and when will we have the conversation that whitney was lowkey one of the most interesting characters ever placed in the industry-verse?

shark vs the universe

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Acquired Stardust
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Discoholic 🪩
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
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祝日 / Permanent Vacation
we're not kids anymore.
d e v o n
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let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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@benofie
and when will we have the conversation that whitney was lowkey one of the most interesting characters ever placed in the industry-verse?
HARPER STERN PayPal of Bukkake
The Handmaid's Tale's big twist unpacked.
They turned a feminist manifesto into a motherhood parable.
The point was choice. And they still don’t get it.
What still blows my mind isn’t the finale itself, it’s the gaslighting. The way the media and the writers keep applauding it, insisting it’s feminist, that it’s closure, that it’s “satisfying.” As if ending where you started is empowerment. As if stagnation is progress. As if the point was ever motherhood.
This Screen Rant piece — echoing Elisabeth Moss’s Collider comments — actually made me laugh out loud, in that painful, secondhand-embarrassment kind of way. They talk about the ending being “satisfying” because it “ties everything back to the beginning.” Like that’s profound. Like that’s feminist. Like that’s the point.
No. That’s the tragedy.
You took a story that was written to break the cycle. To expose the machinery that traps women in silence, service, and survival, and you made it end right where it started. And somehow, you all thought that was genius.
Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale wasn’t about a woman learning to accept her trauma or sit quietly by the window reflecting on her suffering. It was about womanhood as rebellion. About finding power in storytelling, sexuality, memory, and love. About tearing down the structures that define a woman’s purpose as either mother, martyr, or ghost.
And yet the show ended with June doing the exact opposite, sitting still, narrating the story of her pain like a documentary subject. Passive. Muted. Contained.
That’s not empowerment.
It’s astonishing how so many people — critics, writers, even Moss herself — can look at that finale and call it “fitting” or “satisfying.”
What made The Handmaid’s Tale powerful wasn’t its brutality. It was its heart.
It was the fire of womanhood: desire, defiance, messiness, all of it.
It was June and Nick as proof that love, even in hell, could still mean freedom.
That connection could be rebellion. That desire could be defiance. Because with Nick, June was never a victim or a saint, she was alive. She was feral and fearless and human. Their love didn’t make her weaker, it made her dangerous. It reminded her that she still had something to fight for.
And then there was Luke. Luke was safety. Luke was order. Luke was the patriarchy wrapped in kindness.
He was the version of love women are taught to settle for — gentle, rational, forgiving. The man who wants you healed, not whole. The one who loves you best when you’re smaller, softer, easier to live with.
Luke represented the comfort of being “good.” Nick represented the risk of being free.
With Luke, June was always apologizing — for her anger, her choices, her damage. With Nick, she didn’t have to apologize for anything. He saw her darkness and didn’t try to fix it. He didn’t tell her who to be. He didn’t need her to be anything other than the woman she already was.
That’s why their relationship mattered. Not because it was romantic, but because it was revolutionary. It was about a woman reclaiming ownership over her own desire — sexual, emotional, spiritual.
It was the book’s core thesis made flesh: love as rebellion, womanhood as self-definition.
So when the finale erased that, when it quietly placed her back beside Luke, the man who represented everything she’d outgrown, it wasn’t just a narrative choice. It was patriarchy winning through the back door.
Because what’s more palatable to the world than a “strong woman” who eventually learns to be grateful for stability? Who trades her chaos for comfort and calls it growth? Who forgets the man who met her in the fire because it’s easier to live in the ashes?
The show wanted us to see that as healing. But what it really was, was containment.
The woman who burned the system down was rewritten as the woman who learned to behave.
And that’s the part no one wants to talk about, because the truth is, this ending isn’t feminist. It’s anti-feminist in the most insidious way. It masquerades as empowerment while quietly reaffirming every patriarchal value the original story existed to dismantle.
The writers wanted June back in that marriage because it was safe, because it was palatable, contained, familiar. They wanted her reconciled with Luke because the idea of a woman choosing passion over stability, desire over duty, still makes people deeply uncomfortable. Especially when that love exists outside the rules. Especially when it’s messy, unapproved, and not easily moralized.
So instead of letting her walk the unconventional path that Atwood endorsed. The path of a woman who refuses to fit the mold. They forced her back into the box. The box labeled “wife.” The box labeled “mother.” The box labeled “redeemed.”
It’s the oldest patriarchal trick there is: tame the rebel, reframe her rage as trauma, and call it healing.
They took a story about a woman finding her own power and rewrote it into one about a woman who learns to accept her place. A story that once dared to say love can be rebellion became one that quietly whispered obedience is peace.
That’s not feminism. That’s fear.
And what’s worse is that they genuinely seem to think they did something meaningful — that “bringing it full circle” is poetry, that motherhood equals transcendence, that silence equals strength. It’s the same lie women have been sold forever: be grateful, be gentle, be still.
But June was never supposed to be still. She was supposed to burn.
The Handmaid’s Tale was supposed to be a feminist manifesto — a story about womanhood, autonomy, and the defiance to love on your own terms. And they turned it into a motherhood parable. A lecture. A warning disguised as wisdom.
The point was never purity. It was never obedience.
It was choice.
The right to want. The right to walk away. The right to be free.
👏👏👏
why establish a romantic sub-plot in the first place?
I joined The Handmaid’s Tale train pretty late (as in binging it all this month) so a lot of material from the earlier seasons was fresh on my mind while watching the last one. And it just. Baffled me? Not only did they completely undermine all of Nick’s development from 5.5 seasons, they also undermined June’s as well. It’s so hard to believe she “used” him when all she did throughout the show was reciprocate that love. From expressing her wish not to lose him to visibly relaxing every time she saw him or heard his voice. Or confiding in him her traumatic experiences to comforting him after Eden was executed. Obviously, Nick loved her, if risking his life multiple times doesn’t say anything, but they put an equal amount of effort into showing that she loved him too.
The real June understood that change didn’t occur through purely “moral” action but required a level of sacrifice, that unintended losses were an inevitable consequence of that. Why else would she and other handmaids risk their lives to bring 86 stolen children to Canada? She would also understand Nick’s reasons for leaking Mayday’s plans to Wharton because of that, even if she couldn’t immediately forgive him.
Maybe it’s delusional, but I refuse to accept how they characterized them both in the end. I refuse to believe that June suddenly turned into an inconsiderate, self-righteous person and Nick a man thirsty for power. It was a disservice to the entire show’s-worth of development invested into them and their relationship, and I’d rather appreciate it as originally written than a gross distortion for the sole purpose of shock value.
THT 6x03 Screenplay Notes: Nick & June meet at Mile Marker 17
I recently had the opportunity to read all 10 screenplays for The Handmaid's Tale season 6 at the WGF library in Los Angeles. Obviously, my interest was primarily focused on the Nick and Osblaine scenes, but if you have questions about anything else, I'm happy to answer them!
Here are my notes from the first Nick and June sequence in this episode, when they meet in the woods.
My first note is that the screenplay actually has the scene with Serena and Lawrence at her house immediately following the title card (right after Strauss delivers the message to Nick about meeting June at Mile Marker 17).
I really think they made a great choice in changing the order of this so that we see June in the woods awaiting Nick's arrival as the very next thing after the close up of his face taking in his receival of the message.
The first chunk of description lines from this scene read:
Anticipation churning, June waits, eyes on the empty road that splits the forest. June sees NICK'S CAR approach. Her heart leaps. She floods with relief and hurries over as -- Nick parks and climbs out of his car, concerned and confused, assuming this is an emergency. They never expected to see each other again after Ep 509, and she doesn't know he visited her in the hospital in Ep 510. She embraces him -- the very feel of him comforts and stirs her -- then she shifts away, anticipating his worries.
Y'all. I love every word of all that. Applause for Nina Fiore and John Herrera.
Can I just take a moment to interject that you don't hug someone with that expression and then kill them a few weeks later. YOU JUST DON'T. That's not the same person, and I just CANNOT with what they did to June's character over the course of a few episodes. I get that she had some problematic stuff going on in other seasons, but I could work around it up until 6x08, because I still thought we were going somewhere with all of it...
Anyway, the first line of dialogue from June in this scene has a small but interesting change. In the screenplay, she says:
I'm fine. Nichole's safe. She's with my mom in Alaska.
But in the episode, she says:
I'm okay. She's safe. She's in Alaska with... with my mom, Nick. She's with Holly.
So in the screenplay, June calls their daughter "Nichole," but we know at this point in the season that June is starting to refer to her as Holly again. This makes me wonder if they hadn't decided how they were handling that as of the writing of this episode.
As much as I now wish we had kept "Nichole" as a tribute to Nick, at the time, I had just come off a couple seasons of being so frustrated that she wasn't being referred to as Holly, particularly when Nick and June were talking about her alone.
I also love how June doesn't actually move away from Nick while she's speaking most of these lines, even though the script says she "shifts away." It's really nice that they're still hugging while she's telling him she's okay and that Holly/Nichole is safe.
In the screenplay, after June mentions her mother, she has an omitted line where she says:
She's okay. She survived.
It definitely makes sense why they took this out. It was unnecessary - this can be assumed by June's previous lines.
Nick's first line in this scene is:
What happened? What's going on?
Max reversed these two lines, which I actually think flows better, even though I have no idea how to explain why. Brilliant little choices like this are everywhere in his performance:
What's going on? What happened?
Sidenote: Nick seems so wary of Tuello after the hug in this scene, which isn't mentioned at all in the screenplay. I love this addition on the show/from Max, because for me, it highlights the tension Nick is feeling about his new spy job + his FIL living in his house + the fact that there's an ethical rift now in the Tuello & Nick relationship, after Nick has realized that Mark is using untrained civilians for dangerous missions.
Nick's next line is in response to June telling him what's going on. In the screenplay, he says:
Why'd they do something so dangerous?
And Max said:
That's dangerous. Why would they do that?
There's not a lot of description for how Nick should be reacting throughout this scene, but after June explains where Luke and Moira are, there's this line: "For Nick, it's not a simple ask. June sees his hesitation."
All the little details of the way they are both acting really elevate the material for me. There are tons of moments that show exactly how stressful this is, like Nick scoffing, the way he scratches his face, etc.
In the screenplay, during June's explanation of what's going on, she says:
Can you clear a path?
And I actually prefer that to the way it was done in the final cut, where June says:
So, I need you to clear a path, Nick.
The screenplay way is a question. The performed way is more like a command.
HOWEVER, the screenplay has the line from June acknowledging the New Bethlehem event day after she's asked him to clear a path.
But I love how, in the final cut, Nick kind of talks over her to respond to the "clear a path" part, while she's still talking about the NB event in the final cut.
Nick's line in the screenplay:
Yeah, so extra security. Guardians are on high alert, making random searches near the border. I can't move those patrols, it would be too suspicious.
Max's delivered line:
Which means extra security, which means I can't move those patrols. It's too suspicious.
There's an inserted June description right here that reads: "June is distraught."
On the show, I felt like she was irritated on top of being upset. And at the time, I didn't find that as obnoxious as I do now... because fuck June Osborne for not appropriately caring about how dangerous this is for Nick, but that's a rant for another post...
Nick's next line is:
I wish I could help, but I have to get back. Mark needs to think of something else.
And Max said:
I-I wanna help. I do. I just... Mark's gotta think of something else.
When June pushes back here with her lines about how there are no other options, there's a side description in the middle of that that reads "off Nick's reluctance," and then June adds:
They're my family. They took care of our daughter.
I am SO glad they cut this. It reads as manipulative to me.
Nick's description in the screenplay to follow this is: "Nick can't deny that, but he's torn between self-preservation, his debt to Luke and Moira, his love for June."
Then, June's description: "June sees his hesitation, but she's desperate."
On the show, June then says:
It's fine. No, it's fine. I get it. It's dangerous, I get it.
I really like that she added this, because that's not in the screenplay at all.
After June's turn where she says she's gonna go herself, Nick's line in the screenplay reads:
I'll go. I'll bring them back.
Max says the same lines, but June's inserted "really?" between those two sentences isn't in the screenplay.
June's next description is: "June fills with gratitude. She finally feels hopeful."
And now we've arrived at my favorite adjustments that they made on camera for this scene...
The rest of the scene in the screenplay is just June moving toward Nick's car, then these three lines:
Nick: You stay here. June: I'm coming with you. **description: Nick decides it's pointless to protest. Nick: In the back and stay down.
But on the show, we got what I thought was such a cute interaction, so on brand for them, so in character, so Nick & June:
Nick: Hey, wait, what are you doing? Where are you going? June: I'm going with you. Nick: No, no, no. You gotta stay here. You can't come with me. **they stare at each other for a beat Nick: In the back. In the back. Keep your head down. June: I will!
When watching the first season of The Handmaid's Tale, what I liked about the portrayal of Luke was, that even moreso than in the books, it was revealed that he was a weak ass man. He was not perturbed at the way June's rights were being curtailed. Made him feel all tingly in his big boy parts it seems. June was a weak woman married to a weak man. Luke was, as we were told, a cheater himself.
In the whole Handmaid's Tale the series he stays a weak man. When he meets Nick, the first time, it takes him nearly ten minutes to even ask about his daughter. He barely ever does anything useful for anyone, certainly not June. He could have been certainly worse, still, there isn't much substance to him. He wants to be part of Mayday because of the reflected glory more than anything, he constantly leaves June to fend for herself. He's meh.
But the series wants to make it very clear that because this mediocre man called dibs first, June belongs with him. No matter it's been Nick that kept her alive to do everything she has done. She's cheating on Luke with Nick, so Nick has to be left so June can be in her traditional place as loyal wife. Both she and Luke were once bystanders in Gilead; I'm sure the only reason Luke decided to flee was because the regime wanted to rip apart his "unlawful" family. But Luke has always been too passive for this game, as was the pre-Gilead June. This being an American show, she had to have a glow up, but since she has had one, Nick is a far more logical, strategic partner.
But The Handmaid's Tale, the series, delights in a very subtle misogyny, a strange sort of traditionalism through it all. Magical Motherhood - the way baby Charlotte could only be saved from death by her birth mother. The neverending cruelty inflicted upon its female characters where men's suffering is shielded from view. This weird voiceover by June calling the Pre-Gilead view of fashion wasteful and airheaded and inconsequential. Bitch, what? Only a man could have written that. The way women are judged by their clothing makes it anything but an airheaded part of their life. "They've forgotten that red is also the color of rage." No June, they very much knew red is the color of rage, only they channeled that rage into using the Handmaids as state executioners. Given that actually killing someone is taxing to people's mental health. This whole insistence on violence being the only way to oppose a regime correctly when we've just seen how easily that can be co-opted. Credit to Luke, he seemed to do his best non violently. Much more credit to Luke if he'd said: "June, I am better at PR" instead of "Now it's my time to fight for Hannah." (What took you so long then, if that's not what you'd been doing before?)
Hmpf. Don't we want to admit that this whole milquetoast performative progressive nonthreatening feminism is something Atwood was critiquing? O, June keeps her own name as long as Hannah has Luke's and Luke can stay sure of his rightful place in the world, when he may not be evil but is far, far too happy to be complicit? Whereas Nick, before he was sacrificed on the altar of suburban American respectability, was someone who was seduced, actually understood how sick this world was, and when it really counted tried very much to protect Eden, a young girl he didn't love? Willing to stay married and have a baby if that meant she didn't die? Even if he had everything to gain from her death? Only for June to go back to a man who, as far as we are shown, has done very little of consequence to fight for his actual family... Until June came back and upstaged him?
Why wasn't he with June in Alaska as soon as he got half a chance? Because adopted children do not count? Please. Tell that to the children who need to get adopted! I am not condoning baby robbing but I also can't deny how vital non blood family can be in giving children a good life. The fact that Serena has no interest whatsoever in Nichole's welfare after she has given her up I do believe, but as a sign of dysfunction, not as a sign of "only blood relatives count." It would have been much more believable to me if Serena would still have a bond with Nichole. It would have given the renaming her Nichole (possibly after Nick) after Serena gave her up much more weight.
But ah, if blood doesn't count for so much, that diminishes the role of the father even further, doesn't it? Can't have that!
Conformity, and through it, patriarchy got its claws into this show.
You know what, I was just thinking about another scene that shows June’s hypocrisy, because it’s a day that ends in Y, so therefore I’m raging about what the show did.
In episode 1x06, June is in the study with Fred, some other Commanders, and the Mexican ambassadors. She’s under pressure from everyone watching her, and she lies that she’s happy in Gilead as a Handmaid.
Later that night, she goes to Nick’s apartment, freaking out about what she said, and he tells her: “What choice did you have? You were in a room full of Commanders.” During her emotional breakdown, Nick compassionately offers her space and understanding, and the scene ends with the sweet forehead kiss / hug moment.
As we find out later, Mexico was using this trip to trade for their own Handmaids, which means June’s testimony helped secure this happening, causing more women to be enslaved. Of course this was not June’s fault, but I'm sure she would have felt a heavy weight of guilt from this.
Now, all y’all know where I’m going with this.
Does this, like, maybe kind of sound like exactly what happened with Nick in episode 6x06?
Nick, threatened by an ominous Gilead presence in the room, says what he has to say to survive (and to protect June, but that’s a whole different topic), then has a mental breakdown that June starts to clock. The women at Jezebel’s were killed as a domino effect of what he said, without him knowing this would happen or having any control over it, and you can tell he's feeling a lot of guilt over this.
And what does our girl June do then in 6x07? She acts like he’s the devil himself, abandons him, and watches him die.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
I rage created a spreadsheet, and I'm probably gonna slowly make these for every instance like this in the show... because as we all know, there are MANY.
In conclusion, fuck you, June.
the June & Nick cut
osblaine master cut s1-s5.mp4
A couple years ago, I started working on a big project to edit together all the Osblaine scenes, Nick scenes, and any moments where it’s conceivable that June was thinking about Nick throughout the entire Handmaid’s Tale show.
The file above is everything from seasons 1-5. I started working on season 6, episode by episode, but stopped after episode 6 for obvious reasons… I may return to it and finish the whole thing for the sake of completism, and I was also working on cleaning up a few transitions to make the audio smoother. But for now, here’s my link to everything through 5x10.
I hope this helps anyone who is considering rewatching the show to have an option not to give Hulu any more views from our fandom. ♥️
So, I've heard from a few people that they're receiving an error when trying to play or download this file because there have been too many plays/downloads already.
First of all, cheering for the way we have turned my Google Drive into Alt Hulu. ✨
But for anyone still having trouble, here's a fresh link to try! If you still run into errors, let me know and I'll figure out a workaround. WE WILL FIND A WAY! *slams fist on desk*
What Nick loves most is himself and his power. And he will protect that at all costs
I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that they’re still trying to gaslight us about Nick Blaine, or that maybe… they actually believe this crap.
I just read this ELLE piece declaring that Nick’s betrayal in Season 6 “proves” men will always choose power over love, and that his confession—about trading June’s plan to protect himself—was the ultimate confirmation that he’s no different from the rest of them. On the surface, the episode wants you to see it that way. The writers clearly want the audience to feel the gut-punch of betrayal. To close the door on Nick Blaine as the last “good guy” in Gilead.
But the thing is—it’s how blatantly the show rewrites its own history to sell us on this “lesson.” How do these fools not see that?! And proceed to continue to sell this complete and utter crap.
Because if you’ve actually watched the show—if you’ve sat through six seasons of this man quietly, consistently risking himself for June—it doesn’t add up. This whole storyline is wildly out of character. It isn’t earned. It doesn’t track emotionally. It doesn’t even make logistical sense given what we know about Nick and where he’s been leading up to this moment.
And let’s not pretend June doesn’t play a role in all of this either. Can someone please acknowledge that? Ugh. She’s not some innocent, passive victim of Nick’s choices—she’s part of this dynamic. She knows who he is. She’s made her own compromises. She’s lied, killed, manipulated people too. She understands him. That’s why their connection has always worked—it was never built on fantasy. It was built on recognition. And the audience knows that.
And oh yeah—let’s not forget in the end, he chooses her. He gives up his marriage. He walks away from the carefully constructed life he built to stay close to her. His last act is loving her, choosing her, and letting her go because he thinks it’s what she wants. So… what are these people watching, exactly?
You can’t spend seasons showing us a man who helped orchestrate Fred’s murder, who saved June over and over, who stayed in Gilead specifically to keep protecting her from the inside—and then suddenly flip the switch and say, “Actually, he just did it for himself.” That’s not a twist. That’s a rewrite. And it’s a lazy one.
You want to talk about tragic? How about a man who was trafficked into war as a teenager, weaponized by Gilead, radicalized by Lawrence, and then trapped in a cycle where every choice he made was a lesser evil. And still—still—he found a way to protect June. Still, he held on to love. Still, he looked at her and said, “It’s always been you."
What this article calls betrayal, I call exhaustion. A man pushed to the brink, cornered by a regime he’s been trying to escape for years, reaching for the only leverage he has left. And even then, he tries to explain it to June. He tells her he loves her and chooses her. He begs her not to look at him like that. To open her eyes and face it.
But sure. Let’s flatten all of that into “men will always choose power.” Let’s ignore six seasons of emotional complexity because the show suddenly decided it was time to close the door on him. Let’s pretend June didn’t see herself in Nick’s compromises, or that she didn’t understand them because she’s made them too.
Here’s the truth: this isn’t a story about men being irredeemable. It’s about writers who no longer understood the story they were telling—and needed Nick to fall in order to prop up the version of June they chose to end with.
Nick didn’t betray June. The show betrayed Nick (and by extension, June). And it betrayed us for ever believing they’d honor the soul of this character instead of using him as a scapegoat to make June’s “freedom” look clean.
So no, I don’t buy it. I never will. And I’m not clapping. And I’m definitely not rewriting history just to fit the finale’s hollow, cynical message.
Some of Tina’s beautiful statement on Nick and processing and the loss of a beloved character and an entire show’s integrity on the Above the Garage podcast (part 1/2):
“And I found myself dealing with this loss in a way that I've been unable to shake. Because unlike other fictional losses, this one feels different.
With most characters, l cry, I process, l move on. But with Nick, I can't seem to.
I feel like I'm stuck cycling repeatedly through anger, sadness, confusion, trying to make sense of what feels like a senseless death”
…
Ultimately, Nick's death as it happened was a cheap plot device that served no narrative purpose other than manufactured drama.
It was meant to hurt and nothing else.
But more importantly, what I realized is I'm not just mourning him, I'm mourning what he represented. Because for me and many others, Nick was comfort.
He was hope.
Max Minghella once described Nick and June's relationship as like a rose and in apocalyptic scenario. And he was right. Because Nick was a light in the darkness and an escape.
..
I'm not just grieving a character, I'm grieving the loss of a safe space, A comfort character. Knowing how his story ends so unceremoniously and void of empathy or compassion, both from the woman who claimed to love him and from the people who were responsible for his fate, feels like a betrayal.
And what I want to say to anyone listening who may have also considered Nick a comfort character, is that you are not alone in your hurt.
And you were not wrong to have loved Nick, to get attached to him, mourn his death, or be upset at the attempted 11th hour recharacterization of Nick to someone he wasn't.
..
I won't ever forget how Nick's story ended. Because of that, I'll never be able to draw comfort from the show ever again.
The loss of that safe space is something else I'll have to carry, something that I suspect many of you will as well.
[The writers] failure to see the impact assassinating Nick's character literally and figuratively, had on real people on us shows a profound lack of empathy and compassion for their audience.
Additionally, the way they have continued to double down on their inconsistent and poor storytelling and interviews and try to reduce Nick to just another malevolent commander to gaslight us into believing Nick was spending 95% of his time being a good old boy in Gilead is tone deaf at best and cruel at worst.
It is a disservice to Nick's legacy, to The Handmaid's Tale, and to all of us who stayed loyal to the story, hoping Nick might one day find some semblance of peace or contentment, whether with June or without her.
With all that said, if no one else in the show's orbit will remember Nick fondly, I will, because that’s what he deserves. And so do we.
We turned to Nick when we needed him. Now, when he needs us to make sure he's remembered for the character he always was, that's what i'll do.
The show wants us to remember him as a traitor and a Gilead loyalist wants his history to be rewritten as someone who is violent and dishonest. And ultimately, l assume, someone not worthy of being remembered fondly, if at all.
That’s not who he was.
On Nick Blaine, Narrative Betrayal, and the Engineered Silence of a Fandom
This essay was originally posted on the private Osblaine subreddit. I'm posting it here in advance of the upcoming (final) AbovetheGarage podcast meta episode so it's accessible for anyone who wants to read the essay in full.
Spoilers for THT & lots of fan rage below the cut.
The Betrayal of Nick Blaine: How The Handmaid’s Tale Undermined Its Own Storytelling
As a university professor with a PhD in literature, I’ve dedicated my career to analyzing narrative structure, character arcs, and thematic coherence. And I can say this with full confidence: what the writers did to Nick Blaine in Season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale was not bold, subversive, or daring — it was a narrative betrayal.
And just to be clear: I’m not a shipper. I didn’t love Nick because of his romance with June. I appreciated him as a deeply layered character — one whose quiet resistance stood in stark contrast to the more performative defiance of others. Not every act of heroism is loud. Nick’s resistance began long before June entered his life, and for several seasons, the writers honored that. Until they didn’t.
Nick represented something rare on television: a portrayal of a man caught inside a brutal system, not loud or showy, but quietly working to survive while retaining his humanity and fighting back in the ways available to him. His arc was thoughtful, subtle, and realistic — and it offered a necessary counterpoint to the broader, more visible forms of rebellion in the series. That narrative was coherent, moving, and consistent — until Season 6 shattered it for the sake of shock value.
A HISTORY OF RESISTANCE — CAREFULLY BUILT
Nick’s arc was never centered on power. In fact, he resisted it. He smuggled contraband to Jezebels, joined the Eyes in order to report predatory Commanders (after Waterford’s first Handmaid died by suicide), and helped take down Commander Guthrie, one of the architects of the Handmaid system. These weren’t incidental moments — they were intentional signs of internal rebellion that the show carefully planted over multiple seasons.
After meeting June, Nick continued to act strategically. He was the one who secretly smuggled the Jezebels letters out of Gilead and delivered them to Luke in Canada — an act that directly led to Canada refusing to sign a diplomatic agreement with Gilead. And crucially, Nick did this without June asking him to or even knowing about it. At the time, June was in a terrible mental state, so desperate that she tried to burn the letters in the sink. Nick hid the Jezebels letters in his apartment before Eden moved in — making it all the more risky once she arrived and began snooping through his things.
His promotions weren’t rewards but consequences. Serena arranged his marriage to Eden out of jealousy. His rise to Commander wasn’t a reward for loyalty — it was a consequence of his decision to pull a gun on Fred to help June and Nicole escape, as even Joseph Fiennes has confirmed in interviews. Even his marriage to Rose served a clear purpose: to get closer to Hannah’s captors, the Mackenzies, and position himself in a place where he could act.
Importantly, the Marthas in Season 4 speak to Nick like an equal, not like someone they fear. One even asks him, “Is this business as usual?” — a small but significant clue that Nick had been working with the Martha network for a long time. This wasn’t a sudden shift. His ties to the resistance were consistent and deliberate. Even other Commanders call him a “boy scout” in Season 6 — a nickname that reflects his perceived moral rigidity and difference from the men around him.
THE HINTS THE WRITERS LEFT — THEN ABANDONED
Throughout the first five seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, the writers laid down clear and deliberate hints that Nick was meant to function as a quiet resistor embedded within Gilead’s system. His actions were not accidental or incidental — they were purposeful choices, woven into the narrative to build a coherent, morally complex character.
Another major hint came in a cut scene from Season 3 — one that never made it to the screen but is preserved in the official scripts. In that scene, Nick is shown at the front during Gilead’s military campaigns, standing alongside Commander Mackenzie. This wasn’t designed to show him as complicit — quite the opposite. It placed him close to Hannah’s captors, setting up his position to act as an inside link, a person who might eventually help June find and rescue her daughter. This scene reinforced what the show had been quietly building all along: Nick was where he needed to be, playing the long game.
His abrupt marriage to Rose further aligned with this arc. It wasn’t a romantic choice or a reward — it was another calculated move to get close to the Mackenzie family. The fact that we saw him and Rose at dinners with them in Season 5 wasn’t coincidence — it was strategy. Nick was positioning himself exactly where he could observe, influence, and perhaps, one day, act.
And here’s something telling: in his apartment above the garage, we see Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. That’s not just a random prop. It’s a novel about enduring love and resistance in the face of cruelty and loss. The writers deliberately placed that book in his apartment. It was a clear, intentional signal: Nick was written as someone with inner depth, quiet resistance, and a poetic soul. Bruce Miller says in The Art and Making of The Handmaid’s Tale:
“We were very careful about what books he reads, what books he has, and where we got them.” (p. 34)
And yet, all of these threads were dropped in Season 6. The Mackenzies vanished from the story. The careful groundwork that had been laid for Nick’s internal resistance arc was erased, discarded in favor of a last-minute, illogical narrative pivot that portrayed him as complicit without reckoning with everything the show had previously told us about him.
What’s worse, both the show’s own deleted material and the actual scenes up until Season 6 make it clear that Nick was never meant to be the villain they later tried to paint him as.The official scripts and cut scenes show him as a man horrified by the violence of Gilead’s rise, caught in it but never fully part of it. These clues weren’t just abandoned — they were actively contradicted in a way that undermined both the character and the larger themes of the series.
WHAT THE CREATORS & ACTOR SAY
Before Season 6, both the creators of The Handmaid’s Tale and actor Max Minghella consistently described Nick as a fundamentally decent man — a character carefully constructed to be morally complex, but not complicit in Gilead’s ideology.
Max Minghella, who portrayed Nick, made his view of the character clear as early as 2018:
“I trust Nick. I stand by him … at the root of Nick, he’s a good person. Whether he always does the right thing is a different question.” (Glamour, 2018)
Minghella recognized Nick as morally conflicted but ultimately decent — a man navigating impossible choices in an impossible world. His performance was built on the understanding that Nick was not a villain, but a man trapped by circumstances beyond his control, revealing himself through small gestures and quiet decisions.
In 2022, at the end of Season 5, showrunner Bruce Miller reinforced this characterization:
“I know what we’re setting up for Nick, which is exactly what you think it is. He’s the guy who we think he is. And even if he tries not to be the guy he thinks he is, it’s either going to be very uncomfortable for him like he is with Rose, or it’s going to fail and he’s going to end up not being able to stop himself from punching Lawrence. I think the nice thing is he follows his heart, and the scary thing is he follows his heart.” (Deadline, June 2022)
This statement from Miller is especially revealing in light of what ultimately unfolded in Season 6. His words confirm that as of the end of Season 5, Nick was intended to remain exactly as the audience understood him: a man driven by emotion, not ideology; someone uncomfortable when forced to conform; someone who couldn’t suppress his decency even when doing so put him at risk.
However, after Season 6, Miller’s commentary took on a different tone, attempting to reframe Nick’s arc:
“Nick isn’t choosing Gilead as a sudden endorsement of its beliefs and practices, but rather a belief that there’s no beating this regime; it’s better to protect yourself by moving with it rather than against it.” “Nick was trying to stay out of trouble … thinking about how to keep himself safe for his family.” (TV Insider, 2025)
These post-finale remarks sought to justify Nick’s sudden portrayal as complicit in Gilead’s horrors, but they stand in stark contrast to Miller’s earlier statements. What happened in Season 6 was not the culmination of a long-planned character journey; it was a last-minute pivot that abandoned Nick’s carefully built arc. His proximity to Gilead’s power structures had always been framed as about survival, not ideology — a distinction that Season 6 discarded.
Even Minghella was surprised by the shift in Nick’s moral framing, as he revealed in an interview with ELLE in 2025:
“Transparently, I was surprised … I thought it was a really bold and interesting choice to bring that story into this more nihilistic viewpoint.” “Maybe I hadn’t been playing this character correctly the whole time … there was probably a darker side to him that I didn’t realize was there.”
When even the actor playing Nick for six seasons no longer recognizes the character he’s portraying, it highlights how drastic and jarring the shift in writing was. Nick’s final arc wasn’t the result of a gradual, coherent evolution — it was a sudden, dissonant rewrite that undermined everything the audience, and even the show’s own team, had come to understand about him.
Where once the creators framed Nick as a survivor and quiet resistor, they later attempted to retroactively paint him as complicit. This contradiction is not just a failure of internal consistency — it’s a betrayal of the character they themselves had worked so carefully to build.
A SHIFT BEHIND THE SCENES — AND ONSCREEN
The betrayal of Nick’s arc didn’t happen in a vacuum. It was the result of major shifts behind the scenes that dramatically altered the show’s direction and tone, particularly in Season 6.
After Season 4, there were significant changes in the writers’ room, and after Season 5, Bruce Miller — who had been the showrunner and primary architect of the series’ complex moral landscape — stepped down as showrunner to focus on developing The Testaments adaptation. What followed was a tonal and narrative shift that was most starkly reflected in the treatment of Nick’s character.
In Season 5, the writers appeared to be setting up Commander Lawrence as the morally compromised figure whose choices would catch up with him. Lawrence, after all, had designed Gilead. He was one of its architects — a man who wielded enormous power and made decisions that cost thousands of lives, including the bombing of Chicago and the systemic torture of women. He was unwilling to help June find Hannah, even when she begged him, and he stood by as Gilead shot down American planes attempting to raid Hannah’s school. He didn’t intervene to stop this act of brutality, just as he never truly opposed the suggestions of other Commanders to have June killed when she became too much of a threat. But reportedly, Bradley Whitford — who plays Lawrence — pushed back against having his character face the full consequences of those choices.
So what did the writers do instead? They redirected that arc onto Nick. Rather than grappling with the moral failings of Gilead’s true architects, the show chose to scapegoat the one male character who had consistently resisted, quietly and at great personal risk, from the inside.
The result was a jarring pivot in Season 6, where Nick was denied the nuance and complexity afforded to characters like Serena, Lydia, Lawrence, and even Naomi Putnam. Naomi, a character who had benefitted enormously from Gilead’s brutal hierarchy and who had always relished her privileged position, was suddenly handed a redemption arc without narrative justification. Her decision to give Charlotte to Janine came out of nowhere, contradicting everything we had seen of her character before.
Meanwhile, Nick — who had quietly resisted for years, who had risked his life for June, Nicole, and the resistance — was given no such grace. His entire arc was collapsed into a simplistic and inconsistent portrayal of complicity, as if all his sacrifices and small acts of rebellion had never happened.
The complexity that had once made The Handmaid’s Tale so compelling was flattened in favor of a reductive, black-and-white view of its characters — one that betrayed both Nick and the show’s own core themes.
THE GASLIGHTING OF FANS
To make matters worse, in the wake of justified fan backlash over the abrupt and illogical rewriting of Nick’s character, the public statements from the show’s creators, writers, directors, and even lead actor felt like gaslighting. Rather than acknowledging the inconsistency or taking responsibility for the narrative pivot, they shifted blame onto the audience — particularly the female fans who had thoughtfully engaged with Nick’s arc for years.
The writers claimed that viewers misunderstood Nick because “we don’t see 95% of the things Nick does in Gilead.” This was offered as an explanation for why fans were supposedly confused — suggesting that any contradictions in Nick’s character came not from inconsistent storytelling, but from unseen off-screen actions. The writers also implied that fans had misjudged Nick because they saw him primarily through June’s eyes, and that her love for him clouded both her perception and, by extension, that of the audience. This framing felt deeply patronizing. It reduced thoughtful, critical engagement with the character to the idea that fans (especially women) were simply too emotionally attached to see the truth. The creative team further argued that Nick had plenty of chances to leave Gilead but chose not to, reinforcing their revisionist narrative. What makes this claim especially disingenuous is that the show itself repeatedly demonstrated how difficult, if not impossible, it was to leave Gilead. Even Lawrence — a man with immense power — tried to leave in Season 3 and couldn’t. To suggest that Nick could have simply walked away contradicts the very world-building the writers established.
And then Eric Tuchman went on to claim:
“Even though Nick is a wonderful savior and protector for June and Max Minghella is an incredibly charismatic actor with wonderful chemistry with Elisabeth Moss, Nick has a life beyond June in Gilead. We’ve known since Season 1 he was an Eye, as well as a driver. The Swiss didn’t want to talk to Nick because he was a war criminal and couldn’t be trusted. Serena told June, ‘Didn’t Nick tell you what he did? To help create Gilead?’ — and it was something ominous. June chose not to ask any further questions. We know that he bombed Chicago and a lot of innocent people were killed — June and Janine were there. Yes, he was following orders, but Nick has always been a fully willing participant in Gilead. He’s always embraced Gilead. The only times he ever helped the resistance were because of his connection to June. She has been his beacon to do the right thing. Nick’s betrayal was proof he wasn’t really part of the resistance.” (Cast Q&A, @handmaidsonhulu on Threads, 2025)
But these statements are deeply misleading. They ignore what the actual canon of the show established and contradict the very material the writers originally produced. The Swiss refused to talk to Nick not because of war crimes, but because of optics and politics — as shown in official deleted scenes and the scripts archived at the Writers Guild. In those cut scenes, Nick is portrayed during the rise of Gilead not as a war criminal, but as a minor guard, visibly horrified, described as “looking sick” at the violence unfolding around him. When a comrade is killed, Nick fires back “out of instinct” — hardly the mark of a man shaping or embracing the regime.
Another scene — one that did air — shows Nick returning a salute from Gilead troops. In the official script, this moment is described with a crucial note: Nick is “hating all the choices that led him here.” His internal conflict is explicitly spelled out, revealing that even in this small gesture of outward compliance, he is burdened by regret and trapped by circumstances. This wasn’t a man embracing Gilead’s ideology. It was a man caught in a web he couldn’t easily escape, trying to survive while carrying the weight of every decision that brought him to that point.
Bruce Miller himself confirmed that Serena’s ominous comment to June about Nick’s role in creating Gilead was a lie, meant to hurt her emotionally. And we know from canon that Nick objected to bombing Chicago, but didn’t have the power to stop it.
Director Daina Reid added fuel to the fire, directly targeting women in the fandom. In her Eyes on Gilead podcast interview, she said she “doesn’t understand these women who still defend Nick.” She went even further, claiming that viewers “invent scenes” to justify Nick’s actions — as if fans who had paid close attention to his arc were simply imagining things to excuse him. In doing so, she dismissed female fans specifically — implying that their continued support for Nick was irrational or misguided, and reducing thoughtful engagement with the character to naive emotionalism. This wasn’t just dismissive; it was a troubling attack on a loyal, thoughtful fanbase that had engaged deeply with the show’s themes of resistance, complicity, and survival.
Even Elisabeth Moss, who plays June, contributed to this gaslighting. In interviews, she misremembered key parts of the story — for instance, forgetting that Eden suspected Nick’s lack of sexual interest in her and feared he might be a gender traitor. This was a significant part of Eden’s arc, yet Moss appeared unaware of it, undermining her credibility when discussing Nick and June’s relationship. Moss also insisted in interviews that June “absolutely did not want Nick to die,” while simultaneously suggesting that June could never forgive Nick for his so-called betrayal — despite the fact that if Nick hadn’t made that difficult choice in the moment, he would have died on the spot. The logic simply doesn’t hold: how can June not want him dead but also not forgive him for the very act that saved his life?
If we’re now expected to view Nick as a villain based on things we never saw, it’s not the audience inventing scenes — it’s the creators retroactively rewriting them. That’s not a failure of interpretation on the part of the fans; it’s a failure of storytelling on the part of the writers.
Adding to the irony, Elisabeth Moss recently explained in interviews that in respecting the book, they wanted to preserve a sense of open-endedness — to “keep a lot of loose ends” as the novel itself ends on a cliffhanger. Yet in doing so, they chose to alter one of the most crucial threads from the book: Nick’s arc. Adding to this contradiction, Bruce Miller himself asserted:
“I think the series has been good in large part because I chose to follow the story and tonal spirit of the novel as much as possible.” (Deadline, 2025)
If preserving the spirit of the book was truly the goal, they would have honored Nick’s role as Atwood envisioned it: a symbol of survival, moral conflict, and quiet rebellion.
What’s most telling is how drastically the messaging from the creative team has shifted. The Nick who was once described by Bruce Miller as a man of survival instincts, not ideology — a man navigating impossible circumstances while trying to protect his family — was suddenly reframed post-Season 6 as a willing and eager participant in Gilead’s horrors. This contradiction not only betrayed Nick’s character but also undermined the integrity of the show’s moral universe.
ATWOOD’S VISION, THE BOOKS, AND THE DANGER OF THIS REWRITE
Resistance from within is a hallmark of dystopian literature. From 1984 to The Hunger Games, these narratives often explore how individuals embedded in oppressive systems work quietly, strategically, and at great personal risk to undermine them. These characters are complex, morally ambiguous, and realistic — because real-world resistance is rarely loud or simple. The Handmaid’s Tale, as originally written by Margaret Atwood, understood this nuance, and Nick Blaine was designed to embody it.
Atwood herself envisioned Nick as a figure of internal dissent — a man trapped by circumstances, but capable of moral clarity and quiet rebellion. In The Testaments, set fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, Nick is still alive, still inside Gilead, and still working as part of the underground resistance. We see him reunite with Nicole, the daughter he risked everything to save, and we see that his arc was meant to reflect the endurance of hope and the power of resistance that survives even in the darkest places.
The show, for five seasons, respected this vision. Nick stayed in Gilead because that was his purpose — to help destroy it from within. His positioning near Hannah’s captors reinforced his role as an inside man. The writers kept him in Gilead because he was meant to be there, playing the long game. Until Tuchman and Chang decided they knew better than Atwood and discarded this crucial thread.
Atwood has been outspoken in her view that dystopian systems like Gilead harm everyone — men and women alike. As she has said:
“Patriarchy hurts men too. Totalitarianism hurts everyone — men and women alike.” (CBC, 2017)
And on feminism:
“Feminism is not about demonizing men. It’s about working with men so that everyone has the same rights.” (New York Times, 2018)
The show’s final season abandoned this fundamental ethos. Instead of portraying the complexities of complicity and resistance across genders, it simplified its moral world: all Commanders were framed as irredeemable, while even characters like Naomi Putnam — who had thrived under Gilead’s brutality — were suddenly offered redemption with no coherent justification. This flattening of moral nuance betrayed the depth and realism that had defined the show’s earlier seasons.
By erasing Nick’s internal resistance arc, the show not only disrespected Atwood’s source material but also weakened its own critique of authoritarianism. The danger of this rewrite isn’t just that it harmed a character — it’s that it undermined the very lessons dystopian literature is meant to teach us. It replaced complex truths about power, survival, and quiet resistance with simplistic, black-and-white moral judgments that serve neither feminism nor thoughtful storytelling.
Nick’s character was supposed to remind us that even those caught inside the machinery of oppression can still fight back in their own way. Erasing that lesson robbed the audience of hope — the most vital tool dystopian fiction can offer.
NICK’S ATTRACTIVENESS AND THE MISOGYNY BEHIND THE CRITICISM
One of the most troubling aspects of the backlash against Nick’s character — and against the fans who continue to care for him — is the way his physical attractiveness has been weaponized as a reason to dismiss thoughtful engagement with his arc. Critics, including members of the show’s creative team, have implied that fans (especially women) only care about Nick because of his looks — as if audiences are too shallow or simple to appreciate deeper qualities.
Disturbingly, this attitude wasn’t just reflected in off-screen commentary. It became embedded in the writing of the final season itself. After five seasons in which no character ever explicitly commented on Nick’s appearance, Season 6 abruptly shifted focus, framing his physical attractiveness as the defining reason June loved him. For the first time, June says that she would have noticed Nick even if he were bagging groceries or driving for Uber because he was very handsome. Moira joins in, comparing Nick’s looks to Rihanna’s and rating his hotness as if she were judging a celebrity. Even Lawrence remarks that June was “swept away” by Nick’s “smothering looks.”
This was no accident. The writers deliberately chose to center Nick’s attractiveness in a way they had never done before — as if to validate their own revisionist narrative that June’s love for Nick was shallow, and that fans’ attachment to him was based only on surface-level traits. In doing so, they reduced what had been a deeply layered, emotionally rich relationship to a matter of lust and superficiality — diminishing not only Nick’s character, but June’s as well.
As brilliantly articulated in the Above the Garage podcast’s cathartic essay on Nick:
“Nick’s physical attractiveness has nothing to do with the reason we love his character. Women are not as simple and shallow as you’re making them out to be. No matter how someone may try to shame you, it is not antifeminist to believe in, and care about, romantic love. Our protagonist herself has said, many times, that it is for love that she lives. Love is empowering, and we thought that was a message the show understood.”
What Nick represents is not some idealized, flawless hero. No one who values Nick as a character denies his flaws or excuses his moments of complicity. What Nick offers is a vision of the human capacity for joy, tenderness, and compassion in the bleakest circumstances. His quiet support of June, his ability to love and be loved amid horror, reflects the reality that even in war, oppression, and captivity, people have found ways to fall in love, to marry, to create art, to dream of a better world. Nick’s story was an opportunity to show how resistance can be sustained not just through defiance, but through humanity and connection.
The suggestion that shipping Nick and June, or simply caring about Nick as a character, is somehow naive or antifeminist, fundamentally misunderstands the complexity of these relationships. As the essay points out, the show could have leaned into Nick and June’s profound connection — a connection that empowered June, supported her agency, and could have stood as one of television’s greatest romances, without undermining the power of her friendships or her other relationships. Life is not either/or. Women can value deep friendships and romantic love. The audience can appreciate both without one diminishing the other.
Finally, it’s important to call out the hypocrisy in how romantic love is treated. As the essay puts it: “You know who else thought romantic love was naive and silly? Our old friend, Fred Waterford. May he rest in peace.”
Dismissing viewers who value love and connection as naive is not progressive — it echoes the mindset of the very villains the story sought to critique. It is not antifeminist to care about love, or to see beauty and strength in a character who represents its survival under tyranny. And it is certainly not a weakness or character flaw to find meaning in these narratives.
THE DANGEROUS MISLABELING: NICK AS A “NAZI”
One of the most disturbing narrative choices in Season 6 was the decision to have multiple characters — including June’s mother, Holly, and Luke — refer to Nick as a “Nazi.” This label was not used in earlier seasons, despite Nick’s long-standing position within Gilead’s structures. It was introduced only in Season 6, coinciding with the writers’ abrupt pivot toward framing Nick as complicit and irredeemable.
The comparison is not only morally and historically inaccurate — it is dangerous. Nick is not portrayed as an architect of genocide, nor as a willing enforcer of Gilead’s ideology. As the show itself spent five seasons establishing, Nick is a survivor — a man who joined the Eyes not to impose tyranny, but to report on and take down predatory Commanders after witnessing the suicide of Waterford’s first Handmaid. He smuggled contraband, helped the resistance, facilitated June’s and Nicole’s escape, and positioned himself near Hannah’s captors in hopes of aiding in her rescue. These are not the actions of a true believer in the system; they are the actions of a man trapped within it, trying to undermine it where he can.
Calling Nick a Nazi collapses the moral complexity that The Handmaid’s Tale once prided itself on. It flattens the nuances of complicity, survival, and resistance into simplistic, black-and-white thinking that does a disservice not only to Nick’s character but to the audience’s understanding of history. Gilead is a fictional regime meant to reflect elements of real-world authoritarianism, but equating every man in a uniform with a Nazi trivializes both the horrors of the Holocaust and the lived realities of people trapped within oppressive systems who did not have the power to change them, but found small, courageous ways to resist.
It’s also worth noting that the writers making these choices surely have not lived under totalitarian regimes themselves — which cannot be said about many of the show’s viewers. For those who have experienced or have family histories marked by real-world authoritarian rule, these labels are not just inaccurate; they are deeply offensive and reflect a dangerous misunderstanding of what life under such regimes actually entails.
June’s mother’s use of the term might be explained by her extremism and ideological rigidity — but when Luke adopts the same language, it becomes clear that the writers themselves wanted to frame Nick through this lens, erasing the character they had spent five seasons building. This lazy labeling serves neither history, feminism, nor good storytelling. It reduces complex questions about survival, complicity, and moral ambiguity to cheap, inflammatory rhetoric — the opposite of what dystopian fiction is meant to encourage us to grapple with
WHY THIS MATTERS
Nick didn’t need a heroic ending. But he deserved a consistent one. His arc represented a type of resistance that is rarely shown on screen: strategic, quiet, and deeply human. Nick’s story gave voice to the reality that not all acts of rebellion are loud, and not all heroes stand on podiums. His form of dissent — subtle, calculated, often invisible — was no less important than June’s louder, more visible defiance. In fact, it reflected the kind of resistance that most people caught inside authoritarian regimes actually engage in: the quiet, careful acts that chip away at power without drawing lethal attention.
More than that, Nick was the show’s most realistic character. He was an ordinary man swept up by the rise of Gilead — lured into the Sons of Jacob not out of malice or ideology, but because of the brutal socio-economic conditions that preceded Gilead’s rise. Like many who find themselves caught in the machinery of authoritarian systems, Nick became increasingly trapped as the years passed. But crucially, Nick almost immediately saw Gilead for what it was. He recognized the horror. And despite the danger, he chose to resist in the ways available to him — quietly, strategically, and at great personal cost.
We needed that Nick. His arc was supposed to remind us that even those inside the system, even those who have made mistakes, can choose to act with compassion, courage, and moral clarity. His story offered a rare and vital kind of hope: that decency can survive in the darkest of places, and that ordinary people can make extraordinary choices even when the odds are against them.
In the difficult times we live in, as extremism and authoritarianism rise in the real world, Nick’s story could have served as a reminder of the importance of quiet resistance — of the fact that the fight against oppression doesn’t always look like a revolution, but can begin with small, courageous acts.
By collapsing his arc into a simplistic tale of complicity, the writers not only betrayed Nick as a character but stripped the audience of that hope. What happened to him wasn’t just a sad ending. It was bad writing. And it was a missed opportunity — a failure to honor both the character they had built and the powerful tradition of resistance that dystopian fiction exists to celebrate.
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It's long but SO worth the read! Please read and share 🙏
NICK BLAINE - GOOD, KIND & BRAVE *and no one will convince me otherwise
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they literally took the kindness actor on the show who they knew wouldn't push back, had Moss tell him about it while he was directing her in a movie and than slandered his work, looks and his character in interviews
its so disgusting and with moss' scientology connections she'll get her emmy noms
Absolutely disgusting. They took the kindest, most emotionally grounded actor on the show — a man who gave six seasons of subtle, devastating work — and used him. They blindsided him with the ending, then turned around and dragged his character, his appearance, and his performance in interviews.
And let’s be real — we all know she’ll still get her Emmy noms because of who she’s protected by and what she represents.
I’m out on her completely. Unfollowed.
On the other hand, I’ll absolutely continue following Max Minghella’s work — big fan. He deserved so much better than the way this show treated him, and I’m excited to support whatever he does next. Probably will check out his HBO show Industry.
They’re gonna try to spin it like June had no choice. She had to let Nick go as a sacrifice for the greater good.
Fuck, no.
She had a staggering amount of time to warn him in countless ways, starting from the moment he got out of the car. She was in an inexplicably empty hangar, all the other commanders were on board the plane already, and no one was expecting Nick to show up. He almost looks directly at her. She could have breathed sharply and he would have sensed her. The plan would have absolutely stayed intact. But no.
Instead, she callously and passively - with full awareness - lets the man die…
who has literally saved the lives of many of the people she loves, some of them multiple times (Moira, Luke, Holly/Nichole, and June herself)
who was ready to leave Gilead with her a couple weeks ago
who has killed for her
who gave her her agency back
who freely offered her the only safe space in the darkest place
who has never once controlled her
who gave her a way to rebel through the power of love
who has consistently sacrificed his mental and physical wellbeing in favor of hers
who endured a forced marriage to a teenager because of her
who married again (fight me on this) to hold his position in Gilead to help June with info on Hannah (he was already married in 4x09 when he gave June the Hannah file!)
who knew he would probably never see his daughter again and still actively worked to get her and June to safety
who was made a Commander and sent to die in Chicago because he made sure June and Holly were able to escape by holding Fred Waterford hostage
who delivered that same man to June to make sure she got justice for what Fred had done to her
who stood up to Serena for her, risking being reported and put on the wall
who watched her go back to her life with another man because he loved her so selflessly that all he wanted was for her to be happy and safe, even when that could never be with him (“try and be happy” / “keep yourself safe”)
who let another government official take advantage of him and use him, just to fight what Gilead was doing to her in Canada
who punched another Commander in front of a room full of witnesses just because she had been endangered again
who asks about his daughter every single chance he gets and misses and loves her with every breath
who is consistently sickened by violence and only fantasizes about peace and safety
who is terrified and alone and grieving and lost and just needs her help and her love, even if it’s only a fraction of the limitless love he shows to her so effortlessly…
This is the man she destroyed. This is the man she let walk out of her and her daughter’s lives forever, leaving his wife a widow and his unborn son fatherless.
Beginning tonight, osblaine fans are and will be in pain, angry, confused, and will begin to grieve. Nick Blaine may have been a fictional character, but he was also the best man we never knew, but wish we did.
People can say what they want about fans of Nick and June, but we know this show better than anyone. We have watched it, in its entirety, multiple times and certain scenes hundreds of times. We know how Nick Blaine has been presented better than anyone because we DON'T fast forward through his scenes and we DON'T scroll our phone as soon as he appears (how often have Nick haters said this?). No, we pay CLOSE attention, and we don't miss anything.
Fortunately, Max Minghella is too good an actor, and despite the writer's "best efforts" in S6 to ruin him, Max continued to bring the complexity, nuance, and layers of Nick to life. No matter what EM and the EPs tried to TELL US to think about Nick, we still saw him as he has always been portrayed... a good man in a bad place who does his best in difficult circumstances. He was never an architect or creator of Gilead. He was a desperate kid who was targeted by a cult and baited to join because he needed a job. He never "climbed the Gilead ranks for power." He became an Eye after Offred 1 died to help spy on other COMMANDERS and take them down, starting with the Commander who came up with the Handmaid’s system. He has since helped take down Cushing, Waterford, and Putnam. He was given two promotions by Fred as punishments. The rest was playing along and acting under duress for survival. Throughout all this, he has also risked his life for June, Nichole, Hannah, Luke, Moira, and Mayday. He even risked his life to bring the letters from the women of Gilead to Canada (unprompted, btw!) and gave them to Luke to get them out. He helped the Martha's get June and Nichole out of Gilead by holding Fred at gunpoint. That isn't a man loyal to Gilead. That is a male feminist ally.
We know who Nick Blaine was. Trying to gaslight the audience and retcon his story in the final season didn't work. It only made the showrunners look like incompetent hacks.
Get some rest, osblaines, and take care of yourselves. For the love of Nick, we'll get through this ❤️
The thing is, Nick is ENTIRELY ALONE. He has ONE PERSON he loves and trusts and he sees her for a few mins or maybe a couple hours every few months when she calls in a favor. So honestly, even that doesn’t count.
He has no one, while June has this huge network of support from family and friends. Yet she still makes insanely selfish choices. Nick, on the other hand, struggles with every single remotely self-focused choice he makes that just simply helps him cope with his lonely, terrifying life.
He can’t ask anyone for help. He can’t ask anyone for advice. He can’t ask anyone even for basic things like a night of comfort without drowning it in a sea of guilt and tentativeness. The excuses he had to make to even ask June to stay the night with him in 6x06 - it’ll be “safer” in the morning, which makes no logical sense, but he couldn’t even just ask for what he needs from her unless he frames it as practical, not about what he actually wants emotionally or physically.
So even if he made a stupid mistake to trust that Wharton wouldn’t do anything horrific with the Mayday information, that’s still 100% valid, because at a certain point, he has to extend a hand and hope someone takes it.
He’s drowning, inch by inch, and no one is there to pull him out of the water.