LOS ANGELES, April 3 (UPI) -- Hulu's adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale diverged from its source material, the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel, several seasons ago. The show's sixth and final season, premiering April 8, further extrapolates Atwood's dystopian themes to a provocative end.
The series depicts a future in which the democratic United States has been overthrown and is now ruled as the dictatorship known as Gilead. Women are subjugated in this totalitarian society, with fertile women made to be "handmaids" and forcibly impregnated by ruling men, called "commanders."
Elisabeth Moss returns to star as June Osborne, aka Offred, a handmaid who led an escape to Canada in Season 4. The Season 5 finale separated June from her husband, Luke (O-T Fagbenle), leaving her with her daughter, Nichole, on a train out of Canada.
Season 6 picks up on that train, after June has met up with an also escaping Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski). Serena is the widow of Fred (Joseph Fiennes), the commander who attempted to impregnate June in Gilead.
June helped Serena deliver her son, Noah, in Season 5, but now has to make nice with the Gilead enabler during extended travel.
Serena is on the other side of oppression as a refugee in Canada without the privileges she enjoyed in Gilead. On the run with her baby, because Canada would give Noah to Child Protective Services, Serena is new to this kind of vulnerability.
Every time Serena experiences a fraction of the terror she put handmaids through, June has to bite her tongue. On a train full of women escaping abuse, Serena's optimistic belief in "God's plan" is insufferable.
June has to save Serena from herself to maintain peace during their journey, which becomes heated in suspenseful ways. June doesn't forgive Serena, but she is protective of the latter's innocent baby, Noah. Serena herself is a hindrance to keeping Noah safe.
Atwood took systemic oppression to a cautionary extreme in the creation of Gilead. The show explored further issues surrounding Gilead geopolitics by bringing June and other handmaids to Canada, and killing off Fred.
Season 5 also added a parable about immigration. Canada was not raping and impregnating refugees, but it became too hostile in other ways for the refugees from Gilead to stay.
Now Americans, the refugees from Gilead, are the vulnerable minority in Canada. Luke is still awaiting a hearing for killing an attacker in self-defense, which separates him from June.
Immigration was a hot topic when the show began in 2017, and as the final season airs it demonstrates a poignant cautionary tale. Refugees could be on the receiving end of immigration hostility anywhere they go.
Characters find oases of kindness throughout their journeys, but they are always precarious. They often have to hide their origins or play a role and it only takes one slip to lose the safety they've enjoyed.
The final season moves through the plot so fast that it even includes a significant time jump. Major issues may only take two episodes to resolve, so big changes don't last long as the show speeds towards its conclusion.
Gilead survivor Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) is still trying to build New Bethlehem, a supposed improved version of Gilead that learned lessons from the republic's failures.
Whitford has a politician's charisma to sell a kinder, gentler Gilead. He sells true believers and other nations on lofty plans... just don't ask if he believes it himself or whether it's actually possible to create a Gilead Lite.
Meanwhile, Nick (Max Minghella), Nichole's biological father who stayed behind in Gilead with his family, is still drawn to June, even when it complicates his own political commitments.
As for Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), the former handmaid overseer faces harsh realities when she discovers ex-handmaids turning to sex work at Jezebel's, the club derived from Atwood's book. Dowd's portrayal of Lydia's confusion is fascinating, given she saw being a handmaid as a higher calling but judges voluntary sex work so derisively.
There is still action in the show, as refugees band together to plan attacks on remnants of Gilead. These are thrilling and also complex, as June pokes holes in their plans to improve efficacy.
Hulu is adapting Atwood's sequel, The Testaments, so it won't be long before viewers can return to the world of post-Gilead. The journey of The Handmaid's Tale has been a thorough exploration of Gilead and insightful expansion of its consequences.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
