Handmaid's Tale Season Finale - all the spoilers

I was hoping for a good season finale and this was it! Some of this season has been really slow with long shots on June's face etc. I know why they've done it- to show the mental trauma she has gone through - but parts moved very slowly for me. I was glad Fred got what was coming to him! I agree that the biting was a bit much.

OMG I can't believe they killed Fred. He totally deserved what he got, but I just didn't see that one coming. I agree that Luke comes across so weak. June is a badass and probably can't go back to her prior self even if she tried. Luke never experienced living in Gilead so he really doesn't get it like the other characters do. June and Nick have so much chemistry and such a strong connection. I am definitely Team Nick!


Anyone else still so heartbroken that Alma and Brianna were killed?

So good!!

I was really hoping Janine would have been in the 22 transferred out of Gilead I can see Esther becoming just like June next season.
I am not sure Luke and June will make it especially after the last scene but I also don't think Nick is going to be as good as this episode made him out to be, he is a commander after all.
Also when Fred was calling Luke son, I kept thinking they were going to tell us he really was his son and it freaked me right out!

Thankful there is another season!

Luke doesn't understand the full scope of what happened in Gilead. Not to June, not to any of them. He would be horrified if he knew just what happened to his wife.

I liked the finger being sent to Serena. Since he cut off one of hers. Seemed appropriate.

If Fred would have made it to Geneva and received his deal, did it extend to Serena? I heard him say he would be a free man. But ], I don’t recall ever hearing that his immunity extended to her.

I think June, when she was holding Nicole, said something like "just 5 more minutes and I'll go" to Luke. Did I hear right? What did she mean by that?

I was thinking the same.

I absolutely loved this last episode of this season! Oh my freaking gosh where do I begin? 

Let's start with Fred's ending.

I loved it when he was being walked across the bridge between the borders of Canada and the USA and is told he's being sent back to Gilead to stand trail and then is told, "You wrote some of those laws yourself, didn't you?" That was so great and satisfying!

I loved seeing him in the back of that van with his neck restrained by a leather collar bolted to the van's side-just like how they transported the handmaids in the past. The panic and confusion building in his eyes as it starts to dawn on him that things have taken a serious dark turn. Fred yelling, "But I'm a man, I have rights!" What a line! Fred trying desperately to reach Nick by calling him Son over and over. I so wanted Nick to yell at him, "I'm not your son!" but instead Nick just ignored him. Nick and June's passionate kiss in front of Fred crushed all of Fred's insane illusions that June didn't mind Fred's rapes and actually cared for Fred. 

But the best part for me was when the van was detoured from going to Gilead and instead June and the other handmaids get to have the revenge they have needed since the very first season. June offers Fred two choices-the gun or the whistle. Dumb Fred still thinks June hasn't got it in her to shoot him and tells her so. She tells him "Run". I liked the choice. The handmaids were taught this type of killing was justice in their training. In the first season we see them perform this justice on someone when an aunt directs it. And Fred certainly deserved it. The biting? I'm not going to judge it. June as a character has been through so much and is still extremely traumatized-who knows what each of us would do in that situation? 

When June gets home covered in blood and says to Luke "give me 5 minutes" to me it meant that she has realized that she and Luke are just too different at this stage in life to continue to live as a couple. He cannot understand what she has gone through. He is horrified by the look of her and he doesn't even know yet what she has done. I think she will join the resistance and will continue to fight to get Hannah back. There will be no repercussions from Gilead or Canada because the Eyes were in control of Fred and it was done in no man's land. (I read an article written by the writer's). 

I don't know what will happen to Serena Joy but I hope that baby will be ripped from her arms and she won't be able to raise it. I hope he will be a Canadian citizen and she will be forced to go back to Gilead and will be forced to be a handmaid-that would be ultimate justice, wouldn't it? I loved that the ring and finger were mailed to her. 

I thought this was a great season all in all. I loved seeing June get free and rescued by Moria (spelling) and getting to see more of life in Canada. They filmed this season during the pandemic so they weren't able to do as much as they normally do during a regular season. For me this is one of the best shows on TV-the writing, direction and acting are all top notch. I can't wait until next year! 

I don’t think anyone is coming after June for Fred’s murder. I think she is saying goodbye because she knows she can’t be Luke’s wife and she can’t, at least now, be Nichole’s mother. There have been a few moments where June has been noticing Luke and Moira’s close relationship, and there was a scene before she got Fred where she was looking at them through the window. She has realized that she can’t go back or accept a new life…certainly not now and maybe ever, and the most loving thing she can so is to let them raise Nichole.

I am not sure what should happen to Serena Joy. I don’t want her to become a handmaid. I think that is just too tidy. She won’t have a happy ending, but I don’t know that it will be that simple. I think Fred getting killed was a good and a needed catharsis, but I don’t think good writing has everyone get their just dues either.  it is satisfying but too cliche.  Plus, she has always been more complex than Fred.

Currently, I like Nick, but I think Luke maybe getting an unfair shake—-maybe on purpose by the writers. On one hand, yes, he is being a bit obtuse, but on the other hand he has seen Moira deal with things fairly well (maybe she is healthy or maybe she is repressing IDK). He is definitely a foil for Nick, but I can’t decide if there is more for him in the future. Either way, I think Nick likely will become more problematic, but maybe not. Maybe he is the one true love for her and they will end up happily ever after, but if she lives through the series finale, i am not sure she will end up with either. Luke = old life. Nick = Gilead life. She needs to create a new life perhaps without either.

I’m confused or maybe I missed something but in the beginning of the season weren’t Serena and Fred going to fight and try to get Nicole back? But once Serena got pregnant, there was no more talk about getting Nicole back. Did I miss something? And Fred kept saying ‘my son’. Did they know it was a boy from the sonogram? I missed that as well wondering how Fred was so sure it was a boy.

And I agree with tearisci, way too many close up shots of June. I realize it was for dramatic effect to see her painful facial expressions, but at times it was just way too much and too long.

Oh and I thought June bit off his tongue like they did to some of the handmaidens.