The Handmaid’s Tale surprised Serena with that reveal about Josh Charles‘ character Commander Wharton — but it actually isn’t meant to be a shocker.
During the Tuesday, May 13, episode of the hit Hulu series, Serena’s (Yvonne Strahovski) honeymoon stage with Rose’s (Carey Cox) father, Commander Wharton, was very short-lived. The newlyweds left their wedding, arrived at Wharton’s home and that is where everything fell apart when he introduced Serena to their handmaiden.
Serena broke down in tears as she realized Wharton was just like the rest of the commanders in Gilead. His commitment to the traditional roles in Gilead came as a shock to Serena — but the signs were all there.
“Commander Wharton, I feel like he has been very consistent all along. He hasn’t been pulling the wool over Serena’s eyes. He’s been very sincere about how he feels,” coshowrunner Yahlin Chang exclusively told Us Weekly about the tense conclusion to Serena’s wedding night. “So he’s incredibly confused by Serena’s reaction.”
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As Serena and Wharton argued about their differing views, their marriage seemed to hit an obstacle they couldn’t move on from. Serena tried to leave with her son — and Wharton briefly stopped her. But Serena refused to be held against her will in Wharton’s home, so he ultimately complied as their future together was left up in the air.
“Josh Charles was a dream to work with and was so thoughtful and smart about the character. But the thing about Wharton is, I feel like from the very beginning, he’s shown who he is,” Chang noted. “He was very sincere with his feelings for Serena and his desire to have a big family.”
According to Chang, Wharton could not have been more clear, adding, “Because of his love and lust for Serena, he was really trying to open his mind and be accommodating. He’s a very conservative guy, but he did say, ‘I want you to keep writing. I want you to do all these things.’”
The divide in the newest episode likely came from a miscommunication between the fictional pair.
“He’s mature enough to know that’s the woman that he’s fallen in love with. Serena is a force to be reckoned with — and that’s part of why he was in love with her. In his mind, having a big family — especially when you’re marrying a woman of a certain age with a biological clock ticking in the midst of a fertility crisis — that means having a handmaid,” Chang continued. “To him, he doesn’t understand. He just does not understand her reaction against it because it’s just so baked into the system. So if anyone was really blind to what it all really meant, it was Serena.”
Chang was thrilled to see where Serena and Wharton go from here.
“I have so much fun writing villains because it’s totally just different to see the world from their point of view. They’re acting very consistent with their beliefs. With Serena, we wanted to create the ideal man for her, someone who was not her ex-husband,” she noted. “We wanted someone who was still genuinely God-fearing, genuinely religious and those are all things that Wharton is. Also someone who genuinely was fine with her writing and doing all her reformist political activism. He was fine with all that. He made himself fine with all that because of his love for her, which is a very genuine love.”
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As The Handmaid’s Tale comes to an end, viewers can expect to see a different side to Wharton.
“We were scared of him because he had these terrifying moments. Josh was so smart about ladling out those terrifying moments. You only see him crack once or twice — and when you do it is so terrifying. Josh was the one who made those choices about when to show that it’s more terrifying,” Chang told Us. “He doesn’t crack all the time. He cracks very, very rarely. That was the brilliance of his performance because you see it once and then you’re like, ‘That could happen at any time.’ It’s that unpredictability and his control of himself that is so terrifying.”
Chang concluded: “With Serena, one way that we’ve wanted to keep the characters realistic is that she’s a person who is taking one step forward and two steps back. She does feel bad about what she’s done in the past. She is trying to redeem herself but Serena is going to Serena. She still has an ego and she still has hubris. She still believes that she was called upon by God to fix the world and to make the world according to her vision. So she has very strong strengths and very strong flaws too.”
New episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale are released Tuesdays on Hulu.
