THE HANDMAID'S TALE, Season 6, Episode 10, THE HANDMAID'S TALE

THE HANDMAID’S TALE, Season 6, Episode 10, THE HANDMAID’S TALE

Written By:

Rich Cross

The Handmaid's Tale, Season 6, Episode 10, The Handmaid's Tale

A pile of torn-down flags and insignia of the Boston section of Gilead are burning in a fire in the street, a clear sign that the resistance has routed their enemies from this important city. Now that so many Commanders have been assassinated, in the ‘red wedding’ attack and the airborne bombing, Gilead is in disorderly retreat – although it’s not yet a failed state.

This closing episode of The Handmaid’s Tale is full of images of Gilead’s broken power – visuals never seen on the show before, as the Mayday rebels, and their allies in the US government-in-exile, rip into the regime. These are holes burnt into the fabric of Gilead, unimaginable at the start of this six-season run, when this cruel theistic regime appeared invulnerable.

With Gilead engulfed in a war for its survival, Elizabeth Moss (June) takes charge of the director’s chair to marshal an emotionally astute season finale, which slows the pace to accommodate a final reckoning with the consequences of the fallout from the events of Exodus and Execution. It means that both characters and plotlines are afforded the kind of wrap-up often absent in more impatient genre shows.

It’s true that the premise of the upcoming sequel, The Testaments – also based on a novel by Margaret Atwood – imposes certain limits on the show’s ability to deliver key payoffs. The plot of The Testaments requires that Aunt Lydia survives and remains at liberty and, more significantly, that June’s hope of reuniting with her kidnapped daughter Hannah ends in disappointment. In the wider military context, it also means that Gilead cannot yet be completely overwhelmed. Working within those guardrails, The Handmaid’s Tale’s writer and show creator Bruce Miller gets the show where it needs to be in its final hour, as a series of fateful encounters between pivotal characters are experienced through June’s eyes.

Her fraught relationship with partner Luke reaches a new equilibrium, as he fully commits to prosecuting the war and the pair go their separate ways, at least for now. Compared to the heightened melodrama of Execution, this is a more realistic treatment of a relationship damaged by the endless pressure of resisting Gilead. O. T. Fagbenle has been consistently impressive in the role of Luke, and his character enjoys a respectful, if understated, farewell here.

The dynamic between June and Serena has been the defining characteristic of the series from the very beginning, and it’s a relationship that has been through extraordinary twists. At the start of Season Six, Serena appeared to be at her lowest ebb, a homeless, rootless, propertyless refugee, thrown from a moving railway carriage in the final moments of Train.

The revival in her fortunes came with her recruitment as the public face of New Bethlehem, Commander Lawrence’s social experiment, which aimed to rescue Gilead by reforming it. After a final fall from grace and power, she is again thrown on the mercy of anti-Gilead forces. Her performance as Serena Joy has been career-defining for Yvonne Strahovski, and she is mesmerising in the role until the very end, as Serena struggles to find reserves of resilience and self-awareness one more time. Even as they reach a understanding, what overshadows their attempt at reconciliation is the fact that Serena is fully culpable for the violence and terror inflicted on June, while June is directly responsible for the political assassination of both of Serena’s husbands.

A prisoner exchange brings the welcome release of incarcerated allies, and Janine agrees to a request from June that brings her closer into June’s family circle while freeing her up to continue the fight against Gilead. The unexpected return of a long-absent character affords June the chance to return to her old Boston haunts and to witness proof of the regime’s retreat.

June returns to the abandoned and uprising-damaged Waterfords’ house, where she was first imprisoned in servitude and exploitation as a Handmaid. Sitting in the bedroom that was her prison cell, she recites from her phone the opening lines of the memoir she has begun writing, sharing her experiences of oppression and liberation and bringing to life the Handmaid’s tale. It’s an extremely effective way to close the narrative circle.

It means that this remarkable, peerless programme ends, as it was always going to, on a close-up of June staring directly into the lens, with a mix of confidence and defiance, this time not as an enslaved Handmaid but as a free woman. So ends a first-rate show that delivered quality drama across the span of its six seasons. The Handmaid’s Tale painted an all-too-plausible picture of a repellent dystopia, which seemed less like a work of fiction with each passing year, but which celebrated the willingness of those most oppressed by it to rebel against its tyranny.