It has been a lengthy wait for the return of The Handmaid’s Tale, which first premiered on Hulu in April 2017. Season 5 ended with a bang in November 2022, and since then, fans have been waiting with bated breath for the sixth and final season. Season 6’s first three episodes stream on April 8, 2025, and one of the great TV shows you need to watch this month picks up right where the story left off.
Where did the story leave off? It’s easy to forget, given that so much time has passed between seasons. To get you up to speed before you start the last season of this dystopian drama adapted from the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name, we have this handy recap refresher of all the key moments from season five.
It’s anything but a blessed day for both June and Serena
June (Elisabeth Moss) managed to escape from Gilead in season 4, but she’s still deeply suffering from the trauma she endured and still doesn’t have her daughter Hannah (Jordana Blake) back. She has, however, gotten some form of retribution by joining other former handmaids in beating her former Commander, Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes), to death, hanging his body from the wall, and sending his severed finger to his now widow, Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski).
Serena retaliates by holding an elaborate and televised funeral for Fred, where she ensures that Hannah is part of the ceremony, donning a dress of a color that indicates the coming-of-age girl is ready to be married off. This infuriates June, who comes close to killing Serena when they cross paths. However, there’s a reason she doesn’t pull the trigger.
Serena is surprisingly pregnant, and in a poetic twist of fate, banished from Gilead because she’s now an unwed mother and sent to Canada to work as a diplomat. In reality, Serena is placed with the Wheelers, a couple who take a creepy interest in her child. Serena is not a handmaid, but she’s being treated like one. It’s clear this couple will take her baby once it’s born.
While trying to navigate this new devastating situation, Serena gets word that June has been caught in No Man’s Land, where she went with her husband, Luke (O-T Fagbenle), to gain intel. Serena asks to execute her former handmaid and her husband’s killer. While holding the gun to June’s head, Serena chickens out and shoots the guard instead. Serena hops in a car and forces June to come with her. Serena is going into labor, and June reluctantly helps her deliver the baby inside a barn.
Later, at a hospital, Luke calls the authorities on Serena for being in the country illegally, and she ironically pleads with June for help because she knows what this means: the Wheelers will take her baby. June tells her, “We’re not friends,” but sympathetically doles out last-minute advice: go back to the Wheelers and plot revenge from within. Serena does just that. She offers to be present at the opening of the Gilead Cultural Center, arguing that her appearance with a baby in tow would be wonderful for recruitment. While there, she manages to escape.
June needs to save Hannah, but she’s in danger
While still in Canada, June and Luke are desperately trying to figure out how to save Hannah. Commander Lawrence (Get Out’s Bradley Whitford) offers her a home in his new, supposedly more progressive community called New Bethlehem. He promises he will situate them close to Hannah and her eventual new husband. Understandably, June refuses.
With the help of Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger), a representative of the U.S. government-in-exile, a strike plan is put into motion to raid Hannah’s school in Gilead, but the attack is thwarted. Tuello thinks the only way in is through Nick (Max Minghella), and he tries to convince the now commander to get on board and work as a mole for Canada. While Nick initially declines, he becomes enraged when a Gilead truck hits and nearly kills June. He blames Lawrence, punches him, and winds up in jail. His pregnant wife visits, advising that she’s aware he’s still in love with June and she’s not having it.
Realizing that the anti-refugee sentiment in Canada is growing and that Gilead won’t stop until she’s dead, June decides the only answer is to flee until she can figure out her next steps. Tuello warns them that there are soldiers at the airport, but he arranges for them to get on a train to Vancouver instead. From there, they can travel to Hawaii.
When June and Luke arrive at the station with baby Nicole, officers run ID checks and discover a warrant for Luke’s arrest. Luke severely beat the man who hit June with his truck, and the man has since passed. Luke knows he’ll never make it on the train, and when he surrenders himself, June realizes he never intended to get on in the first place.
As she boards with baby Nicole, June hears the cries of another child. She peeks through the crowd and spots Serena with baby Noah.
Praise be what the future holds
Gilead is expanding its reach and recruiting new people to the concept of New Bethlehem, promising positive change. However, the cracks begin to show. Several once-staunch supporters now question the community and its actions. Nick may be indoctrinated, but he can’t get June out of his head and wants to protect her at all costs. In a twisted sense of poetic justice, Serena now understands what she put June through and awakens to her own wrongs.
Back in Gilead, Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) becomes aware of Esther’s (McKenna Grace) pregnancy. This puzzles Aunt Lydia because she isn’t posted anywhere. meaning she won’t take part in the official conception ceremony. She reports this to Commander Lawrence, who doesn’t seem bothered, but he later sentences Commander Putnam (Stephen Kunken) to death for his actions. Aunt Lydia may finally be seeing the light — not everything she does is righteous. Gilead has diverted its focus in ways she may not be able to accept.
Commander Lawrence was once an ally, but his new community and rising status are priorities. Remarried to Naomi (Ever Carradine), he had Janine (Madeline Brewer) placed with them so she could spend time with her biological daughter. But an argument with Naomi gets Janine banished, which could send Aunt Lydia into a tailspin, given her closeness with the young woman.
How everything plays out for this 10-episode final season of one of the best shows on Hulu has fans eager and excited for a happy ending, or at least a satisfying resolution to the sordid tale.
Stream The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu.
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