Trigger warning: Sexual abuse, violence and suicide.
It’s been so long between the dramatic final of show-runner Bruce Miller’s The Handmaid’s Tale season five and the imminent finale – 2.5 years! – that the US has managed to slide considerably closer to the dystopian vision of Margaret Atwood’s prophetic source novel.
Of course, the author has always maintained that everything she wrote about women’s subjugation in the face of a totalitarian, patriarchal and religious extremist theocratic regime had already happened/was happening somewhere in the world. It’s just that we might have reasonably thought we were moving forward, not backwards.
Speaking of moving, if you’re a bit foggy on the details of who all the key players are and where we left them – understandable, given the extended gap – here’s a refresher.
June Osborne
Our mighty hero, June (Elisabeth Moss), has been on one hell of a journey since being captured by Gilead soldiers in the very first episode and separated from her husband, Luke (O-T Fagbenle), and young daughter, Hannah. Forced to become a handmaid – aka natal slave – to the insidious Commander Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) RIP and his imperious wife Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), she found solace in the arms of their driver, Nick (Max Minghella).
While June escaped the smothering Waterford house and the clutches of Gilead with the aid of Nick – with whom she had a daughter, Nichole – becoming a refugee in Canada, the ongoing capture of Hannah is an emotional thorn. At the end of season five, resisting the entreaties of Gilead architect Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) to return on his terms and after a failed American military attempt to rescue Hannah and two serious attempts on June’s life, she and Luke decide to flee by plane to Hawaii.
But this is not to be, with exiled US government operative Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger) informing them the airport is teeming with cops, directing them instead to a train shuttling refugees out. But the cops are here too, looking for Luke after he beat one of June’s attackers to death. He sacrifices himself so that she and Nichole can escape. In the last scene of season five, June meets a surprising fellow passenger on the train…
Serena Joy
How the mighty have fallen. Serena, a conservative commentator and author before the rise of Gilead, once brutally lorded it over June with a steely menace alongside her abusive husband, stealing June’s baby. That didn’t work out so well. June escaped. Later, she and a bunch of refugee handmaids tore Waterford apart, literally.
Waterford and Serena were arrested attempting to leave Gilead, and Serena spent many months in a Canadian detention centre, where she surprisingly gave birth to her biological son, Noah. In season five, Commander Lawrence refuses her request to return and she languishes in Canada as an ambassador of sorts, inspiring both super-standom and violent protest. Serena may as well be a handmaid when placed in custody with the malevolent Wheelers, with Alanis (Genevieve Angelson) and Ryan (Luca Neff) seizing Serena’s son as their own.
Fully grasping the consequences of her actions at last (or has she?), Serena makes a break for freedom with Noah, winding up on the same train as a bemused June. Will they fight side-by-side, or is the chasm between them too deep and Serena too conditioned/selfish?
Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) in the sixth season of 'The Handmaid's Tale'. Credit: Hulu/Hulu
Janine has never been overly keen on toeing the line, losing an eye for her troubles. And we don’t mean one of Gilead’s spies. She has withstood horrendous torture on multiple occasions and also made a successful break for freedom with June back in season four, though she was recaptured during the bombing of Chicago.
Becoming a surprisingly steady influence on her fellow handmaids in season five, much to Lydia’s delight, Janine survives an attempted poisoning by another handmaid who sees her as part of the syste, with Lydia praying by her bedside.
Lydia’s decision to facilitate Janine’s placement with Naomi, hastily remarried to Lawrence, is a strategic error. Rather than embrace the role to be close to her kid, Janine hisses at Naomi’s hollow peace-making, “We’re not friends. I think you’re one of the worst people I have ever known. I hate you,” and is promptly popped in the back of an Eyes van with a fellow handmaid.
Luke
While June’s escape from Gilead reunited her with Luke, things have been fraught. He’s well aware of her affair, under exceptional circumstances, with Nick and that the Eye is the biological father of the kid he is raising with June. His wife also has a tremendous amount of trauma held inside her from her torment across the border. But they have weathered that storm together, even hoping against hope that Hannah might be returned to them in season five. But with that promise cruelly dashed and Luke now in Canadian custody, it remains to be seen if they’ll ever be a happy family again.
Aunt Lydia
When we first met handmaid wrangler Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) she is a maniacal convert to the Gilead cause who will bend (or break) all young women in her care to fit its grip in this near-sterile world. But as the show progresses, her shield of steel has slipped.
In particular, she has become emotionally attached to Gilead’s second-most bothersome handmaid, Janine (Madeline Brewer). So much so she doesn’t really want her Janine reassigned. But needs must, and Lydia manipulates the situation so that Janine is placed in the home of the widowed Naomi Putnam (Ever Carradine) so Janine can be near her daughter.
Lydia is distraught when the placement goes awfully awry and the Eyes take Janine away. Can it be that the icicle lodged in her heart is finally thawing? Will we see her begin to rebel against the cruelty of Gilead she has been instrumental in upholding?
Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) in the sixth season of 'The Handmaid's Tale'. Credit: Hulu.
When we first met Nick, he was a glorified chauffeur for the Waterfords. But even as he and June embarked on a not-so-clandestine affair actively encouraged by Serena as backup in case her husband was sterile, it was soon revealed that he was an Eye. No matter, he and June have been inextricably bound since, with Commander Lawrence actively using their bond in an attempt to lure June back. Instead, the architect’s disinterest in her personal safety has finally encouraged Nick to accept Mark’s offer to defect, though for now, he remains a mole on the Gilead side. Only his both sides now game is off to a bad start, slapped in a holding cell for decking Lawrence…
Rose
Luke may be at relative ease with the complicated relationship between Nick and his wife, but Nick’s partner, Rose (Carey Cox), not so much. Pregnant and unimpressed, she approaches him in jail in the season five finale to ask the not-unreasonable question why he would pretend to love her but leave his pregnant wife every time his girlfriend calls. “You will never let go of her,” she says. “I don’t want to be with you anymore… We had a good thing, and then you had to go and ruin it.”
Moira
June and best mate Moira (Samira Wiley) go way back, before their capture by Gilead. Reconnecting in the Red Centre, where handmaids are trained, Moria later escaped early but was recaptured and given the choice of rotting in the colonies (that’s us, Australia!) or being forced into sex work in a brothel as a ‘jezebel’. Choosing the latter, she soon frees herself again, escaping to Canada where she reunites with Luke. Sadly she’s had very little to do ever since, remaining in Toronto when Luke and June flee. Will we see her play a more active role in the fight to come?
Moira in season 6 of 'The Handmaid's Tale'. Credit: Hulu.
Rita was the Martha assigned to look after the upkeep of the Waterford house and was an early if nervously reluctant ally. Her teenage son was killed in the civil war that precipitated the rise of Gilead, and she understands all too keenly what’s at stake. She escaped in season three but has struggled to settle in Canada. It’s she who warns Luke he’s likely to be arrested as season five wraps.
Naomi
Things were never rosy between Naomi and her husband, Commander later (Stephen Kunken). He was having an affair with Janine that led to her attempted suicide and had his lower left arm amputated as a punishment. He also sexually assaulted Esther (Mckenna Grace), the handmaid who tries to murder Janine. For this reason, he’s condemned to death by order of Commander Lawrence, carried out by Nick in front of Naomi. While her subsequent posting to Lawrence’s house after his wife Eleanor’s suicide is technically a promotion, she’s not overly happy with her lot.
Mark
Having played a significant role in both the fate of June and Serena, as Gilead barters with the exiled US government in Canada, American operative Mark Tuello is a power player. While the failure of the raid to rescue Hannah hangs heavy on his conscience, he has finally managed to bring Nick officially into defection mode.
Alanis and Ryan
We’re pretty sure that Noah’s Gilead-appointed new parents, Alanis, who even makes Serena look sorta nice, and her smarmy husband Ryan (Luca Neff), aren’t going to be too impressed that Serena has scarpered with her biological son. As they are now the front line in Canada, presenting a spin-doctored view of Gilead to the outside world, watch if this dramatic turn of events raises their profile or busts their ladder-climbing.
returns for its sixth and final season on Tuesday 8 April with three episodes fast-tracked to SBS On Demand for Australian audiences.
The full season will premiere exclusively on both SBS and SBS On Demand with new episodes weekly, until the gripping series finale on Tuesday 27 May.
Stream free On Demand
The Handmaid's Tale
