‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: Fans Upset by Nick’s Storyline Haven’t Been Paying Attention
On Nov. 9, the season 5 finale of The Handmaid’s Tale premiered on Hulu. A great deal of the episode’s plot centered around Commander Nick Blaine (Max Minghella), June Osborne’s (Elisabeth Moss) love interest in Gilead. For years, Nick has come across as a morally gray character in The Handmaid’s Tale, with some fans questioning his motives at every turn.
The season 5 finale definitively answered where Nick’s allegiance stands, and while some fans were shocked by the revelations, the answers about Nick’s character have already been presented to viewers multiple times.
[Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for season 5 episode 10 of The Handmaid’s Tale.]
Nick agreed to spy for the U.S. in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Nick was super busy in the season 5 finale of The Handmaid’s Tale. He briefly crossed over into Canada, made deals with the U.S., punched his father-figure Commander Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford), and got dumped by his wife Rose (Carey Cox).
At the start of the episode, Nick is on edge because he heard someone shot at June at a rally in Canada. While Commander Lawrence assures him that Gilead does not go after escaped refugees, Nick does not trust him.
When there is another assassination attempt on June, Nick does not hesitate to make a deal with Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger) of the U.S. government. In exchange for letting him briefly visit June in the hospital to make sure she’s OK, Nick will give over Gilead intel to Tuello for the foreseeable future.
Nick tells Tuello he needs more than one visit with June. What he needs is her guaranteed safety from Tuello going forward.
After Tuello can only offer his “best,” Nick returns to Gilead to attend Commander Lawrence’s wedding reception. Breezing past Rose, Nick walks up to Lawrence and punches him for failing to stop the assassination attempt against June.
He’s put in a jail cell, where Rose visits him and calmly breaks up with him for not being able to let go of June.
Nick is not written as a villain
The Handmaid’s Tale is filled with complicated characters, and Nick is one of them. While Nick is part of Gilead, he has never been shown to be a true believer in the regime.
The first season reveals that Nick was not a founding member of the Sons of Jacob but instead was recruited by Commander Pryce (Robert Curtis Brown). Because Nick could not hold a job due to having to look after his family members, Pryce preyed upon Nick who was in a vulnerable position and offered him a job.
While unable to leave Gilead, Nick joins the Eyes as a spy to try and hold the Commanders in Gilead accountable, including the Commander who came up with the idea of using Handmaids.
On multiple occasions, Nick is shown to have some ties to Mayday, a rebel organization looking to take down Gilead. When he is a driver, he goes to Mayday at the end of the first season to arrange for June to escape, and he stays in contact with Mayday in the second season throughout June’s escape attempt.
Even when he’s a Commander, he is in contact with the Martha networks, showing he has rebels willing to work with him.
Subtleties throughout the series show how Nick is framed as an outsider within Gilead, playing along as an act of self-preservation to protect June while hating every minute of it.
Most notably, when Esther (McKenna Grace) declares that she hates men in season 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale, June assures her there are good men even in Gilead. Later in that episode, Nick shows up.
None of Nick’s actions are shocking in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ season 5 finale
As The Handmaid’s Tale has continued, the writing for the show has become increasingly heavy-handed. Subtle moments fans may have missed in past seasons are now drawn out and heavily foreshadowed.
Season 5 in particular focused on Nick’s growing unhappiness in Gilead away from June and their daughter Nichole.
Earlier in the season, Nick denied Tuello’s initial proposal of working together. He did not reject Tuello’s offer because of his love for Gilead, but because he does not feel like he is worthy of being saved.
With June and Nichole presumably safe in Canada, Nick had already resigned himself to being stuck in Gilead and doing what he could to get information about June’s daughter Hannah (Jordana Blake).
Once June was put in danger, Nick did not hesitate to work with Tuello, because his primary motivation has always been June’s safety and happiness, not his own.
Tuello finally figures this out when Nick admits that he’s “nothing” to June, showing how little he thinks of himself and how his primary motivator is his selfless love for June where he expects nothing in return.
While punching Lawrence was not a wise decision, Nick’s self-preservation always falls whenever June is involved. Not only did Nick feel betrayed by Lawrence for not warning him about the assassination attempt, but it’s also clear Nick felt frustrated with himself.
After staying in Gilead thinking it was the only way he could help June, the love of his life was still put in harm’s way and he was powerless to stop it.
The punch represented years of self-loathing and resentment finally coming to the surface, putting Nick on a different path going forward.
All five seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale are available to watch on Hulu.
