Eight years in the past, we met June Osbourne. Solely on the time, we met her as Offred — a “handmaid” within the fictional(ish) totalitarian state referred to as Gilead, a patriarchal society that had overthrown the US authorities in The Handmaid’s Tale. For six seasons, we’ve been following June as she fights the great battle to save lots of her daughter Hannah and escape the clutches of their oppressors. And whereas the collection formally ended on Could 26, the finale didn’t wrap every little thing up in a tidy little bow. Quite, it teed up a derivative that’s already within the works: The Testaments.
After all the preventing and the turmoil and the sacrifice, the finale could not have felt fairly as satisfying as you’d hoped. However in case you’ve learn the bestselling 1985 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood, or its 2019 sequel, that life exists for June and a few of her family members — and foes… turned possibly allies? — past The Handmaid’s Story TV finale.
So, let’s dive into the place the finale ends and what we learn about the place the spinoff will decide up.
What occurred in The Handmaid’s Story finale?
Spoilers forward! The next article incorporates plot factors vital to the collection finale of The Handmaid’s Story.
For those who had been in search of emotional closure for all the main characters you’ve come to know and love, nicely, maintain wanting. Having stated that, there have been a number of lovely moments that delivered hope.
Not solely does Janine (Madeline Brewer) escape Gilead, however she additionally reunites together with her daughter, Charlotte. It was a second miraculously orchestrated by none aside from Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and Naomi (Ever Carradine). Proof that nobody is past redemption, possibly? Or at the very least able to the tiniest f*cking shred of humanity after being really terrible for therefore lengthy?
Which brings us to Serena Pleasure (Yvonne Strahovski), who by some means, in true Serena style, manages to claw her manner again from oblivion and get nearly as near a contented ending as one might hope for. First, Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger) as soon as once more helps her flee Gilead (“I’ll discover you” — cease, Mark, she doesn’t deserve you!). Then, she apologizes to June, and June forgives her. And, lastly, sitting in a refugee shelter together with her son, she has an epiphany: He’s all she ever wished. She could have escaped with barely the garments on their backs, however she has every little thing she wants.
A couple of characters, equivalent to Moira (Samira Wiley) and Rita (Amanda Brugel), seem solely briefly because the finale progresses. The belief? They’re nonetheless working with Mayday, doing what they will to interrupt Gilead. We get a shock cameo from Emily (Alexis Bledel), a full-circle second the place she and June stroll via Boston, not so not like their very first scene collectively as handmaids. There’s additionally this actually lovely dream sequence of how life ought to have been, or would have been, with out Gilead, the place a few of our favourite handmaids — June, Moira, Rita, Emily, Janine, Brianna, Alma — sing “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac at karaoke.
June shares a heart-wrenching second together with her mother, Holly (Cherry Jones), as she tells her she must maintain preventing for all of the daughters who had been stolen and are nonetheless trapped in Gilead.
As for Luke, he and June share a equally bittersweet goodbye. He’s developed a lot as a personality (Staff Luke for all times), and he helps her to do what she must do. He encourages her to write down a e-book and bear in mind everybody who meant one thing to her on her journey… sure, together with Nick. And he reminds her that there was a them earlier than and there can be a them after.
Within the remaining scene, June sits in the exact same window by which she began this story, again within the dwelling the place she was pressured to function the handmaid of Fred (Joseph Fiennes) and Serena. She begins to report her story, and it’s clear that there can be no heartwarming, life-affirming reunion between this warrior and her little woman. Not in The Handmaid’s Story.
Nonetheless, we finish figuring out that June isn’t giving up the battle.
What’s The Testaments?
Anybody who has learn Atwood’s 2019 follow-up, The Testaments, is aware of that the victory June and pals discover in Boston doesn’t precisely usher within the fall of the Republic of Gilead. It nonetheless exists 15 years later, throughout which era The Testaments takes place. By the occasions that transpire in Atwood’s newer novel, Gilead does lastly fall… however we don’t but know if the spinoff TV collection will comply with the identical arc.
It’s sure that Dowd will reprise her position as Aunt Lydia, a central determine within the follow-up. The story alternates in narration between Lydia and two different characters: Agnes (aka June and Luke’s daughter Hannah), who has been raised in Gilead by a high-ranking commander; and Daisy, a younger girl residing in Canada, who is definitely Nicole, the daughter of June and Nick (Max Minghella).
Lydia, in her later years, is very similar to how we see her on the finish of The Handmaid’s Story — a mole who has come to despise Gilead and what it does to her “ladies,” so she works behind the scenes with Mayday to assist convey it down.
“Lydia is a fucking cat,” Bruce Miller, creator of The Handmaid’s Story and, quickly, The Testaments, informed The Hollywood Reporter. “She has 900 lives, which is precisely how these folks survived in these type of regimes by being superb at stepping barely out of the best way when the shit begins to fall.”
Who else is returning?
For those who ask Miller, he’d fortunately have all the main gamers make a cameo or slide into recurring roles.
“Anyone who has an hour free, I might carry over, if I might handle to make it work. There are, after all, enterprise considerations, however story-wise, I feel loads of them match into The Testaments world,” Miller informed Variety, mentioning, “They’re very related. I imply, it’s not like a sequel like another issues the place you’re simply chopping it off. The primary set of characters matter vastly to the second set of characters. So these tales are very tied collectively, and it’s very a lot a continuation of this Handmaid’s Story that we’ve seen. You’re simply following the daughter as an alternative of the mom.”
Though it’s unclear if Moss can be showing as June within the collection, it has been confirmed that she’ll be government producing the collection alongside Miller and far of the unique Handmaid’s crew.
Any thought when The Testaments may come out?
For those who felt a bit disheartened by The Handmaid’s Story finale, maybe it will cheer you up: It sounds as if The Testaments is transferring alongside quite rapidly.
“We’re nicely on our manner in the direction of making it. And we’re in the midst of manufacturing, and it’s such a pleasure,” Miller informed Selection. “So it’s coming a lot ahead of I feel the following season of Handmaid’s would have come, however we’re nicely into it, and it’s coming alongside simply splendidly.”
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