When The Handmaid’s Tale premiered on Hulu in 2017, the dystopian landscape of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel was only a glimmer in the distant future. Today, as the series comes to a close with its sixth season, we seem to be on the precipice of that reality. Gender equality and LGBTQIA rights are under direct attack in the United States, and the government is integrating methods of control that feel far starker than they have in recent generations. The red handmaid gown and white hood, depicted in both the novel and Bruce Miller’s onscreen version, have become symbols of female repression. But can the series conclude in a way that feels narratively satisfying and sincerely liberating in 2025?
Season 6 kicks off shortly after the events of the Season 5 finale, which left June (Elisabeth Moss) injured, Luke (O-T Fagbenle) arrested for murder and Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) on the run with her baby. By happenstance, June and Serena find themselves on the same train through Canada with their children, reunited by circumstance rather than intent. Serena is endangered by her public identity as a wife of Gilead, and June is reluctant to help her thanks to their tumultuous history. The first episode, which establishes their unlikely connection before June rescues Serena by pushing her off the train, moves slowly, but Miller quickly drives the story forward in a way that brings both Serena and June back to Gilead where the story began.
There’s a lot to conclude in the season’s 10 final chapters (reviewers were given the first eight ahead of the three-episode premiere). Mayday and the handmaids conspire to bring down the powers that be in Gilead as Serena attempts to reform Gilead alongside Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford). Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) is forced to contend with her choices and her role in the subjugation of the handmaids, something that hits close to home when Janine (Madeline Brewer) reappears in Gilead’s brothel. Nick (Max Minghella), meanwhile, is caught between his role as a commander and his love for June, both of which trap him in morally-complicated situations. The real core of the season, however, is how much we can actually change in the face of dire circumstances and revelation.
Strahovski’s performance as Serena is the most compelling. Her beliefs, so concrete and certain when we met her, have been shaken. Do women deserve rights? Who does the restrictive system of Gilead benefit? But even when she seems to change, Serena reverts right back to the trad wife she was ready to fight against in Canada. She’s complicit in the suppression of her own gender, just as some women are today in the United States when they vote for certain politicians. Miller and his writers interrogate this phenomenon in a nuanced way, just as they reflect on Aunt Lydia’s unwavering complicity. As June, Moss has been less nuanced in her portrayal, often showcasing the character with an unlayered front of fury. This season, June too grapples with her choices and her relationships, and she’s confronted by both Luke and Moira (Samira Wiley) for her blatant selfishness. Moss is more restrained and vulnerable, which is an effective choice and gives June a stronger sense of relatability than in past seasons.
Season 6 technically isn’t the end of the story, just as Atwood’s book wasn’t the end. Most of the series has been Miller’s supposition on how the novel might have continued, but once The Handmaid’s Tale wraps Hulu will begin production on an adaptation of Atwood’s 2019 sequel The Testaments (which also features the character of Aunt Lydia). In that novel, set 15 years later, Gilead hasn’t yet fallen, suggesting that The Handmaid’s Tale’s last act may be more of a cliffhanger than a conclusion. But it can still give us hope and recognition, an artistic mirror of our own modern history that has only become more prescient since Atwood conceptualized it. If June and Moira can survive, so can we. Small acts of rebellion can embolden suppressed people, including us. Both the novel and the series were a warning in the form of entertainment, there if we’re ready to listen.
The first three episodes of Season 6 of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ begin streaming on Hulu on April 8th.
