‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 6 Review: The Revolutionary and Prescient Series Comes to a Thrilling Close [A]

It’s been three years since the fifth season finale of The Handmaid’s Tale in which June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) and her baby daughter Nicole boarded a westbound train, fleeing another home as Toronto became unsafe for American refugees. Her husband Luke (O-T Fagbenle) fell behind and was arrested, but June found herself face to face with an old enemy turned fellow refugee, Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahavski) and her infant son Noah.

The sixth and final season of Hulu’s Emmy-winning series begins mere hours after the fifth ended. Aboard a train headed for Vancouver, surrounded by passengers who hope to repatriate to the United States by way of Alaska, June finds herself unexpectedly and most unhappily thrust into a precarious alliance with her former mistress. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” says Serena with an oddly warm grin. June, her jaw set and her eyes full of fire, responds, “On a case by case basis.”

Full of anxiety for Luke and still in pain from being attacked just a day before, June knows safety – if it exists anymore – is still thousands of miles away. But Serena, who has spent many months facing the truth about Gilead’s oppression and escaping from her own handmaid-like captivity, looks ahead with optimism and hope. After everything that has happened, has Serena changed? Can people change? This is one of the key questions we are asked to ponder as this story comes to an end.

The Handmaid’s Tale expanded beyond its source material after the first season. Margaret Atwood’s terrifyingly prescient 1985 novel concluded with June’s escape from the Waterford home, her fate unknown. Following the success of the series, Atwood revisited Gilead with a sequel novel, The Testaments, set about 15 years later. That story will be adapted by Hulu as a spin-off series due later this year or early 2026.

And so, the conclusion of the series has the double responsibility of bringing an end to the stories of June Osborne and Luke Bankole, Serena Waterford, Nick Blaine and many more, while also laying the groundwork for the Gilead we will see years later. And that knowledge alone tells us, before we even catch up with June and Serena on that train, that some of our beloved characters may not get the happy endings they deserve, and others may not face the consequences coming to them. There is still a lot of story left to tell though, and the last ten episodes promise new levels of emotional depth, heartache, and more hope than we have dared to feel before. They are also more intense and chilling as we hurtle toward an unpredictable finale. 

Over the course of five years, we have become acquainted with handmaids, commanders, their wives, Aunts, Marthas, and the Eyes. Some are faithful, believing in what Gilead represents. Others resist its oppression and cruelty. And a few don’t believe in the religious dogma of the theocratic Republic, though they accept the bitter fruit of piety as a trade-off for their hoped for Utopia. 

Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) is the most visible example of this, his vision of New Bethlehem is taking shape even though his spiritual unbelief is well-known, leaving his standing in the community uncertain. Lawrence has always been something of an enigma, caught somewhere between his place of authority and a sense of morality that clashes with Gilead’s intolerance. With his dreams of Utopia finally bearing fruit, Lawrence can sense his usefulness running out. He knows his days are numbered, but as someone who has always believed he was doing the right thing for the right reasons, he cannot give up so easily and instead strengthens his efforts to fight from within.

This puts Nick Blaine (Max Minghella) in a more precarious position than ever. Nick, the beating heart of June’s story, now the son-in-law of High Commander Wharton (Josh Charles) has to play the part of a devoted husband, soon-to-be father, and a diplomat, selling the virtues of Gilead to world leaders who have a renewed interest in the fledgling country’s rising fertility rates paired with a desire to rid themselves of displaced Americans. Nick’s prominent position is both a reward for his apparent allegiance and a way to keep a watchful eye on his movements and activity. After years of quietly playing the part of loyal ladder-climber, he is now torn between the freedom he has fought for and the status he has earned. Minghella has always been a steady presence and yet he finds new emotional weight as he navigates Nick’s quiet, internal struggle.

What both the novel and the series have always done well – sometimes eerily – is to capture in dystopian horror some of the realities of our real world. Even though it was written and filmed months ago, the new season touches on issues we are watching unfold in real time as our leaders and representatives use religious ideology and oppressive practices to diminish and erase hard-won rights, to erode liberty, and to dehumanize anyone who does not fall in line with their view of a good society. 

Gilead has been able to exist and even thrive on the prayers of the faithful and the militant strength of forced compliance. In a place such as this, believers are often the most dangerous, though disillusionment can create even stronger enemies than devotion. Ann Dowd’s Aunt Lydia (recently confirmed to star in the new series), a strict and often cruel enforcer, has sometimes found herself questioning practices and decisions. Though some characters’ motives have occasionally been mysterious, Aunt Lydia has always been an unwavering force for ill, believing in her work and viewing punishment as necessary and justifiable. How does someone like Lydia handle the truth when confronted with it? Dowd, who won a Supporting Actress Emmy for the first season and received two additional nominations, has always excelled at finding the balance between Aunt Lydia’s villainy and signs that she does have – however skewed and abusive – her own sense of love. The series has never pretended Lydia’s abuses are excusable, but when confronted with the consequences of her own actions, she also has a choice to make.  

Ultimately, season six is about choices. Like a game of chess, for years characters have laid groundwork and moved themselves into position. Each one must decide whether to continue on or to abandon the fight. The themes of choice, parenthood, liberty, and progress that coalesce into these final episodes are anchored by reliably strong performances. For the two women at the center, June and Serena, after years of working against each other, now at the end their goals converge and collide in unexpected and surprising ways. Moss and Strahavski deliver on years of animosity, resentment, and feminine rage. Though the season is not altogether predictable, there is an overwhelming sense of inevitability as they teach us new things about these women we have always known so well. 

There have been times over the years when it felt like perhaps The Handmaid’s Tale had strayed too far, had overstayed its welcome. Some questioned whether this series really needed to continue. And yet, every season has brought renewed energy and purpose. In our tumultuous climate, under an administration determined to erode hard-won rights and that checks off its Project 2025 goals daily, season six arrives to deliver a fitting end to the series that has served as both a warning and a rallying cry for our times.

Grade: A

The sixth and final season of The Handmaid’s Tale premieres with three episodes April 8 on Hulu with new episodes weekly through May 27.