‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Star Joins Netflix’s ‘You’ Season 5

The Handmaid’s Tale star Madeline Brewer has joined the cast of You Season 5, Netflix announced on March 8. The actress will star opposite Penn Badgley in the fifth and final season of the psychological drama as Bronte, an enigmatic and free-spirited playwright who comes to work for Joe Goldberg at his bookstore.

While it is unclear if Bronte will simply be an acquaintance of Joe or the latest woman he develops an unhealthy obsession with, the streamer seemed to hint at the latter. Sharing the casting news on its socials, the official You account said, “Good luck, girl.”

Based on Caroline Kepnes’ best-selling novel of the same name, You evolves around the question, “What would you do for love?” The series, which originally aired as a Lifetime original series before Netflix licensed the show for streaming, follows Badgley’s Joe Goldberg, a man who will do just about anything when love is at stake. Teasing the upcoming final season, co-creator Sera Gamble said that Joe can get even “more dangerous” following the events of Season 4, which was set in London and saw him come into mass amounts of money through his girlfriend Kate (Charlotte Ritchie).

“If Joe is all of the things that he is and now has unlimited resources and access, he’s become the thing that he envied and judged from afar. It gives us a lot of new opportunities,” Gamble told E! News last year. “I am thinking of all of the terrible, terrible stuff that very privileged wealthy people get away with, so maybe it won’t.”

Justin W. Lo and Michael Foley serve as co-showrunners for Season 5, with Gamble and Greg Berlanti set to executive produce alongside Sarah Schlechter, Gina Girolamo, Neil Reynolds, Marcos Siega, Leslie Morgenstein, and Lee Toland Krieger. A Season 5 premiere date hasn’t been announced.

Brewer joins the cast of You as she prepares to bid farewell to The Handmaid’s Tale, Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel of the same name. The actress, who also notably starred as Tricia Miller in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, has starred as Janine Lindo since the show’s 2017 premiere, earning a 2021 Emmy nomination for the role in the category of “Outstanding Supporting Actress in Drama Series.” The show is currently in production for its sixth and final season, which does not yet have a premiere date. Brewer can next be seen starring in the thriller Anniversary with Kyle Chandler, Phoebe Dynevor, Diane Lane, and Zoey Deutch and in I Live Here Now with Lucy Fry.