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 often known as Gilead, a patriarchal society that had overthrown america authorities in The Handmaid’s Tale. For six seasons, we’ve been following June as she fights the great combat to avoid wasting her daughter Hannah and escape the clutches of their oppressors. And whereas the collection formally ended on Might 26, the finale didn’t wrap every thing up in a tidy little bow. Slightly, it teed up a derivative that’s already within the works: The Testaments.
After the entire combating and the turmoil and the sacrifice, the finale might not have felt fairly as satisfying as you’d hoped. However in the event you’ve learn the bestselling 1985 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood, or its 2019 sequel, you recognize 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.
When you have been searching for emotional closure for all the key characters you’ve come to know and love, effectively, hold wanting. Having mentioned that, there have been a number of stunning moments that delivered hope.
Not solely does Janine (Madeline Brewer) escape Gilead, however she additionally reunites along with her daughter, Charlotte. It was a second miraculously orchestrated by none apart from Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and Naomi (Ever Carradine). Proof that nobody is past redemption, possibly? Or a minimum of able to the tiniest f*cking shred of humanity after being actually terrible for thus lengthy?
Which brings us to Serena Pleasure (Yvonne Strahovski), who in some way, in true Serena vogue, manages to claw her means 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 along with her son, she has an epiphany: He’s all she ever wished. She might have escaped with barely the garments on their backs, however she has every thing she wants.
A couple of characters, reminiscent of Moira (Samira Wiley) and Rita (Amanda Brugel), seem solely briefly because the finale progresses. The idea? 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 by way of Boston, not so not like their very first scene collectively as handmaids. There’s additionally this actually stunning 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 along with her mother, Holly (Cherry Jones), as she tells her she must hold combating for all of the daughters who have been stolen and are nonetheless trapped in Gilead.
As for Luke, he and June share a equally bittersweet goodbye. He’s advanced a lot as a personality (Workforce Luke for all times), and he helps her to do what she must do. He encourages her to write down a guide 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 might be a them after.
Within the last 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 might be no heartwarming, life-affirming reunion between this warrior and her little woman. Not in The Handmaid’s Story.
Nonetheless, we finish understanding that June isn’t giving up the combat.
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. Via 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 function 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 lady residing in Canada, who is definitely Nicole, the daughter of June and Nick (Max Minghella).
Lydia, in her later years, is very like 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, advised The Hollywood Reporter. “She has 900 lives, which is precisely how these folks survived in these sort of regimes by being excellent at stepping barely out of the way in which when the shit begins to fall.”
Who else is returning?
When you ask Miller, he’d fortunately have all the key gamers make a cameo or slide into recurring roles.
“Anyone who has an hour free, I’d carry over, if I might handle to make it work. There are, after all, enterprise issues, however story-wise, I believe numerous them match into The Testaments world,” Miller advised Variety, mentioning, “They’re very linked. 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 a substitute of the mom.”
Though it’s unclear if Moss might 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 would possibly come out?
When you 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 reasonably rapidly.
“We’re effectively on our means in the direction of making it. And we’re in the midst of manufacturing, and it’s such a pleasure,” Miller advised Selection. “So it’s coming a lot ahead of I believe the following season of Handmaid’s would have come, however we’re effectively into it, and it’s coming alongside simply splendidly.”
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