Episode 610 – The Handmaid’s Tale
June reflects on her experiences in Gilead and decides what to do next.
Writer: Bruce Miller
Director: Elisabeth Moss
The self-titled series finale opens with an overhead, bird’s eye view shot of Fenway Park, the site of the infamous almost-hanging in the season 2 opener. We get June’s monologue telling us “Boston is free; the Gilead occupation is over. We won, here at least. Boston is America again. Praised fucking be…By the time the Marines landed in Southie, the fighting was almost over. Gilead had already started pulling out of the city, then it only took 19 days. But this is just the beginning. First, Massachusetts is liberated, then New York, west across Ohio, Kansas, someday Colorado, and then Hannah.” It’s all intercut with images of Hannah and the present-day resistance celebrating in the streets and burning things leftover from Gilead. They raise the American flag which now has a third star, representing the free territory of Boston. June and Moira still don’t know where Janine is; and June is heavily grieving the complicating and painful loss of Nick. At the new military base camp in Boston, June finds Luke helping soldiers gear up for their next battle. Luke has not slept in days, but is so amped up about fighting Gilead further, that he’s not even tired. I completely forgot that Luke was an electrician. He mentions that he’s going to get some union electricians together to get the power back up to the city and the airport so that flights from Alaska can start coming in. (If you don’t know, my day job is in electrical construction, so I was super excited for the subtle IBEW electricians’ union shoutout). As they gear up for New York next, Luke reminds June that they will get Hannah back by taking down one territory at a time. If you were hoping for them to get Hannah back this episode, you will be disappointed and have clearly not read the sequel, The Testaments.
The Americans have set up inside the old Boston Glob office. Tuello informs June that many Commanders from out west have been promoted with the loss of so many Commanders in Boston. Commander Mackenzie will be moving with his wife and Hannah to Washington D.C., 2,000 miles closer to June. Tuello has been in contact with Lydia, who is working on finding out what she can about Janine.
June goes downstairs to the memorial wall we saw inside the Boston Globe back in season 2 and finds a stuffed bunny which sends her to either a flashback or imagined scenario of her at a carnival with a very young Hannah.
They’re having fun eating popcorn when June goes to buy some ride tickets and Hannah wanders off. In a full-blown panic, June runs around trying to find her, and when she finally does, Hannah says “you lost me” but June tearfully replies, “Mommies always come back” which absolutely gutted me.
Serena and Noah are looking through refugee donations for baby clothes when June finds them. Serena congratulates June on the victory, and June thanks her for her help. June offers to help her with Noah, and Serena says that she’s sorry about Nick and “May his memory be a blessing and a comfort to you always”, but June says, “he reaped what he sowed; he led a violent and dishonest life.” June finds baby Noah a little Boston Red Sox onesie in his size. Serena knows she can’t go back into Gilead territory, Canada and the EU won’t give her a passport, so she’s stuck in limbo. But June tells her to just be Noah’s mom.
Tuello comes in to escort Serena and Noah out to a bus headed for a UN Refugee camp. He tells her that he’ll find her (uh oh, cue the Tuello thirst traps videos!) Before boarding, Serena says, “June, when I recall some of the things that I’ve done to you and the things that I did and I forced you to do, I’m ashamed…I’m sorry and if words mean anything at all, I’m sorry.” June thinks for a moment before saying, “I forgive you Serena, I do.” Serena is overcome with emotion and thanks June. And I think here is where I first ugly cried. Tuello hands June a pass because her old neighborhood has finally opened up. She refers to him as Captain Tuello but he corrects her, saying he’s a Commander in the military. OOF.
June takes a walk into town and stops by the former ice cream shop we saw in season 1, when we suddenly hear a familiar voice repeating her lines from the first season: EMILY! I was WRECKED by this reveal! So many of you were hoping for an Emily return, and I was sure we wouldn’t get one and I was so happy to be so wrong!! We learn that she was a Martha in Bridgeport for a Commander that was a friend, and she has stayed in touch with Syl and Oliver. They take a walk along their old route down by the river at The Wall where we see some bodies of Guardians hanging. June contemplates what is possible and what’s next for her, as the camera reveals that the Boston residents have turned The Wall into a memorial of resilience with graffiti all over of “My name is ___”, peace signs, flowers, words of freedom, and birds.
June has been dreaming of a version of Boston in the way it would be if Gilead had never happened. We then get my dream montage of June, Rita, Moira, Janine, Emily, Alma, and Breanna singing Landslide by Fleetwood Mac at karaoke, a season 1 episode 10 reference. I sobbed heavily seeing all these women with nothing but joy in their faces as June dreams of what could have been. This too is a deep kind of grief.
Back to reality, June is looking at her Handmaid cloak and dress and walks them down to the infamous bridge to toss it onto a fire. I was grateful that she got to have this private moment to burn away such a painful part of her past. As it burns, the lights in all of Boston begin to come on, just as Luke and the electricians had been working to do, and June walks towards the light.
She is finally sleeping when a soldier comes to wake her for something urgent. She arrives in the woods, where Tuello tells her he needs a friendly face at the new Gilead border in Millerville, Massachusetts. A van and a car pull up on the Gilead side, and we see two Guardians drag Janine and dump her at the border. SHE’S ALIVE!!! I ugly cried again as June ran to her and embraced her. I have always hoped that Janine would be okay and have peace and freedom. But just as I’m celebrating this, we see Naomi and Aunt Lydia approach with little Charlotte. Naomi says goodbye to her as she hands Charlotte back to Janine. MORE UGLY CRYING BECAUSE OH MY GOD, JANINE IS FREE AND HAS HER DAUGHTER!!! It left me wondering if Lawrence left some sort of instructions inside the A Little Princess book he handed to Naomi. June thanks Naomi, and after she walks away, they rush Janine and Charlotte to medical aid, leaving June to face Aunt Lydia. Lydia asks June to take care of Janine and Charlotte. June says, “Lydia…Thank you. Blessed is the woman who does not walk in stride with the wicked.” To which Lydia says, “Under his eye, my dear.” And it’s one of the sincerest moments we’ve ever seen between the two. I do wish that June has asked Lydia to look out for Hannah.
At the bus station, June’s mom and little Holly arrive to meet June and Luke in Boston. This is the first time that Luke has seen June’s mom since Gilead began. It’s such a beautiful, tear-filled reunion. Back at the Boston Globe, June is awake with Holly telling her that she has to leave her again with her mom so that she can do what she can to help other girls in Gilead. Absolutely gut-wrenching, and I half expected her to start singing I’ll Be Your Mirror again. She sees her mom watching her and wakes Janine to have her watch Holly for a bit.
June follows her mom downstairs to the memorial wall where she is sitting amongst the candles. June asks her mom if it’s okay if she leaves Holly with her a little longer. But her mom breaks down, worrying about June’s safety. But June knows that they’ll never be safe as long as Gilead still exists. “…we don’t have a choice. Because not fighting is what got us Gilead in the first place.” I once again had full body chills at this line, for obvious reasons. She goes on to remind her mom that she is the one that taught her how to fight back. She must be so proud of her, yet so afraid for her. June admits that she doesn’t always feel like she’s doing a good job as a mother, and her mom says that’s BS. She will tell Holly June’s story about what a warrior her mom is. She then tells June that she should write a book, and I SCREAMED because I immediately knew I would get my wish about the ending of the episode. But more on this later. She tells June to write it for her daughters.
Back at basecamp, June finds Luke and says she underestimated him and apologizes. Luke acknowledges how different they are now after everything that has happened. Moira is getting Mayday together and Luke has found a basecamp at the New York border. June tells him to be careful, and that she plans to follow Mark state by state until she gets to Hannah. “What else is there?” We finally see June smile with some hope. Luke says, “meet you there?” to which June says, “yeah…Fuck yeah…See you there.” It’s a beautiful moment between the two. It’s left open-ended, but they are forever a family and united in their fight against Gilead and to save their daughter. I don’t know what their relationship will evolve into next, but I know that it’s exactly what it needs to be at this point in time, under these circumstances. Before walking away, Luke says that she should write her story down and lists all the people that loved her that helped her: Janine, Emily, Lawrence, and even Nick. “They’re all worth remembering.” I love that he says this to her, giving her permission to honor her relationships, no matter how complex they’ve been.
At the refugee camp, an aid is getting Serena set up with “a chair, a table, a bed” alluding to June’s bedroom in the Waterford house. Serena may have to keep moving from camp to camp. She sees that June snuck the Red Sox onesie into her bag. As Serena talks to Noah about what a gift and blessing he is, she comes to the realization that he is all she ever needed or wanted in life. I wonder if she still thinks that it was all worth it: all the destruction she caused by her role in Gilead’s creation. She is sorry for what she did to June, but I wonder how she thinks about the rest of it. I also wonder if she will face similar hostilities from other refugees like she did on the train in the first episode of season 6.
Dressed in a green/teal peacoat, June walks alone down the street where the old, fire damaged Waterford house sits. She walks around the perimeter, pausing to note Nick’s old apartment above the garage. She opens the front gate and heads through the front door.
We get some mirror shots of her ascending the stairs, just like she used to in earlier seasons when she was a Handmaid in Fred and Serena’s house. Revisiting the site of past traumas can be an effective way to process memories, especially for those of us with complex PTSD. Adam Taylor’s hauntingly beautiful score takes us right back to season 1 as June wanders through the house towards her old bedroom.
We see “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” carved into the wall where she left it, but the room is largely damaged from the house fire. We end up right where we began, as June sits in the infamous window, imagining holding Hannah’s hand. She takes her mom’s advice, pulls out a tape recorder (I SCREAMED AGAIN WITH DELIGHT AND CRIED AGAIN), and begins to record the first words we ever hear in her inner monologue from the pilot episode, bringing us completely full circle back to the very beginning of June’s tale:
“A chair, a table, a lamp, and a window with white curtains. The glass is shatter-proof, but it isn’t running away they’re afraid of. A Handmaid wouldn’t get far. It’s those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself given a cutting edge or a twisted sheet and a chandelier. I try not to think about those other escapes. It’s harder on ceremony days, but thinking can hurt your chances…My name is Offred.”
I absolutely sobbed at this ending because it’s all I ever wanted in the series finale. If you have not read the novel (please do), the epilogue tells us that the reason we have Offred’s story is that they discovered cassette tapes with the audio recording of her telling the story. I so desperately wanted them to honor this and show June somehow recording her story and I am overwhelmingly grateful that they chose to honor the novel in this way. We now know that all of the inner monologues throughout the entire series are June’s audio recordings of her story as she prepares to write her book. So poetic and so fitting.
I am so thrilled with this finale. We got some beautiful surprises, some tied up loose ends, but still some open-ended plotlines. And I got the one thing I’ve always wanted for this finale. I have said it a million times, but I am unbelievably grateful to Hulu and The Handmaid’s Tale’s publicity team for saying yes to me and allowing me to partner with them to review, promote, and celebrate this show over the last two seasons. It was a complete shot in the dark to reach out and ask, and I never thought they would say yes. They truly made my dreams come true and I will never forget this beautiful experience. If you’ve been reading these reviews, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know that these reviews are mostly for me, but the fact that any of you read them thrills me. I hope you enjoyed the series finale, and I can’t wait to watch The Testaments with you all next year! In the meantime, go do that rewatch, read the first novel, and read The Testaments by Margaret Atwood to get ready!
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, my friends.
