‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 5 Premiere Introduces Nick’s New Wife
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 premiere picked up in the aftermath of Fred Waterford’s death. Nick returns home, having helped June take her revenge. The previous season revealed that he remarried in Gilead but didn’t show his second wife. Fans finally got to meet this mysterious woman in the season 5 premiere.
[SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers ahead for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 Episode 1.]
Nick met June in Canada in season 4
Toward the end of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4, Nick takes a trip to Canada to visit June and Nichole. After he leaves the encounter, Nick puts a wedding ring back on his finger, revealing that he has remarried. Nick’s first wife Eden was executed after attempting to run away with a Guardian.
“I can’t tell you specifically how long he’s been married. There’s been some time, a few months, that have passed since the end of episode 3 when they last met, to now in episode 9,” The Handmaid’s Tale writer-producer Eric Tuchman told Entertainment Weekly in June 2021.
“I do hope people will gasp a bit when Nick slides on that wedding ring. The thing is, of course he got married in Gilead. Nick is probably top of the list of most eligible commanders. He’s a power player on the rise. He’s a handsome man of mystery. And Gilead demands its version of traditional family values. So naturally Nick couldn’t stay single for very long.”
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 5 premiere introduced Nick’s new wife
Though this moment revealed Nick had remarried, viewers never got to see Nick’s new wife. Nick also kept the news of his nuptials from June. The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 gave fans more insight into Nick’s home life.
In the premiere, Nick arrives home to his wife, Rose. Thankfully, Rose is older than Nick’s first wife Eden. She serves Nick a coffee when he walks into the kitchen, joking that it’s bad because she made it herself. Rose also walks with a cane due to her congenital hip dysplasia, Entertainment Weekly reveals.
“Rose is the daughter of a very prominent commander, and when she was born, there was very little hope. And he brought her home and did absolutely everything he could do to keep her alive,” showrunner Bruce Miller told EW.
He added that the commander’s daughter is “very, very, very special to him” and pleased with her marriage to Nick. “He’s seen that his daughter seems genuinely happy, which I don’t think she would have been in any other marriages.”
Nick is more honest with his second wife, Rose
The next part of their conversation in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 premiere is a surprising revelation — Rose knows about June. Not only that, but she appears to be aware that Nick helped June enact her revenge on Fred Waterford.
Though Rose uses the verbiage of Gilead, she’s a lot more complicated than the average wife, and a lot more in the know than Eden.
“When we started to think of [Rose’s] backstory, we were trying to think of who might end up being very interesting with Nick, who might he be able to have some semblance of a relationship with,” Miller told EW. “When he was with his previous wife, Eden, he couldn’t even have any relationship because they couldn’t be honest with each other. So we didn’t want to do that again.”
Don’t miss new episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 Wednesdays on Hulu.
