Anna Green
The following recap contains spoilers for the series finale of The Handmaid’s Tale, S6E10, “The Handmaid’s Tale” (written by Bruce Miller and directed by Elisabeth Moss)
A few days have passed now since our final episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, and there is still a lot of processing to be done. This finale was very calm compared to the events preceding it. I felt as though I was being walked through those final moments with June, and given time to reflect. I appreciated this, although I am sure some fans wanted more action. There were a lot of loose ends left—some I am sure deliberately—but I felt satisfied by the endings given to June, Luke, and Janine. I am glad we didn’t lose any characters in the closing moments of this part of the story.
There is a strong opening to the episode, with the flag of the USA being flown in liberated Boston. We see Rita, Moira, and June before a burning pyre of Gilead paraphernalia. June is plagued with memories of Hannah and Nick and everything that she has lost; this is not a happy moment for her, despite the small battle they have won.
Things seem tense between Luke and June. I wonder if everything has been too much, and if the chase for Hannah is all that is left in Luke. At this stage, he seems to have taken over from June in leading much of the resistance, and people seem to respect and listen to him. Luke is finding his purpose and withdrawing from his personal life to throw himself into Mayday. I think June feels she has lost parts of him for good—which is probably how he has felt about her for a long time.
Some of these thoughts are confirmed later on when we see the couple separate, temporarily, to allow each other to focus on their new priorities. This makes sense to me, as them becoming ‘happy families’ again, with or without Hannah, feels too unachievable after all they have been through. A scene that haunts me is Luke whistling to draw attention to himself at the end of Season 5, allowing June and Nichole to safely escape on the train. I think his love for June runs very deep, but that there are now aspects of them both that no longer fit together in a light and romantic way. They will always be family, but this is time for them to do their own thing for a while.
It is Luke in this scene who encourages June to write “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and he tells her to write about all the people who helped her through and who loved her. He included Nick by name, alongside Emily, Janine, etc., which made me very tearful. I think he is a good man and accepts with a full heart everything that June had to do while she was fighting to survive. He tells her, “they all deserve remembering,” and he’s right.
I was very interested in how Serena and June’s interactions and conversation would go, and it was surprisingly civil. Serena lets June hold Noah, and it feels for a fleeting moment as though they are just two people with a normal relationship. About Nick, Serena tells June, “If he ever thought he had a real choice he would have chosen you.” It’s as though old friends are catching up, and there is real tenderness in her voice, although I don’t personally agree with the sentiment.
Serena’s face is full of real regret in these scenes, and I would almost say that she is jealous of June for her strength and dignity and resolve. She admits her shame and apologises, with June telling her she forgives her. I don’t know how she can, but I think it means so much to both women. June tells her with incredible strength to “go in grace.” I believe that June knows Serena believed she was doing the right thing.
Tuello puts Serena on Noah on a bus to a refugee camp, and off they go. I don’t think this is the conclusion Serena deserved, but I hope she is truly changed. When she is holding Noah to her on the small bed they give her, she tells him he is all she ever wanted. I believe her, but I think the price she paid (and forced others to pay) was nothing short of evil.
In walking away from June, Tuello refers to himself as Commander, in a horrifying reminder that even with ‘good men’ on their side in a peaceful social and physical place, the women are never in control. Perhaps this is a warning of how quickly Gilead or a similar regime could reclaim this land.
There are multiple warnings throughout the episode that reach beyond the screen and feel like they are aimed at the audience directly. In one scene, we watch June speaking to her mother and she tells her, “not fighting is what gave us Gilead in the first place.” It is true at the very beginning of the show, we watched citizens sit confused and uncertain, not rising up, not resisting, until they realised the true terror of what had already happened. The message is clear and stark.
June returns to the Waterford’s house wearing teal and stands outside their gates as a free woman. She reflects on her time as a Handmaid and on her first experiences in the bedroom of the house.
We also get a surprise reappearance of Emily! I really didn’t expect this, and it was lovely to see her reunion with June outside the old ice cream shop they talked about on their walks in their Handmaid days. We learn a lot about Emily from her talk with June, and it seems that, although she is permanently changed and there are things she will never get back, she is doing as well as she could be. She spent some time as a Martha in Gilead and was able to speak to Sylv sometimes and to Oliver on his birthday.
June tells her that some things are impossible, but Emily says, “we are both here, alive, to see this,” and she gestures to the Guardians strung up on the wall, together with women’s real names graffitied on in bright colours. Nothing can be undone, but this is still a moment of happiness shining out.
We have a karaoke scene too, one where June imagines herself and some of the other Handmaids and how they may have met organically if Gilead had never happened. They all sing “Landslide” together and Janine has two eyes, Alma and Brianna are there, and everyone seems happy and joyful. This is the life many of us have now, but it feels so far away from them. This is my favourite scene of the episode, one that encapsulates everything these women have lost in just one scene. They have their freedom, their trauma for a moment does not exist, and they have each other out of choice, not out of necessity and survival. It is a very emotional moment, one beaten only by the scene we see of Janine in the present, escaping Gilead and regaining custody of her child. Naomi hands her over, saying she wants Charlotte to be safe. I choose to believe that Joseph finally got through to her, and that his death was the final straw. There were scenes in the past where Naomi seemed less strict and more flexible than the other wives, such as when she supported Serena’s bid for literary freedom, so perhaps this ending is one that makes sense for her. Lydia, too, refers to the child as Charlotte, in an emotional line that I did not expect.
And with the opening lines of Atwood’s original book, the series draws to a close. Some of our favourite characters will be back on screen in The Testaments so we may get a continuation of some of these stories at a later date, but, for now, that is all.
