Sydney Sweeney was in The Handmaid's Tale for seven episodes, and nobody remembers Eden

Before Sydney Sweeney shot to international stardom as Cassie on Euphoria, she put in a fair few years slogging away in smaller parts across film and telly. Hidden among those gigs is a performance that, in my opinion, still doesn’t get nearly enough love—her appearance on The Handmaid's Tale back in 2018, right before things blew up for her. If you blinked, you may well have missed it, but Sweeney’s turn as Eden Spencer over her seven-episode run in Series 2 was the sort of dark, quietly heartbreaking work that sticks with you long after the credits roll, even with all the chaos and misery Gilead likes to peddle as standard.

Sydney Sweeney told Refinery29 about learning her character's fate as she went: "I knew she was going to have an ending. I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to end. There was [possibly], ‘Oh, she could end up running away.’ They weren’t quite sure what direction they were going in. I just knew there was going to be an ending. When I read episode 12, I was completely shocked... I was screaming at the page [while] reading."

Eden’s Grim Love Story

Sweeney enters the fray in Series 2, Episode 5—'Seeds'—as Eden Spencer, who’s all of 15 and primed to be the very picture of a devout, obedient wife. She’s paired off in one of those excruciating 'Prayvaganza' ceremonies with Nick Blaine (Max Minghella), who, to put it gently, barely tolerates her. Eden, eager to please, expects a conventional marriage (Gilead-style, which is to say, bleak as you like). Only, it’s painfully clear Nick’s got about as much interest in her as he’s got in the household furniture.

Not that Eden’s written as an idiot. She reads, she writes (illegally, obviously—it’s Gilead), and she tries to find connection in a system designed to destroy it. After Nick rebuffs her, she catches the eye of Isaac (Rohan Mead), a recently assigned Guardian. Cue one clandestine romance under the noses of the regime, which, if you’ve watched even five minutes of this show, you know is a truly dire idea.

How It All Ends

Things escalate: Eden and Isaac try to bolt, full-on Romeo and Juliet-style, after being encouraged by June (Elisabeth Moss) to take whatever happiness they can claw back. They’re inevitably caught and sentenced to a truly dreadful execution—chained up on a diving board and drowned, all for the crime of wanting something real. Before she’s forced to jump, Eden is offered a chance to save herself and Nick by recanting, but chooses to go down for love—leaving Nick gnawing on guilt and Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) shaken enough to let June raise her baby. And let's be honest, it’s a rare case of someone in Gilead getting to control their own ending, even if it’s an utterly bleak one.

• Sydney Sweeney appears as Eden from Series 2, Episode 5 to Episode 12, in storylines threading through June’s and Nick’s lives amid major Gilead events.

Sweeney later told Refinery29: "I was glad that it went so dark for an ending. Because it’s going to hit a lot of people and have a huge impact."

Sweeney’s Breakout Performance (That No One Noticed)

Flash forward to 2025, and Sweeney is now front and centre in just about every genre going—from romcoms like Anyone But You to indies such as Christy. She’s not exactly typecast as the doomed supporting player anymore. Series 3 of Euphoria finally lands in 2026, but if you're curious where her range first burst out, The Handmaid's Tale is a prime example. What she did as Eden is still properly affecting: that tricky shift from wide-eyed naïf to quietly tragic rebel is pulled off with an emotional depth that’s well beyond her years (and most of the adult cast). It’s even more impressive when you realise Sweeney herself had no idea how grim Eden’s end would be, discovering the fate episode by episode. She managed to make a minor character’s death hit home in a cast stacked with established scene-stealers.