‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 5: Fred Waterford Would Have Lost a Sensitive Body Part If Elisabeth Moss Hadn’t Stepped in 

Fred Waterford met a brutal end in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 finale. After he was beaten to death, June cut off his finger and sent it to Serena. And if it hadn’t been for series star/director Elisabeth Moss, Fred would have lost his penis as well. 

[Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4, Episode 10, and Season 5, Episode 1.]

How June kills Fred Waterford in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 4

In Season 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale, Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) are in Canada facing charges for their crimes against June Osbourne (Elisabeth Moss) and violations of human rights. But when Fred agrees to provide inside information on Gilead, the charges are dropped. 

Determined to make him pay, June sets up a meeting between Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger) and Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford), where they agree to exchange Fred for 22 women from Gilead.

When the prisoner exchange happens, Nick Blaine (Max Minghella) leads Fred to a wooded area between the Gilead and Canada border — a so-called “no man’s land.” There, June, Emily (Alexis Bledel), and a dozen other Gilead survivors are waiting to attack. They chase Fred down and beat him to death. 

June cuts off his finger and sends it to Serena along with his wedding ring. Upon receiving news of how Fred died in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 premiere and word of the dismembered finger, Serena immediately knows June was responsible. 

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ director/actor Elisabeth Moss reveals how she ‘reinstated’ Fred Waterford’s penis 

Moss directed The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 finale. And in a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, she revealed that the actors in Fred’s beating scene were working with a silicone replica of actor Joseph Fiennes’ body. 

Moss said that when she first saw Fred Waterford’s mangled body, she noticed that the penis was slightly ripped off. The director then talked to the crew about whether the idea of the women ripping off Fred’s penis was realistic. “I was like… ‘Come on guys, I don’t know if we really need to go there,'” Moss told Jimmy Kimmel.

“There was like a whole penis conversation and a whole testicle conversation and truly what the damage would be … I was like, ‘Those women aren’t going to put their mouths anywhere near that thing, you know what I mean … so I reinstated his penis.”

Elisabeth Moss teases what’s in store for Season 5 of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

After killing Fred, June is back on her mission to save her older daughter, Hannah, from Gilead. And according to Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 will highlight June’s struggle between being a mom and wife to Nicole and Luke (O-T Fagbenle) and finding Hannah while bringing down Gilead. 

“Hannah’s always, always been the end goal,” Moss told Parade. “I do think that there’s a side of her that wants to just lead the charge and lead the resistance and go back into Gilead guns blazing.”

“But she has a family,” she continued. “And so she’s trying to figure out how to be the mother and the wife and the friend, while at the same time being this heroine, this person who is this symbol for the resistance.”

Moss also suggested that this season is going to be one of the most thrilling. “Every single episode is just another wild ride,” Moss teased. “There’s not a dull moment this season — I will say that concretely it is actually our largest season in many ways, but it’s pretty wild.” 

New episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale air Wednesdays on Hulu.