When it comes to the villains of "The Handmaid's Tale," Aunt Lydia is among the worst.
Charged with training and disciplining Handmaids, Lydia has enraged and disturbed fans since
the show's first season.
This is her story, from her time as a teacher to her future in Gilead.
In season 3, we're introduced to a pre-Gilead Lydia Clements, played by Ann Dowd.
As it turns out, Aunt Lydia was once an elementary school teacher with a background in family
law.
This Lydia wore her hair down, and was once married.
Even in this era, however, Lydia was pretty judgmental, especially when it came to religion
and parenting.
This is explored in flashbacks, which see Lydia befriend a young single mother named
Noelle and her son, Ryan.
The trio grow close, and even spend Christmas together.
Lydia seems to revel in being called "Aunt Lydia" by Ryan.
However, she frowns on what she sees as some poor parenting choices by Noelle.
Speaking to “Vanity Fair” after the episode, Dowd said,
"I think she, at that point in her life, really wants to help.
I think she probably got out of [family law] because it was too painful to see the separation,
to see the loss."
The only other time Lydia alluded to her past was during Season 2's "Smart Power," after
June asks her to protect her unborn baby.
"I was godmother to my sister's child.
He died when he was four days old."
Soon after Noelle gives Lydia a makeup set for Christmas, Lydia goes on a date with Jim,
the principal of the school where she works.
But after they begin kissing, Jim suddenly wants to stop.
While he likes her, Jim thinks they're rushing things.
Instead of understanding, Lydia flies into a rage, then catches a glimpse of herself
with make-up running down her face.
Lydia's emotions here are complex.
As Ann Dowd explained to “Vanity Fair,”
"I was raised in a strong Catholic home, you know — sex is a very, very tricky area.
And there's a lot of guilt and a lot of shame associated with it.
I think what I loved about that moment is it said so much about how she was raised,
and that, honestly, shame is in charge of her life."
Lydia's shame quickly turns to revenge.
After blaming Noelle for convincing her to go on the date, she does everything in her
power to separate Noelle from her son.
After Noelle angrily confronts Lydia, Jim walks off in disgust after seeing Lydia's
true colors.
She justifies her actions by telling herself that Ryan is better off without Noelle.
Aunt Lydia uses fear, abuse, and religious manipulation to train Handmaids to give up
their bodily autonomy for the sake of Gilead.
According to Lydia, the Handmaids' horrific lives are divinely ordained, and thus beyond
human doubt.
Flashbacks to the Red Center see Lydia training one of the first groups of Handmaids, including
June, Moira, and Janine.
She is immediately set up as a villain who uses torture to get the Handmaids to comply.
For example, she doesn't think twice about removing Janine's eye when Janine resists
becoming a Handmaid.
After the Handmaids are placed in homes, Lydia also serves as a liaison between the government
of Gilead and individual households.
She frequently makes house calls to ensure that everyone is following the rules.
In the first season, we see her make a handful of visits to the Waterford residence, where
June has been placed.
Lydia frequently asserts her power over June, and at one point even beats her with a cattle
prod before the Commander's wife, Serena Joy, stops her.
Lydia is responsible for devising many of Gilead's abusive "training" techniques, which
include ordering Handmaids to hold rocks for hours in the rain, getting them to kill "traitors"
with their bare hands, and making them believe they're about to be hanged.
She also orchestrates most of the physical mutilation that occurs, including removing
Janine's eye and performing female circumcision on Emily.
When she isn't violently disciplining Handmaids, Lydia is the ultimate gaslighter.
She twists women psychologically in a variety of ways, including victim-blaming and setting
the Handmaids against each other.
Lydia is particularly abusive towards June, and is quick to shame her into believing that
her choices are what bring harm and death to others.
It's all done in a bid to keep June compliant, which works — but only for a while.
Lydia refers to the Handmaids as her "girls."
In fact, Lydia often paints herself as the Handmaids' protector, and is quick to blame
herself when they fail.
In her own twisted way, she believes she really does care about them.
As Dowd explained in 2017,
"At the core of her choices, she loves these girls deeply and wants them to succeed in
this new world, and she is keenly aware that if she doesn't get them to get the drill immediately,
they are not going to make it."
This twisted motherliness is apparent when Serena tells Aunt Lydia to remove Janine from
an important dinner because of her missing eye.
Then, Lydia seems to sympathize with Janine.
But later, she proves her loyalty to Gilead by ordering the other Handmaids to stone Janine
to death.
The Handmaids, led by June, refuse.
Rather than let the guards shoot them for their disobedience, Lydia asks them to spare
the Handmaids.
"These girls are my responsibility."
In Season 2, it is revealed that Lydia sent Janine to the Colonies, and punished the Handmaids
with a mock execution.
Emily suffers greatly at Lydia's hands.
After discovering that Emily is in a romantic relationship with a Martha, Lydia has Emily's
lover murdered and Emily mutilated.
When Emily seeks revenge by killing a guardian, Lydia has her sent to the Colonies.
She eventually brings Emily back, because they're short on Handmaids, and pairs her
with Commander Lawrence.
Finally, in the Season 2 finale, Emily stabs Lydia in the back.
While Lydia survives, the event changes her, making her an even harder character.
Show creator Bruce Miller explained the impact Emily had on Lydia, telling “Forbes,”
"She thinks there's love between her and her girls.
The fact that one of her girls has literally stabbed her in the back, I think that alters
your workplace feelings on a day to day basis [...] I think in her case, it makes her double-down.
She feels like she just wasn't strong enough in her discipline.
So, she has decided it's time to get tough."
After Emily's escape from Gilead at the end of Season 2, Lydia can't take her feelings
out on her.
Instead, Lydia comes down even harder on the remaining Handmaids.
Eventually, she snaps after Janine begs to return to her former family and her infant
daughter.
Lydia beats her mercilessly in front of a crowd, only stopping when June comes between
them.
The relationship between Lydia and June is rough from the start.
After an antagonistic first season, they seem to grow closer in Season 2 as a pregnant June
leans into Lydia, seeking protection for her unborn baby.
During this time period, we learn that Lydia has some power over the Commanders and their
wives as well, since she is tasked with evaluating whether the household is a good fit for a
child.
The short-lived peace between June and Lydia doesn't last, however.
When June orchestrates her daughter Nichole's escape, Lydia comes down hard on her.
She forces June to participate in propaganda videos with the Waterfords, and even accompanies
the family on a trip to Washington.
While there, she seems disturbed by the sight of Handmaids whose mouths have been sewn shut.
Lydia is very much aware that June's biggest weakness is her daughter, Hannah, who was
kidnapped by Gilead when June's family tried to escape.
In Season 3, after June tracks down Hannah, Lydia orders the execution of the Martha who
helped June connect with her daughter.
As if that wasn't enough, Lydia forces June and the other Handmaids to be the ones to
execute her.
After June helps a planeload of Gilead children flee to Canada in the Season 3 finale, Lydia
comes under fire.
As a result, Lydia makes it her mission in Season 4 to find and reform June.
According to Miller,
"Lydia in this season [is in a] position where she is just obsessed with June and has so
much of her personal worth tied up in what June is doing."
As the season progresses, Lydia and June continue to circle one another, although Lydia never
manages to keep June within her clutches for long.
But even when they're apart, they each continue to occupy a significant portion of the other's
thoughts.
Miller explained,
"Although [June and Lydia] are kind of enemies in this story, they are inextricably linked.
They spend a ton of time thinking about the other one and what the other one is doing.
So it's fascinating to have two people who really would like to be both rid of each other
but who are tangled up with each other all the time."
After June escapes yet again in Season 4, Aunt Lydia is no longer in Gilead's good graces.
For the first time, we see Lydia's sparse living quarters.
After being stripped of her responsibilities, she's expected to spend the rest of her days
doing puzzles and playing cards with her fellow Aunts.
However, Lydia wants her power back and is not interested in being forced into an early
retirement.
So, Lydia strikes a deal with Commander Lawrence: She'll give him dirt on his fellow Commanders
if he'll restore her to her former station.
She also wants to be the one to punish June if and when she is finally caught.
After Lydia regains her power, it's evident that she is still haunted by her failure with
June.
After learning that June escaped to Canada, she quickly spirals out of control.
In Episode 8, she takes out her frustrations on one of her charges, and then even turns
on a fellow Aunt.
Speaking to “Elle,” Dowd said,
"She holds herself responsible.
So do the commanders.
She knew something was happening.
She knew it.
And she did not follow it to its core.
And June, whom she has a tremendously complicated relationship with, pulled it off.
So there's that personal factor where she's being tough on herself because she knows all
of that, and also desperate to prove that, 'No, no, no, I'm not irrelevant.'"
After losing June, Lydia gets a second chance to reform Janine after Janine is recaptured
in Chicago.
Following Lydia's outburst, Commander Lawrence tells her to take her anger out on Janine,
whose life is now considered expendable.
In a rare moment of weakness, Lydia reunites with Janine and actually heeds her request
not to be assigned to another Commander.
Instead Lydia decides to keep Janine at the center.
At first, the other Aunts question why Lydia isn't doing God's work and putting Janine
back into the field, but Lydia finds a use for her before long.
When the former Mrs. Keyes reappears as the handmaid Esther, the traumatized girl mounts
a hunger strike that none of the Aunts can stop.
Aunt Lydia agrees to let Janine talk to her, and Janine is able to convince Esther to comply,
warning her that if she doesn't, the consequences will be worse than death.
Janine's assistance earns Aunt Lydia's trust and helps reestablish Lydia's power among
the other Aunts.
While Lydia's future within the world of Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale" remains unwritten, Margaret
Atwood took matters into her own hands with her 2019 novel, "The Testaments."
A sequel to her original novel, "The Testaments" is written from three perspectives, including
Aunt Lydia's.
It takes place 15 years after the events of the first novel, which were covered in the
first season of the show.
In this sequel, Atwood reveals that, in the early days of Gilead, Lydia was rounded up
with many other women.
She was detained, tortured, and eventually given a choice: Cooperate or face the consequences.
Lydia sees herself as someone who did what she had to do in order to survive.
Eventually, in the book, she becomes integral to the fall of Gilead.
How much this novel will affect the future of the show remains to be seen.
Atwood's Lydia is a very different character in many respects: in the book, Lydia was a
judge prior to Gilead, and acts as a mole for the rebellious organization Mayday.
For now, one thing is sure: Aunt Lydia will definitely go down as one of the most compelling
TV villains of all time.
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