The Handmaid’s Tale has officially drawn to an end after six seasons, with Elisabeth Moss’s eight-year stint as handmaid-turned-revolutionary June Osborne now complete.
Since 2017, fans have witnessed June’s struggle against the totalitarian regime of Gilead, which took over parts of the United States following a civil war and violently enslaved women to act as child bearers for high-ranking families within the system.
Although June started out as a handmaid (renamed Offred), under the control of Fred and Serena Waterford, she eventually broke free of Gilead’s shackles and became a powerful member of the resistance, alongside her husband Luke Bankole (O-T Fagbenle).
Her fight took her back and forth between Gilead and the free country of Canada, as she attempted to eradicate the dystopia that had engulfed the United States, but also rescue her daughter Hannah, who had been trapped within Gilead for years.
The Handmaid’s Tale is based on Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed 1985 novel of the same name. While the show has extended the story and often strayed from the original narrative, the finale brought everything full circle and completed the book’s plot. This leaves the opportunity for the narrative to directly lead into the forthcoming sequel The Testaments, also based on a novel by Atwood.
The show has finished in the United States where it airs on Hulu, but fans in the UK, where it is broadcast on Channel 4, will have to wait until 5 July to see the finale.
On that note, here is a full breakdown of the final ever episode and what to expect from the sequels.
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season six
The events of the final episode took place 19 days after those of the penultimate episode, which saw the resistance group Mayday, with backing from the US military, liberate Boston from Gilead’s authoritarian control and restore it as an American city.
Although The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t the type of show that deals with happy endings, there was a small slice of happiness for Janine (Madeline Brewer), a handmaid who suffered a torrent of abuse throughout the show’s run.
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In the episode, she was freed from the clutches of Gilead when both Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and her former mistress, Naomi Lawrence (Ever Carradine), brought her to Boston, leading to a touching reunion with her daughter, Charlotte.
Seeing Janine and Charlotte’s reunion caused June to yearn for her daughter, Hannah, who by this stage had been under the control of Gilead for years. Sadly, much like the book, an emotional reunion between mother and daughter wasn’t to be, although fans are likely to see more of Hannah in the upcoming spin-off The Testaments.
Elsewhere, June and Luke amicably decided to end their relationship, acknowledging that their fight against Gilead had changed them both fundamentally as people, although they vowed to remain part of the resistance movement.
June also bids farewell to Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) who is taken to live in a refugee camp with her baby boy Noah. In a moving moment, Serena admits that she is “ashamed” of the torture that she put June through.
June, who until this stage has resisted Serena’s pleas for forgiveness, finally acknowledges that her ex-mistress is truly sorry and accepts her apology.
There was also a cameo for Alexis Bledel, as she returned as Emily, a character who hasn’t been seen since season four in 2021, revealing that she had spent the past seven months fighting against Gilead in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The episode ended with a callback to the first ever episode of the show as June visited the ruins of the old Waterford home, the first place she served as a handmaid. There she began to write a book about her experiences, with Moss reciting the first page of Atwood’s seminal Eighties novel.
In a closing monologue, she said: “A chair. A table. A lamp. There’s a window with white curtains, and the glass is shatterproof, 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 escapes. It’s harder on ceremony days but thinking can hurt your chances. My name is Offred.”
What is The Testaments?
In 2023, it was confirmed that The Handmaid’s Tale’s showrunner, Bruce Miller, stepped back from working on the final season to help develop the show’s sequel The Testaments.
The 2019 novel, also by Atwood, is set 15 years after the events of the original book and is told from the perspective of Aunt Lydia, who has also secretly joined the resistance against Gilead while still working within the regime. Ann Dowd has been recast in the part for the series.
Hannah is also in the novel but has been renamed Agnes and is destined to become one of the Wives of Gilead. She begins to question the system and seeks more answers about her origins. Presumed Innocent star Chase Infiniti will play the role in The Testaments.
The novel also focuses on a third character, Daisy, aka Nicole, who is the daughter of a handmaid who was smuggled out of Gilead and is now living in Canada. She joins Mayday and becomes an instrumental tool in the downfall of Gilead. Lucy Halliday, previously seen in the 2022 British indie drama Blue Jean, has been cast as Daisy.
According to Miller, the show adaptation will take place four years after the events of the Handmaid’s Tale TV show. He told The Hollywood Reporter that the story is about “Agnes MacKenzie living in Gilead and gradually finding out who she is. At the end of the book The Testaments they bring down Gilead, so that’s the goal of the show and the goal of Agnes growing up.”
Although production on the show began in April 2025, no release date has been slated for the series.
The Handmaid’s Tale is available to watch on Channel 4 in the UK and Hulu in the United States.
