‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Finale Is More of a Bridge to ‘The Testaments’

[Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Handmaid’s Tale” finale — Season 6, Episode 10, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”]

If the “Handmaid’s Tale” series finale is going to include a series-defining monologue, then Cherry Jones may as well be the one to deliver it. Having just heard her daughter, June (Elisabeth Moss), is planning to go back out into the field and continue fighting Gilead, Holly (Jones) is upset. She’s been worrying about June for years now, suffering through long stretches when she doesn’t know where she is, who she’s with, or if she’s even still alive. More recently, the opposite anxiety besets Holly. She has to watch as June is captured and strung up to be hanged, all while caring for June’s youngest daughter (also named Holly).

It ends happily enough — June once again survives, and her rescue even sets off a string of events that frees Boston from Gilead’s grip — but one ending is just another beginning. Holly takes a bus from Alaska to Boston to reunite with her family, and almost as soon as she gets there, June is planning to take off again. Hannah, her first child, is being moved to Washington D.C. Thousands of other boys and girls are still being brainwashed by Gilead. June has to help. She has to go back. “Mommies always come back.”

Holly understands, but understanding doesn’t make what she has to say any easier. She has to encourage her daughter to keep fighting, and in doing so, she has to explain to the audience why they’ve spent six seasons and eight years with this story, even if it doesn’t end with a beaten, broken Gilead — even if it doesn’t really end at all.

“June, you should write a book,” Holly says. “About never giving up. This isn’t a story for people who haven’t lost anyone, they don’t need this story. This is the story for people who may never find their babies. The people who will never, ever give up trying. This is the story for them. … Write it for your daughters, June. Tell them who their mother was.”

There’s plenty to admire about creator (and finale writer) Bruce Miller’s chosen approach to ending “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Keeping June on the front lines, fighting a battle without an obvious end, befits both the character (who’s come to know war as a way of life) and the audience (who witness a new constitutional crisis every week and may need the encouragement to fight back). The finale also provides a framework that honors Margaret Atwood’s groundbreaking novel and gives June ample time to stroll through Boston, remembering what was and what could’ve been.

I’ll leave it to others to decide which tear-jerking scene feels the most forced — Emily (Alexis Bledel) suddenly showing up in Boston, or all the handmaids singing karaoke in June’s fantasy version of a life without Gilead — and whether the plentiful (if poorly choreographed) violence in the previous episode provided adequate contrast to the finale’s pensive tranquility. (So much walking, so much thinking, so little stabbing.)

But despite Jones’ elegant delivery of a speech that screams, “This is what the show is about!,” isn’t it a bit strange that June’s already writing a book about a story that isn’t over? Not only did the most climactic moments happen in the penultimate episode (when Commanders Lawrence and Wharton are killed, along with Nick), but most of the surviving character arcs are left naggingly open-ended.

I almost laughed when June tells Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), “I forgive you,” a sentiment as on-the-nose as it is unnecessary (and not helped by Moss’ direction, which overemphasizes the line by zooming in on June as she delivers it). “The Handmaid’s Tale” has bent over backward to get June and Serena to this point, where they’re no longer enemies but something akin to sisters on opposite sides of the patriarchy’s oppression. But considering Serena still laments being banished from Gilead in the same conversation where June forgives her for years of tyrannical abuse, it’s hard to accept their tidy little resolution. (Serena’s last scene, where she embraces motherhood despite being stripped of past privileges, adds little to her arc either.)

Luke (O-T Fagbenle) gets even less, which would be fine if his kicker did more than kick the can down the road. Luke’s closing conversation with June is not-quite-a-break-up, not-quite-a-reunion, but it does make clear that he’s as all-in on the fight as she is, while propping up the show’s happy ending. “It wasn’t all horrors, right?,” he says. “You had people who helped you. … People who loved you. People you loved. They’re all worth remembering.”

Sure, right, let’s remember the good times amid all the rape, torture, and tyrannical misogyny. I mean, some things worked out: Look at Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd)! She was about to be executed one episode prior, and now she’s back with Gilead? Orchestrating hostage drop-offs? Giving Janine (Madeline Brewer) back to the Americans, along with her daughter is a kindness, to be sure — but how does Lydia wield enough influence to make sure her handmaids don’t have to “walk in stride with the wicked” anymore?

So many indefinite endings almost make it seem like this isn’t the end of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” (Even the episode’s biggest victory — taking back Boston — is quickly undercut by June rattling off all the cities and states still waiting to be wrested from Gilead.) Instead, Episode 10 just feels like a stopping point before our story picks back up under a new name. Oh, that’s right — it will! “The Testaments” is coming! Hulu is turning Atwood’s 2019 sequel to her 1985 original novel into a series of its own (sort of), with Bruce Miller showrunning and at least Aunt Lydia set to return.

Miller has been open about what he could and could not do in “The Handmaid’s Tale” in order to preserve the story of “The Testaments.” Obviously, Aunt Lydia was on the no-kill list, but so were June’s kids, Hannah and Holly, which created a considerable speed-bump. Constructing the final season (or at least the last few episodes) around June saving Hannah would have made for a much more logical and consequential conclusion, but even without that card in the deck, the final hand didn’t have to leave out so many others. That it did only mutes the emotional impact (which Miller and Moss try to make up for with all those walks down memory lane), while denying the audience enough closure to say goodbye. After all, if the audience is comfortable leaving “The Handmaid’s Tale” behind, who’s going to tune in for “The Testaments”?

“The Handmaid’s Tale” has always been a story of mothers and daughters. The last shot emphasizes as much, while stressing the transformative journey of our central heroine. June sits in the same window perch as she is in the first shot, this time wearing her own clothes and speaking into a recorder for the book Holly demands she write for her children. She remembers her time as a Handmaid with the Waterfords. She sees the ruined state of the Waterford house now. “My name is Offred,” she says. And she smiles.

At least with this ending, one thing is clear: We know who June is, and so does she. Even if her story continues (they’re already talking about her return for “The Testaments”), June’s time as Offred is over. Whether your time with June is, too, well… you’ll have to choose your own ending.

Grade: C+

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is available on Hulu. “The Testaments” is expected in 2026.