is instrumental in helping their (failed) escape is a character named Mr. Whitford (Tim Ransom). This man, a friend of June's mother, helps the family flee out of a feeling of obligation. After teaching Luke how to shoot a gun and arranging to grab Canadian passports for the trio, Mr. Whitford simply disappears. That's because he's been brutally hanged from a street lamp in town, showing us how quickly people became ghosts in the early days of Gilead.

To think of it, not much has changed since.