“The Handmaid’s Tale” is returning for its sixth and final season on April 8. Before then, catch up on what happened in Season 5.
Over five seasons and 53 episodes (so far), “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Hulu) viewers have watched June (Elisabeth Moss) endure nearly every kind of violence and degradation possible.
She’s escaped an oppressive, misogynist theocracy, gotten some limited revenge, become a reluctant — if furious — leader of others like her and seen her newly-adopted Canadian home start to succumb to the tentacles of the theocracy that transformed the United States into Gilead.
When Season 5 wrapped in 2022, June was last seen on a refugee train with daughter Nichole and — surprise! — her nemesis Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), who was toting her own newborn. (These two women just can’t seem to quit one another.) All were headed into an uncertain future in which, at least for a time, maybe the enemy of her enemy might be her friend.
June has now been an ex-handmaid nearly as long as she was in captivity. Here’s a look back at the journey Season 5 took us on — and Serena and June both ended up on that train.
Fred’s dead. Can June live again?
At the end of Season 4, June and her fellow compatriots lured her former commander/rapist Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) into a forest, where they beat him to death. June cut off his finger and made sure it got delivered to Serena.
As Season 5 opened, June was trying to deal with the effects of helping to beat a man to death, then attempting to settle back into life as wife, mother and refugee.
But the respite was very brief. Though June was surrounded by loved ones — including husband Luke (O-T Fagbenle) and best friend Moira (Samira Wiley) — she remained haunted by her past life, and the fact that her daughter (with Luke; Nichole’s dad is Nick, played by Max Minghella) Hannah remained in the Gilead system.
She worried she might be hunted by the theocracy’s representatives for extradition and retribution, and that Serena, given freedom to preach her gospel, could win over Canadians. Both women got chances during the season to shoot one another, and never did.
Unable to live properly without getting Hannah out of Gilead, June and Luke traveled to No Man’s Land between Canada and Gilead to learn where she was, but ended up being captured by Gilead sympathizers. They’re separated (again!) and are unsuccessful in liberating their daughter.
Toward the end of the season, June and Luke were again reunited, but violent Gilead supporters and anti-refugee protesters started going after June and other refugees. June dodged bullets but not a truck, and was mowed down, her arm broken. Luke caught the driver and beat him up — and the driver eventually died.
The couple realized that Canada was no longer a safe haven, so with help from US-in-exile representative Mark Tuello (Sam Jager), they head for a train that would take them to Alaska. The police arrested Luke on the platform, and June and Nichole were the only ones able to board the train, though.
Serena turned into a symbol
Most of Season 5 found Serena pregnant and struggling to redefine herself. Instead, she became a symbol in both Gilead and Canada — and for a time, got a taste of what it was like to be treated as a kind of handmaid.
With her husband dead, she insisted on bringing his body back to Gilead for a state funeral, which was broadcast internationally. Gilead leaders didn’t know what to do with a powerful, pregnant widow, so they made her an unofficial global ambassador for Gilead and more or less washed their hands of her. Meanwhile, devout followers in Canada began to flock to Serena.
Released from detention, Serena was taken in by Canadian Gilead believers, Alanis (Genevieve Angelson) and Ryan (Lucas Neff) Wheeler.
Serena decided to focus less on Gilead’s political needs and more on women’s fertility issues. But as her pregnancy advanced, The Wheelers started to exert more control: She had to get remarried; no single mothers were allowed in their world.
When Serena learned that June and Luke were detained in No Man’s Land, she journeyed with the hit man tasked with killing June. Given the chance to shoot June herself, Serena shot Ezra and the two women went on the run — just as Serena went into labor.
Serena gave birth to Noah with June’s help, but the delivery made her sick and she returned to Canada — where Noah was given to the Wheelers.
As her health improved, she was treated almost like a handmaid in the house, useful only for nursing her own baby. But given a free window, she fled the Wheelers with Noah and boarded the same train as June — both women on the run yet again, with their children.
What about everyone else?
A lot of time in Season 5 was spent on flashbacks, including how June came to be the Waterfords’ Handmaid, along with other backstory. The side characters in Season 5 largely hovered around June and Serena’s story, but here’s what we learned about a few others:
- Emily (Alexis Bledel) left her wife and son and headed back to Gilead.
- Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) continued to train future Handmaids, but was rebuffed when she tried to reform the system (expect her character to be set up this season for the “Handmaid’s” sequel, “The Testaments,” which is set to go into production next week).
- Janine (Madeline Brewer) was briefly posted with The Putnams, but after an act of rebellion was sent back to the Red Center to work with Aunt Lydia, then got dragged away by security to an unknown fate. (All the way to the set of Netflix’s “You,” maybe, where she’s a major player in that series’ final season.)
- Nick got married and his wife became pregnant, which which shifted his alliances — though he still had feelings for June.
But other familiar faces, like Mark, Moira and even Luke are really just there to support whatever unpredictable direction Serena and June’s story takes them in next.
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