The Handmaid’s Tale is taking big swings with its final season, and they are aimed at answering all of the lingering questions about June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) and the fate of Gilead and everyone within it. That includes a resolution to the June, Nick (Max Minghella), Luke (O-T Fagbenle) love triangle.
Season 6 “does answer those questions in a very honest way, in a brutally honest way, I would say,” co-showrunner Yahlin Chang tells TV Insider. In the cast video interview above, Minghella tells TV Insider that fans can expect to see the ethical dilemma of June and Nick’s relationship come to a head in these final episodes. Nick is a Gilead commander. While he helps June in her fight against the fascist regime, he also buys into and benefits from the oppressive system by staying in his position. For several seasons now, he’s had power to do more to take down the regime. Minghella says fans “absolutely can” expect to see this reach a tipping point in the new episodes.
“I think it’s a really surprising season,” Minghella says. “As I was reading it, I found it extremely unpredictable and entertaining. And so I hope that that comes through. I’m hoping that we did it service, because the writing was there. It was full of surprises.”
As for Luke, Fagbenle says that he was exploring the effects of so many years of separation from June and Hannah (Jordana Blake), as well as the events since his and June’s reunion, such as their continued struggles as refugees and her romance with Nick, on Luke’s mental health. It’s a theme he wanted bubbling under the surface of his performance all season. “What does the compounding effects of trauma make on somebody?” he tells TV Insider, adding that “how someone can be pushed to the breaking point and then choose to take actions which they haven’t done before” will be majorly prevalent for Luke this season.
Premiering Tuesday, April 8 with the first three episodes, the final season kicks off with June’s unyielding spirit and determination pulling her back into the fight to take down Gilead. Luke and Moira (Samira Wiley) join in the struggle. Working with Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) and Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) tries to reform Gilead while Nick faces challenging tests of character. This final chapter of June’s journey highlights the importance of hope, courage, solidarity, and resilience in the pursuit of justice and freedom.
Disney / Steve Wilkie
The real-life parallels of the final season’s release is not lost on this cast. Season 1 debuted in April 2017, the first months of Donald Trump‘s first presidency. The Handmaid image was frequently invoked as a sign of protest against Trump after the show was a quick success among audiences, throughout his first term, and after Roe vs. Wade was overturned in 2022 during former President Joe Biden‘s first term (a SCOTUS decision made by a majority-conservative court). Now, the final season is debuting in April of Trump’s second presidency, and things the show warns against — such as abortion rights being stripped away, continued demonization of immigrants and refugees, and more — have increased in the United States since Season 1.
Above, the cast explains how promoting the final season in this political moment feels. Chang was a writer and executive producer on the series before being bumped up to co-showrunner with Eric Tuchman for Season 6. Chang tells TV Insider, “It’s been cathartic for me to take the darkness of our time and the politics and be able to channel that into the show and to take the darkness, put it on the screen, and leave it there in terms of the storytelling.” She adds that the complicated “villains” that are Serena, Lydia, Commander Lawrence (though he has a better cause of late), and Josh Charles‘ new character (a mysterious commander) are fascinating to write because they’re “too human,” in a way.
“I personally love writing the ‘villains’ of our show, not only because Yvonne Strahovski and Ann Dowd and Bradley Whitford and Josh Charles this season are some of are the best actors you could ever ask to write for, but because they’re — rather than being inhuman, they’re almost too human,” Chang explains. “They’re too driven by their base and selfish desires and their will for power, and their grandiose self-delusions. It’s a very human thing. And sometimes I’ve thought about when I’m imagining writing these characters and getting into their heads, ‘What if you gave into all your basest instincts and basest desires, what would you think and what would feel?’ You imagine the worst and the weakest and most flawed people in positions of power, and you think, ‘What would they do? Knowing all their flaws and their weaknesses, what would they do?’ And then you spin it out from there.”
“That’s where the storytelling really comes from, the worst people with the most power. What would they do?” she adds. “You imagine it, and then you write that, and then after doing all that and constructing the stories, then we read the newspapers, and we go, ‘Oh, yeah, right, that is what they’re doing. Yep. That’s like we imagined it.’”
Get a deeper look at the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale with Strahovski, Fagbenle, Minghella, Charles, Whitford, Wiley, Madeline Brewer, and more stars in the full video interview above.
The Handmaid’s Tale, Season 6 Premiere, Tuesday, April 8, Hulu
