The Handmaid's Tale Season 3, Episode 8 revealed why Ofmatthew went crazy and started to snap. Ofmatthew (Ashleigh LaThrop) made her debut in Season 3, Episode 2 of the hit Hulu drama series as the handmaid assigned to Commander Matthew Calhoun (Jonathan Watton) of Gilead, the theocratic government in the dystopian future. She eventually became June Osborne's (Elisabeth Moss) shopping partner.
What Happened to Ofmatthew In Handmaid's Tale Season 3
Ofmatthew (who went by Natalie before the age of Gilead) was known by her peers as accepting of Gilead's rules and customs. Her loyalty to Gilead was a factor in why some of her peers hated her, which later proved her downfall.
As June Osborne's shopping partner, everything went well at first. Still, it all changed in The Handmaid's Tale Season 3, Episode 7, when Ofmatthew's by-the-books mentality took over after she reported June talking to Frances (who works as a Martha aka a servant) in the household where June's daughter, Hannah, resides. This caused Aunt Lydia Clements (the woman overseeing the Handmaids) to punish and execute Frances to remind June never to cross a line again.
Given that Frances served as June's motherly figure, her death was gut-wrenching, causing her to blame Ofmatthew and strangle her out of anger. June did this because, at that time, Ofmatthew's actions ruined her only chance of reuniting with Hannah.
The Handmaid's Tale Season 3, Episode 8, intensified the rivalry between June and Ofmatthew after June's hatred toward her spread like wildfire through the rest of the Handmaids. They began to ignore Ofmatthew, with some even shoving her purposefully and spitting in her water.
Aunt Lydia decided to call a meeting after noticing the Handmaids' treatment toward Ofmatthew, but it didn't do her any good because June used it to denounce that Ofmatthew wasn't sure about having a baby. Aunt Lydia joined in on the bullying spree by calling Ofmatthew a "crybaby" for trying to defend herself, causing all the Handmaids to scream the same thing at her in unison.
Why Did Ofmatthew Snap & Go Crazy?
The bullying, Frances' execution, and the fact that the group shunned her for being a snitch eventually took its toll on Ofmatthew, causing her to go mentally insane by the end of The Handmaid's Tale Season 3, Episode 8.
Her loyalty to Gilead started to fade, and she snapped after seeing June's smirk directed at her sadness. Ofmatthew unexpectedly smashed Janine (the friend consoling her amid the chaos) with a can over her head before slashing one of the Guardians' necks with a shard of glass. She then took the guard's gun and pointed it at June and Aunt Lydia. Thankfully, the Guardians pacified her by shooting her through the shoulder.
Aside from the bullying and June's anger toward her, Ofmatthew went crazy in the end because she felt alone and had no one else to defend her. She snapped due to guilt over Frances' death and for being mad at June for exposing the truth about her pregnancy, causing her to give up another baby (for context, this is the third time she would be doing it).
Some theorized that June's smirk was the trigger point for Ofmatthew's downward spiral because she thought June was saying something to Aunt Lydia about her at that moment. Ofmatthew eventually died in the hospital in Season 3, Episode 10, tragically ending her The Handmaid's Tale story.
Created by Bruce Miller, The Handmaid's Tale follows the story of an American dystopia where a totalitarian society mandates fertile women (known as Handmaids) to childbearing slavery, with June at the center of the story. The Handmaid's Tale boasts a star-studded cast headlined by Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Alexis Bledel, Ann Dowd, and O-T Fagbenle. All six seasons of The Handmaid's Tale are streaming on Hulu.
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