Madeline Brewer On The Endings of ‘You’ And ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

In real life, Madeline Brewer is in love and excitedly planning her summer nuptials, but on screen, she has been busy fighting off psychopathic men in two hit television series that are both coming to an end.

Brewer has spent six seasons in the hell that is Gilead in Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale as former Handmaid-turned-Jezebel-favorite, Janine, and she just starred in one of Netflix’s top series, You, as Joe Goldberg’s latest infatuation, Bronte aka Louise Flannery.

In an interview pegged to You’s fifth and final season, Brewer told me that she understood how her character, who had spent years as an internet sleuth and knew exactly what and who Joe was, still managed to be seduced by him.

“It is a testament to just how cunning and manipulative Joe is. Bronte has experienced grief and heartache. She’s alone in the world after being a caregiver for her mother for many years. This man sees and recognizes that and wants to take care of her. He wants to love her and give her something she’s been missing for so many years,” Brewer explained.

Bronte’s vulnerability, combined with Joe’s cunning instincts, creates the perfect match in the nightmare that is falling in love with a psychopathic serial killer. “I don’t think the fault falls to Bronte for allowing herself to be loved and believing that love like this can exist. Of course, as a viewer, we’re saying, ‘You idiot! What’re you doing? You spent years researching this guy, and then fell for his pretty face?’ I think she accepts a love that she’s been wanting her whole life, and in her defense, when another woman comes to her who has lived it and says, ‘You’re making a big mistake and you need to get out now,’ she does listen but not before she gets the answer to the question that brought her to New York in the first place,” adds Brewer, describing her character as intrepid, brave, and determined. “I admire these qualities in her.”

Brewer points out the moment Bronte’s plan begins to unravel. “At first, she doesn’t allow Joe to know anything about her backstory, but over time, she opens up to him, and that’s how he gets in. Once he knows something about someone, he knows how to manipulate them and get under their skin. That’s where she makes her first misstep.”

Since its April 24 premiere, season five immediately received over 10 million views and claimed the No. 1 spot on the English TV list (it’s sitting at No. 2 today).

And since the show based on the novel series by Caroline Kepnes arrived on the platform in 2018, the Penn Badgley-helmed drama has killed it (pun intended) on the streamer’s charts. Seasons one to four garnered more than 500 million views worldwide and landed on the Global Top 10 lists an incredible 30-plus times.

Based on the number of hours viewed, the five-season, 50-episode, nearly 2,500-minute binge-watch has consistently grown its audience from season to season. Season five also inspired viewers to binge-watch season one, which re-entered the Top 10 for the first time since February 2023, where it currently sits at No. 10.

In the series finale episode, Bronte barely escapes with her life in a battle with Joe at a house in the middle of nowhere. In one of her last acts to get justice for all of Joe’s victims, especially her friend Guinevere Beck, she shoots him in the crotch. He begs to die, but that would be too easy an out for him.

Instead, Joe must face a far worse fate than death. He’s made to pay for his crimes and rot in a prison cell for the rest of his life, knowing that no one, not even his son, wants anything whatsoever to do with him. He has to face the loneliness he’s so desperately tried to avoid his entire life.

Brewer feels Joe got what he deserved. “He’s had a void that he’s been filling with pursuing and claiming women and taking lives. Now he has no access to that. He has to be with himself, think about what he’s done, and confront who he is.”

When asked what she envisions Bronte doing after the Joe Goldberg scandal, Brewer says she’s free to forge a new path. “I think that the work of her life now is to find out who she is.”

There’s immense pressure to get the ending of a series right, but it’s also impossible to satisfy all fans. Brewer is well aware that, in this case, some fans have expressed disapproval of the ending. She admits she reads the comments and reviews, though those in her inner circle often suggest she refrain from doing so.

“I would like to be the person who says I don’t read anything, but unfortunately, I’m not that person. I’m also not a liar, so I’m not just going to pretend that I’m that person,” Brewer admitted. “I do read comments. That’s the part of my brain that’s a little bit self-sabotaging and masochistic.”

Brewer also expressed that as much as she wants the fans to like the endings of shows, she also realizes that it’s not possible to please the millions of viewers of The Handmaid’s Tale, which wraps up its six-season run on May 27, or You.

“I know some people hate how the show ended, and that’s okay. I loved the ending,” Brewer concluded. “I spent intimate time with Joe Goldberg, and I’ve spent time thinking about him and psychoanalyzing him, and I think he got exactly what he deserved.”

Without giving away any spoilers for the upcoming finale of The Handmaid’s Tale, Brewer told me how she feels about Janine’s fate. “I’m immensely proud to have seen Janine through to the end, and I think that she gets the only ending that she deserved…anything else I don’t think would have been just.”

With yet another huge series finale just around the corner, it’s a good thing that Brewer has family and friends ready to take her phone away from her if needed. “I have a great support system and a wonderful, loving, supportive fiancé that I’m going to marry the hell out of!”