After eight years on screen, Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale took its final curtain call, featuring surprising reunions, moments of forgiveness, and the possibility of new beginnings. From the unexpected return of Emily (played by Alexis Bledel), who left the show in Season 4, June surprisingly forgiving Serena, and Janine’s well-deserved happy ending, the finale offered a mix of closure and hope for the future.
Additionally, The Handmaid's Tale ending leaves the door open for June (Elisabeth Moss), Luke (O-T Fagbenle), and the Mayday resistance to potentially return in The Testaments spinoff. Fans of the award-winning series were less than satisfied, with many claiming it felt more like a warm-up to the sequel series, The Testaments, rather than a satisfying conclusion. The Handmaid's Tale ended on Hulu on May 27, 2025, and all six seasons are currently streaming there.
Why Did The Handmaid's Tale End Like That?
During a chat with Gold Derby, Elisabeth Moss shared her thoughts on the series finale as both an actor and a director. She also noted more insights on The Handmaid's Tale ending and why it ended the way it did.
Even though most fans aren’t exactly stoked about the ending, Moss emphasized that it was true to Margaret Atwood's book. "It’s not what Margaret wrote,"—referring to how the ending of the book was also "incredibly vague:"
“I think there are very obvious ways that we could have ended it that would have tied things up in a bow and made you feel like, ‘And that's the end of The Handmaid's Tale. Good luck everybody.’ But that's not life. It's not what Margaret [Atwood] wrote. Margaret wrote this book that, before The Testaments, had this incredibly vague cliffhanger ending that was infuriating. And so I think, in the tradition of the book, we wanted to have that as well, and it feels like there's a continuing of the story. It just doesn't feel like she's done yet.”
Even though Moss declined to give any spoilers about June making a comeback in The Handmaid’s Tale spinoff (read more about other characters that deserve spinoffs), Testaments, she expressed how much she loved the character, even adding that she "would totally do a season seven of The Handmaid’s Tale:"
“I am very open about the fact that like, I would totally do a season seven of Handmaid's Tail. We're not, by the way, it's not happening. I know. I know. But, um, but I I am very like I love working on this show so much and I love the story and I love the characters and I love the my character with the other characters. So, that's something that I would not ever turn my back on.
Elisabeth Moss also reflected on the emotional experience of returning to the Waterford house—not as June, but as herself—to scout the location after so many years. Even though she admitted that her emotions revisiting the house weren’t as complicated as June’s, Moss found it easy to tap into the right feelings for her performance, saying she "didn’t have to think too much about how June would feel, because I felt all of the things."
Returning as both herself and June made the experience deeply immersive—something she believes can only come after nearly a decade of telling the same story:
"I hadn't been back to the Waterford house in however many years it has been since June has been there. Whatever was the last scene we shot there was– I don't go visit the house. I’m not like, ‘You know what, let's take a trip down memory lane and go to this random neighborhood.’ So I hadn't been back there. So, of course, when I went back there was to scout, but I know how that felt, and I was able to then carry it into the scene, and there's a lot of amazing memories, and there's also a lot of complicated memories of being very cold, and it being very late at night, and things like that… Not quite as complicated as June's memories…"
Moss also touched on how "happy [it was] to be back in a better place" when re-entering that space:
"But definitely the the positivity and the hopefulness of walking back into that room. And I didn't have to think too much about how June would feel, because I felt all of the things. There had been so much that had happened in that room and I was so happy to be back in a better place and in a place where I was ready to kind of bring this story to a close at the same time, that June is sort of starting to tell it, and yeah it just doesn't require a lot of thinking honestly, which is why I love this format."
Elisabeth then revealed that the voice heard at the end of the series was the original audio:
"I had this idea that if I said it the right way, in the right cadence, and did it the way I did it before, we could actually use the original voiceover with my mouth. And- But I forgot that I wanted to do that until about 10 minutes before— like we were literally setting up the shot."
