Max Minghella Explains Nick’s Choice in The Handmaid’s Tale: ‘He’s a Really Good Survivor’

Warning: contains spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six episode six “Surprise”.

The inner world of Nick Blaine has been a mystery in The Handmaid’s Tale as long as we’ve known him. Is he a prisoner of Gilead, or one of its soldiers? Over six seasons, the character has risen astronomically through the republic’s ranks, taking him from the Waterfords’ driver to commander to leader of New Bethlehem and US spy. His increased status has made him a useful plot accessory, a kind of Bat-Phone that June can call any time she gets into hot water – which, as this show dictates, is often.

But inside, what’s been the story? Nick’s acted for both the resistance and for Gilead’s elite rulers, yet his personal convictions have never been clear. Does he hate Gilead? Does he want it to succeed? Other than his love for June, Nick’s guiding principles have been murky, as the show has tilted his character this way and that, never quite saying in which direction he’ll fall… until now.

In season six, episode six “Surprise”, Nick fell. He made the choice to save himself and protect Gilead instead of making a heroic personal sacrifice and striking a blow at the heart of the regime. In doing so, he lost June, but he gained what actor Max Minghella says has always been his character’s primary need: safety.

In an interview with TV Insider, Minghella explained that Nick being given an ultimatum to betray June and Mayday or face execution on the wall by his powerful and incandescently angry father-in-law High Commander Wharton, was “a no-win situation”.

“At least in his mind, that there was nothing he could do. And even though I’m not going to defend his decision at all, nor do I expect anybody in the audience to sympathize with it, it was important to me that at least in the moment, it felt like there was no escape and that he didn’t have a choice. Sometimes people don’t think clearly under pressure.”

The fatherly influence of Wharton, a new character introduced in season six, played a key part in Nick’s decision, Minghella told TV Insider:

“It’s the first time there’s been a paternal figure to Nick that we’ve seen who actually makes him feel safe, for better or worse. And whether it’s the worst place to find security, I think there’s something about him that he’s been lacking in his life.”

Nick’s family backstory, which we only learn in season six, is that his mother died when he was just 11 years old, and he was raised by a violent, often absent and possibly addicted father for whom he has no kind words to say. Unlike former literary editor June with her doctor mother, he’s not college-educated, and comes from a working class background. All of that is fundamental to Nick’s DNA and lack of self-esteem, says Minghella.

“He didn’t have any education and he didn’t have any leadership in his life prior to Gilead. So he’s born of a very strange system and a misguided system, and one that he knows is misguided, but he doesn’t have a frame of reference for anything else. He’s a really good survivor. I don’t know if he’s the smartest person in the world.”

Depending on June and Mayday’s next move in retaliation for him blowing their plan, we’d have to agree.

The Handmaid’s Tale season six streams on Tuesdays on Hulu in the US. It starts on Channel 4 in the UK on Saturday May 3.

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