Screen
June 4, 2025

The Handmaid’s Tale – a round-up review

Finally, after 8 years, 6 seasons and 66 episodes the protracted TV series based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale has finally come to a conclusion… and we managed to watch every single episode.

The MGM TV series, which premiered in 2017, is set in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian theocracy that has replaced the United States. In this dystopian society, women’s rights are stripped away, and fertile women—called handmaids—are forced to bear children for the ruling elite due to widespread infertility across the population.

The overarching narrative across the six seasons centres on June Osborne, a handmaid who had been captured, forcibly separated from her husband Luke Bankole and child Hannah then assigned to a household of a Commander in Gilead, Fred Waterford and his wife Serena Joy.

June, made to take on take on the new name Offred (her womb now belonging to Fred) navigates a life of ritualized sexual servitude, constant surveillance, and the threat of violence. Offred remembers her previous life with her husband and daughter, both lost to her after the regime took power and cruelly decided for her that this would be her new role and position in life.

The novel

When Margaret Atwood first published The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, it was seen as a futuristic dystopian novel, set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which had overthrown the United States government.

It won a stack of literary awards, including a nomination for the coveted Booker Prize in 1986.

The novel explores themes of powerless women in a patriarchal society, loss of female agency and individuality, suppression of reproductive rights, and the various means by which women resist and try to gain individuality and independence. The title echoes the component parts of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which is a series of connected stories (such as The Merchant’s Tale and The Parson’s Tale). It also alludes to the tradition of fairy tales where the central character tells her story.

Alternative novel covers (English versions)

In the novel Offred, the central handmaid character becomes involved in small acts of defiance and secret relationships (mainly with Nick, the Waterford’s driver and also secretly a member of the security group, the Eyes, assigned to spy on Fred Waterford by the regime, following the suicide of his previous handmaid), all while longing for freedom and reunion with her family. The novel ends with Offred’s fate left uncertain as she is taken away by authorities whose allegiance is unclear.

Alternative novel covers (non-English versions)

The film

It was 1990, just five years after the novel’s release, when the first screen adaptation was released, which I remember watching. The film was directed by Volker Sclhöndorff with a screenplay (based on Atwood’s novel) written by Harold Pinter. It featured an illustrious cast that included Natasha Richardson as Offred/Kate, Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy, Robert Duvall as Commander Fred Waterford, Elizabeth McGovern as Moira, Aidan Quinn as Nick, Victoria Tennant as Aunt Lydia, Blanche Baker as Ofglen and Traci Lind as Ofwarren/Janine.

I recall being equally fascinated and disturbed by the depiction of what a Christian theocracy was capable of, thanks to Margaret Atwood’s fertile imagination. Little did we expect things in America would subsequently swing towards this direction in a matter of decades. If anything, it illuminated Atwood’s uncanny ability to have predicted and foresee the future in the way the evangelicals has steadily developed a grip on the political landscape.

As a result, we’ve seen some of the progressive freedoms an individual enjoys being rolled back such that a woman’s reproductive functions would be entirely dictated by the men who rule. Over the last three decades we’ve seen an incredulously social regression and a clarion call for the country to remove its separation between church and state, where some advocate for archaic religious beliefs to be imposed on the wider population of non-believers.

The TV series

The subsequent MGM series launched in 2017 was created for television by Bruce Baker and was much better received by audiences than the film, not least for its extremely striking cinematography by Volin Watkinson, costume design by Ane Crabtree, stunning production design and a very notable cast led by Elizabeth Moss as handmaid Offred/June Osborne, ably supported by a powerful cast.

Award winning performances by the ensemble of Anne Dowd (Aunt Lydia), Yvonne Strahovski (Serena Joy Waterford), Joseph Fiennes (Commander Fred Waterford), Max Minghella (Nick Blaine, June’s lover and driver/eye subsequently promoted to Commander), O-T Fagbenle (Luke Bankole, June’s husband), Samira Wiley (Moira Strand, June’s close friend, a lesbian and also a handmaid), Madeline Brewer (Janine Lindo aka Ofwarren then Ofjoseh), Bradley Whitford (Commander Joseph Lawrence), Amanda Brugel (Rita Blue, a domestic servant or martha), Sam Jaeger (Mark Truello) and Alexis Bledel (Emily Malek, another handmaid) delivered great performances to keep us engaged.

The series was initially very well received and unsurprisingly rewarded with countless awards such as Golden Globe, Primetime Emmys and Screen Actors’ Guild awards in various categories for individual actors and the entire ensemble.

Season 1 introduces Gilead, a totalitarian theocratic regime where fertile women called Handmaids are forced into reproductive servitude. June (Offred) is assigned to Commander Waterford’s household, where she begins to resist while trying to reunite with her daughter Hannah. The season follows her struggles and the harsh realities of Gilead. The opening season was tight and gripping, visually stunning and evocative of a frightening religious regime. It mostly adhered to the novel, before it then started to lose its appeal as the story developed in subsequent seasons.

Catch-phrases often repeated in the series, such as “in his eye”, “may the Lord open”, “blessed be the fruit” and “praise be” became running jokes in my office among my colleagues who had all embraced and were even amused by the cult-like extremism of Gilead.

Season 2 expands on Gilead’s oppressive system, including the Colonies and the resistance group Mayday. June escapes briefly but is captured and tortured by Aunt Lydia. She gives birth and, with help from allies including Serena and Nick, decides to stay in Gilead to rescue her daughter. This is also when much of the developing story begins to depart from the original novel.

There is much disturbingly graphic and gruesome torture of women, and handmaids in particular, which probably was too much for viewers and we know many friends who were turned off watching the series further.

Season 3 focuses on June’s reassignment to Commander Lawrence’s household and her involvement in the resistance. June orchestrates smuggling children out of Gilead and navigates complex political dynamics. Fred Waterford is arrested in Canada for war crimes, while Serena faces legal troubles. The entire look and feel of the series has moved well beyond the initial context Gilead and yet the stylistics of the ‘real’ world outside Gilead looks equally unreal.

Season 4 sees June leading a mission to fly children out of Gilead when she is wounded and then escapes to Canada. She finally reunites with her husband Luke but is consumed by guilt and revenge. June testifies against Fred and ultimately lures him to his death at the hands of handmaids.

Season 5 has June struggling with the aftermath of her violent actions and attempting to settle into life in Canada. The season explores the ongoing influence of Gilead’s regime and June’s reluctant leadership role in the fight against it. Quite unbelievably, the awkward relationship between June and Serena continues. They are certainly not friends but seem conflictingly compelled to help each other when it matters, being two strong but wronged women caught in a bind.

Season 6 takes both June and Serena back to Gilead. Being the decidedly final season, there is an attempt to wrap up June’s story and her determination to destroy the Gilead that robbed her of a normal life. While there is some resolution in the way they succeed in destroying the thing that broke them, there are elements of the conclusion that has irritated audiences in the way it fails to tie up certain loose ends. The most glaring of which is what happens to Hannah. But wait, there’s a practical (and commercial) explanation for that. See more about the sequel below.

Protracted, waning storylines

By the time we reached the end of Season 4 we had gotten bored with its painfully drawn-out mode of storytelling, where the form and aesthetic preoccupations overrode the substance. It felt very much the case where scant content was being over-fleshed out unnecessarily with indulgent slow-motion, close-up and atmospheric shots rather than focusing on actual dialogue and action.

June Osborne’s motivations were at times difficult to understand. She needed to get out but once out of Gilead, had to get back in to help others to escape. Did she still love her husband, or was she still yearning for Nick, father of her second child whom she managed to rescue to freedom. Did she want to be a good mother, or everyone’s mother and saviour? As was the case in the other extended TV series Prison Break, the premise was to escape so once the key protagonists had broken out, they had to break back in in (or at least into another different prison for variety), so that the seasons could persist.

Where straight forward and finite stories and characters in them are concerned, it all falls into place by the end. However, as is in reality, we are all multi-faceted beings with multiple and sometimes conflicting and contradictory identifies, motivations and allegiances. And when things drag out into and endless meander of twists and turns, it can sometimes become confusing, annoyingly repetitive and unsatisfactory.

We decided to take a break, not going on to Season 5. It wasn’t until we’d heard that Season 6 would be the final one and the story would come to a firm conclusion that we then decided to watch Season 5. We immediately followed that up with the final Season 6, just to bring the whole prolonged experience to a proper close.

The Testaments - Atwood’s sequel

Given the success of the TV series and timely revival and public interest in her original book—which was still alarmingly relevant and fascinating some 30 years after it was written—Margaret Atwood then wrote a sequel to her original novel.

It was released in 2019 and titled The Testaments. Set 15 years after the original novel, and some years after the expanded storyline of the TV series ends, it follows three women whose lives continue to intersect in the oppressive regime of Gilead, namely:

Aunt Lydia – a powerful and complex figure within Gilead, who secretly works against the regime from within.
Agnes (also known as Hannah) – a young woman raised in Gilead, who discovers her true parentage and seeks to escape an arranged marriage by training to become an Aunt.
Daisy (Nicole) – raised in Canada, who learns she was smuggled out of Gilead as a baby and is drawn into a mission to infiltrate Gilead and aid the resistance.

In a nutshell, this sequel explores the cracks forming within Gilead’s power structure and the different ways women resist or survive under its rule. It also addresses lingering questions about Offred’s fate and the future of her daughters, while delving into Aunt Lydia’s motivations and the broader fight against Gilead’s tyranny.

All the while, Margaret Atwood had remained a consultant to the TV series, presiding and approving its meandering story development. In order not to conflict with the expanded story of the TV series, its writers had to tailor the final seasons to accommodate this further narrative beyond its own trajectory of the show. Understandably these characters prevailed at the end of the series, to be consistent with the sequel.

TV adaptation of The Testaments

In 2023, the show’s creator and showrunner Bruce Miller, extricated himself from The Handmaid’s Tale TV series to focus on developing the TV adaptation of The Testaments.

At present this new TV series, based on the sequel, is in production and expected to be premiered in 2026. It is being helmed by Bruce Miller, along with executive writer Sam Rubinek and will feature a cast led by Ann Dowd continuing her role as Aunt Lydia, Chase Infiniti as Agnes/Hannah and Lucy Halliday as Daisy. Elizabeth Moss has yet to confirm if she will appear in this sequel even though June Osborne makes a presence in the story.

Will we watch this series? Perhaps. And only if it is a finite story which doesn’t stretch beyond its planned 9 episodes. However, we cannot, of course, predict if it will become another bloated drawn-out event like its predecessor. However brilliant an actress, Elizabeth Moss is, we aren’t exactly craving to see that expressive face of hers give us another death stare, pout in disapproval or scrunch up her nose in disgust. It’s just time to give June Osborne a rest!

Elizabeth Moss as June Osborne

We first took notice of Elizabeth Moss when she played young Zoey Bartlet, first daughter of President Josiah Bartlet in the much- her lauded TV series The West Wing which was written by Aaron Sorkin and premiered in 1999.

We’ve seen her play other roles in movies such as The Square. She’s also had significant roles in other TV series such as Mad Men (2007), playing pioneering advertising creative Peggy Olsen who is naïve, gets knocked up by a colleague and then resiliently rises to become senior creative in a NY advertising agency of the 1960s, standing her ground in a pressured job led by male chauvinists. For that supporting role she was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy.

Then there was Top of the Lake (2013) playing NZ police detective Robin Griffin in Jane Campion’s crime thriller miniseries.

Her youthful aspirations were to be a dancer. As such she is an alumnus of the School of American Ballet in NYC, where she trained before turning to acting as a career. Interestingly, Elizabeth Moss holds both British and American citizenship and remains a member of the Church of Scientology, having been raised one by her family. She apparently keeps her faith and religious beliefs private, which is similar to her private life.

Curiosity about where she may draw inspiration as a fiercely protective mother and a feisty activist reveals that she was briefly married to Fred Armisen from 2009 to 2011. There is a current romance with a yet unnamed partner which has produced them a child that was born in 2024 and was present at the set with her while filming Season 6.

Moss has publicly defended her position that religious freedom and tolerance and understanding the truth and equal rights for every race, religion and creed are extremely important to her. She dismisses comparisons between Scientology and the fictional Gilead—as similar advocates for all outside sources from their beliefs being wrong or evil—as not true at all.

Praise be!

Show trailers

The Handmaid’s Tale movie (1990)

The Handmaid’s Tale series – Season 1

The Handmaid’s Tale series – Season 2

The Handmaid’s Tale series – Season 3

The Handmaid’s Tale series – Season 4

The Handmaid’s Tale series – Season 5

The Handmaid’s Tale series – Season 6

Anecdotic
Revue

by Selwyn Lemos