The Handmaid’s Tale ended its run this week with an episode titled “The Handmaid’s Tale,” bringing June (Elisabeth Moss) full circle while also allowing Hulu to leave the door wide open for The Testaments, the upcoming series based on Margaret Atwood’s 2019 sequel to her 1985 novel. Emotional punctuation took priority over narrative closure, which felt like the best and only choice.
After last week’s big revolutionary booms, including the airplane bomb that wiped out all of Boston’s most powerful leaders, Gilead has fallen—in Boston, at least. The Handmaid’s Tale has shown us glimpses of other parts of this changed country (notably season four’s visit to Chicago), but it’s temping to forget there’s more to the fight than just the characters we have become well familiar with. “The Handmaid’s Tale” makes it clear there’s still a long way to go; the rest of what was once America requires liberation, and Luke (O-T Fagbenle), Moira (Samira Wiley), and Tuello (Sam Jaeger), among others, plan to keep moving full speed ahead.
Other characters face a different sort of uncertain future. Serena (Yvonna Strahovski) is once again a woman without a country; she obviously can’t remain in Gilead, and Canada and the EU are non-options. She and Noah head to a UN refugee camp, lives still very much in limbo, though Serena has two important things giving her strength: she’s a mother, and at long last she has June’s sincere forgiveness.
Battered but unbroken, Janine (Madeline Brewer) finally escapes from Gilead for good. Rather incredibly, she’s also reunited with her daughter, thanks to the newly widowed (again) Naomi (Ever Carradine), who apparently had some good in her after all. Naomi and Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) remain in Gilead; Lydia, at least, will play a key role in The Testaments, which explains why we don’t see too much of her in the finale.
And though we get a pretty juicy moment of fan service in the return of Emily (Alexis Bledel), a much-loved character who abruptly left the show after season four—and we also see the arrival of June’s mother (Cherry Jones) and young daughter, who’ve been in Alaska throughout season six—”The Handmaid’s Tale” puts its focus squarely on June. She does a little mourning for Nick (Max Minghella), and while she and Luke don’t exactly break up, there’s a respectful understanding between them that they’re on different paths moving forward. But they do still share one big missing piece: Hannah.
In The Handmaid’s Tale‘s first season, we saw Hannah ripped away from her parents as they tried to flee Gilead’s child-hungry regime. As June endured rape and torture as a handmaid, her motivation to survive was getting her daughter back—something that also propelled her to stay in Gilead, as well as return there repeatedly, putting her own safety at great risk. It’s been Hannah all along, so it’s not surprising when June makes it clear to everyone—including her own weary mother—that rescue is still her top priority, along with staying in battle mode until Gilead is completely, fully dismantled: “I’m not safe, and neither are you. And they are never going to stop coming for us.”
But there’s some narrative roadblocking here, since Hannah is a character in The Testaments. Though we get a key update (she’s moved with her adoptive parents from Colorado to Washington, DC, meaning she’s geographically closer at least), that longed-for reunion is not in the cards. Instead, The Handmaid’s Tale finds a way for June to work through her grief and spread her message of fierceness and hope.
Her mother and Luke both separately suggest that she should write down her experiences, leading to the meta last scene that sees June return to the bombed-out remains of the Waterford mansion, back to the room where she was confined as a handmaid, and start to dictate her thoughts.
In “The Handmaid’s Tale,” The Handmaids Tale the show transforms into The Handmaid’s Tale the book. It’s a poignant and effective way to bring closure to this part of the story—as the fight, we’re left to imagine, will continue to rage on.
You can watch all six seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu. There’s no premiere date set yet for The Testaments.
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