The Handmaid's Tale's Ann Dowd, EPs On A Shaken Aunt Lydia As The Series Ends And Sequel The Testaments Begins: 'She's Lost Her Way'

We've come a long way from the cattle prod.

The most recent Handmaid's Tale episode found Aunt Lydia, the violent and staunch Gilead apologist played by Ann Dowd, sobbing on the floor as she beseeched God for help. What sent one of the series' scariest characters to her knees, you might wonder? A conversation with June that forced the older woman to come to terms with the reality of her role as a fixer for religious rape. (Read a full episode recap here.)

The scene (which earned Dowd a Performer of the Week spot) was the season's most stark — though certainly not the first — reminder that Aunt Lydia has changed drastically over the course of the series. During a SAG-AFTRA Foundation panel I moderated earlier this year, Dowd offered some insight into her character's gradual change of heart. "I think she's aging," she said, noting that Lydia's day-to-day experience in Gilead and her relationship with the handmaids "over time, it affects her. It changes her. It changes her health, her mental health, her physical health. It begins to show up."

Elisabeth Moss, series star/executive producer, chimed in. "The vulnerability that I think Ann brings to this season, it's always been there, which is what has made Lydia so interesting and so complicated. But I do think... that there are not many actresses willing to go to the vulnerable, open place, the complicated place that she goes to this season, and I don't know of anyone else who could do it the way that she did it." (Press PLAY on the video above to watch the complete conversation. The Aunt Lydia part starts around the 10:33 mark.)

Hulu currently is in production on The Testaments, a Handmaid's sequel series based on Margaret Atwood's 2019 novel. The show will follow Lydia (played by Dowd, reprising her Handmaid's role), as well as two young women (played by Presumed Innocent's Chase Infiniti and newcomer Lucy Halliday) with complicated, intertwining stories.

"A lot of the stuff that happens in Season 6 [of Handmaid's] is lighting a fuse for Lydia in The Testaments, who eventually comes to the idea that maybe the whole Gilead experiment needs to be washed out of the sheets," says Bruce Miller, an executive producer on both series. As such, he adds, the events of Episode 6 are part of "the radicalization of Lydia — but I don't think June's telling her anything she doesn't already know."

EP Warren Littlefield notes that "Lydia has absolutely lost her way. We've [previously] seen her learn that Gilead is an imperfect place, but she's never rejected it." He points out that Lydia's finding Janine working at Jezebel's earlier in the season was "an awakening, for her, of how truly flawed it is."

He ends with a tease about the series' ending. "The Lydia we're left with says things that we never would have heard from — you'll see in the final two episodes — words that Lydia never would have spoken. That's incredibly powerful, and it's part of how we end our journey."

The Handmaid's Tale streams new episodes Tuesdays on Hulu. The series finale is set for Tuesday, May 27.