After eight years on air, Hulu’s Emmy-winning The Handmaid’s Tale closed its six-season run on 26 May with a quietly defiant walk through a newly liberated Boston.
Instead of the long-promised reunion with her daughter Hannah, June Osborne ends the story by dictating her memories into a recorder, leaving viewers with hope and unfinished business. Vulture
“Knowing we couldn’t reunite June and Hannah, it was heartbreaking,” co-showrunner Eric Tuchman admitted.
He and fellow showrunner Yahlin Chang said that restraint preserves space for The Testaments, a sequel now filming in Toronto with Ann Dowd back as Aunt Lydia.
Early critical reaction has been unusually rosy: the final season opened with a perfect 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes score from 14 reviews, Digital Spy reported, hailing the finale as “a masterclass in how to end a politically imperative show.”
Actor Sam Jaeger (Mark Tuello) had promised the ending would “reward the fans” after years of turmoil.
Yet not everyone felt rewarded; The Guardian argued the drama “bludgeons hope to death,” questioning where the catharsis lay after six seasons of misery.
A season review in The Wrap echoed the sentiment, lamenting “missed opportunities” even as it praised performances by Elisabeth Moss and Yvonne Strahovski.
In their post-mortem with The Wrap, Chang and Tuchman said Serena’s apology and June’s forgiveness were designed as “small moments of grace amid war,” retaining the story’s moral ambiguity.
Moss, who directed three episodes, revealed that debuting Taylor Swift’s re-imagined “Look What You Made Me Do” during the uprising “could not be a more perfect song for a more perfect moment.”
Whether viewers felt vindicated or vexed, the finale underscores June’s warning that “not fighting is what got us Gilead,” pointing audiences toward The Testaments and the battles still ahead.
