The Handmaid's Tale ending explained: Goodbye June, hello Hannah

The sixth and final season, all episodes of which are now available to watch on Hulu, picked up after season 5's agonising cliffhanger, which saw June and Serena flee from Canada, and followed June as she returned to the belly of the beast in an attempt to bring down Gilead once and for all, as well as to rescue her daughter Hannah.

As the action escalated, viewers were brought plenty moments of joy, as well as tragedy.

Wondering what happens to June, and whether she's reunited with her firstborn, Hannah, and able to free her from the shackles of the regime?

Read on for a full rundown of where the finale of The Handmaid's Tale season 6.

The Handmaid's Tale finale explained: What happened to every major player at the end?

What happened to June in The Handmaid's Tale season 6?

The episode opened with June narrating what had happened in the aftermath of the initial strike on Boston in episode 9, which was carried out by Mayday and the US army.

With the city's Commanders firmly out of the way, courtesy of Lawrence's sacrifice, the regime had begun evacuating and, in the end, it only took 19 days to take it back.

A US flag was hoisted outside a church. Later, June watched on as a red cloak burned on a bonfire.

But, as she noted, that was just the beginning. Other cities, then states, still needed to be toppled, Colorado being one, where Hannah had been living with the Mackenzies, that is until a number of the western district commanders had been promoted, meaning she's now based in DC, which is 2,000 miles closer.

Not that distance would have stopped her. June won't rest until she brings her daughter home, which sadly means leaving Nichole with her mother Holly for a little while longer. How long, she couldn't say.

"I'm not safe, and neither are you, and they are never going to stop coming for us," she said. "And even when we're gone, they're going to come for our children and our grandchildren.

"Fighting may not get us everything, but we don't have a choice because not fighting is what got us Gilead in the first place. And Gilead doesn't need to be beaten, it needs to be broken."

It was during that conversation that Holly also encouraged June to write a book about what she'd endured, and is still enduring, but she initially resisted.

"It's not a very good story," she said. "There is so much violence and fear and loss."

But Holly was quick to chime in.

"No, it's about never giving up," she responded. "This is the story for people who may never find their babies, who will never give up trying. Write it for your daughters, June. Tell them who their mother was."

And that's exactly what she began to do.

In the drama's final moments, she went back to the Waterford house and entered her old room, where 'Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum', don't let the b**tards grind you down, had been graffitied on the wall in white paint.

After taking it all in, June perched on the windowsill. She then symbolically extended her hand towards Hannah, who also reached out to touch her, in turn saying goodbye to The Handmaid's Tale and hello to The Testaments, which follows three central characters, Agnes (Hannah), Daisy (Nichole, who is living with adoptive parents in Canada), and Aunt Lydia.

"For these young women, growing up in Gilead is all they have ever known, having no tangible memories of the outside world prior to their indoctrination into this life," reads the official synopsis.

"Facing the prospect of being married off and living a life of servitude, they will be forced to search for allies, both new and old, to help in their fight for freedom and the life they deserve."

The Testaments adaptation will, you think, also make reference to June – and possibly even give us a glimpse of her (we’re not buying Elisabeth Moss’s word that she won’t feature).

But before the final credits rolled on The Handmaid's Tale, June pulled out a tape recorder and began to tell her story. The truth will set you, and the world, free.

Why was June not reunited with Hannah?

Unfortunately, the finale didn't reunite June with her daughter, and instead, her fight to save Hannah (Jordana Blake) from Gilead is still ongoing when the curtains close.

Showrunners Yahlin Chang and Eric Tuchman previously explained why the show couldn't reunite the pair because of the forthcoming sequel The Testaments.

Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Chang said: "Given that our hands were tied, unfortunately, and we could not bring June and Hannah together because of The Testaments, which was something that we really struggled with — I struggled with, speaking for myself — not giving people what they wanted or what I wanted, the idea of her telling the story to Hannah was just so emotionally captivating."

Tuchman added: "Knowing we couldn’t reunite June and Hannah, it was heartbreaking because we’re certainly aware of how much the audience was longing for that. It seemed to be what was driving June over the course of the whole series."

He added: "But once we found out that we couldn’t do that, that there was that boundary that we had to respect, when I think about it now, it shifted what her emotional engine became: What does it mean to keep going when you don’t get what you want and what you are hoping for, and what if that might never happen?

"It actually feels like a really powerful message now — that you keep going; you never stop loving and hoping and wishing and dreaming, and whatever obstacles come your way, certainly as a parent, you’re going to do whatever it takes to keep moving forward."

What happened to Luke and Moira in The Handmaid's Tale season 6?

Luke is now wholly dedicated to defeating Gilead. He informed June that he's heading to the border near New York with Moira and Mayday to raise hell there. Then he'll come and find June and, together, they'll bring Hannah home.

But it's not clear if they'll ever see one another again. And even if they do reunite, it can never truly be as it was.

"We're so different now," he said. "Both of us. We don't know each other like we did before."

And like Holly, Luke also encouraged June to write a book about her life in Gilead.

"It wasn't all horrors, right?" he said. "You had people that helped you, like Janine, Emily, Lawrence, and Nick; people who loved you, people who you loved.

"They're all worth remembering."

And speaking of Emily, Alexis Bledel's character made a surprise cameo in the finale while June was taking a walk.

She had been living as a Martha under the roof of a Commander friend in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which is a "hotspot for the rebellion".

She also told June that she was still able to keep in touch with her family, who were as solid a unit as they'd even been, despite the distance between them, in turn giving June hope that her family could do the same.

What happened to Serena in The Handmaid's Tale season 6?

Serena's future is perhaps the most uncertain. Having turned her back on Gilead by playing an instrumental role in the death of her second husband, Commander Wharton, and his colleagues, she's now a refugee and is currently being housed in a shelter with her son Noah.

"You're all I need, you're all I ever wanted," she said while holding him tightly.

She obviously can't go back to Gilead, nor would she want to, and she can't currently secure a passport from Canada or the EU, which leaves her in limbo.

But she carries June's forgiveness (for real this time) with her after expressing her shame for the pain she had inflicted upon her during their emotional final farewell.

What happened to Janine and Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale season 6?

Janine was finally released from the clutches of Gilead, thanks to Aunt Lydia.

In the middle of the night, June travelled to the regime's new border, with Mark, where Janine was dumped by two Guardians.

But she wasn't alone. Naomi Lawrence also emerged, flanked by Lydia, with Janine's daughter Angela and returned her to her rightful mother.

But while Janine's story ends there, as previously mentioned Aunt Lydia will return to our screens in The Testaments, which picks up 15 years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale in the book, but actor Ann Dowd has said it will be "four to five years" in the show.

"I think that her level of control is kind of getting sapped by herself," said Miller in line with the season 6 premiere of The Handmaid's Tale (via Deadline). "She’s undercutting herself and saying, 'I want to control these women, but I can’t, because I feel like that’s wrong,' and she’s a very right and wrong person.

"But I think that what she does, what this season brings her to, is the idea that... what happens to someone who enjoys control when they realise they have nothing? They don’t just fold under. What happens as we move forward and as we move into The Testaments is she tries to get more control.

"What becomes someone like Lydia, who has not just desire to be in control, but confidence and actual competence in being in control? What happens to someone like that? Well, they don’t just sit by the wayside. They actually, if you tell them no and beat them up, they take your country."

Who died in The Handmaid's Tale season 6?

Episode 9 seemingly showed the deaths of two ally commanders, Nick Blaine (Max Minghella) and Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford), as well as several other commanders.

Their deaths arose after June and US representative Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger) conspired with Commander Lawrence to bring a bomb onto a plane transporting commanders to Washington, where they will plan Gilead’s retaliation.

While Lawrence’s initial plan was to plant the bomb on the plane and leave, things were complicated when the commanders arrived onto the plane earlier than expected – and Lawrence ultimately decided to sacrifice his own life for the cause.

Just before the plane sets off, Nick also joined them, sealing his fate.

How does The Handmaid's Tale book end?

Atwood’s book ends on a somewhat ambiguous note.

On returning to the Waterford household after carrying out her shopping duties, June is confronted by Serena, who has discovered the dress that she wore to Jezebel’s with the Commander.

But later that night, before she can unleash whatever punishment she might have had planned on her Handmaid, Nick arrives, and he’s not alone.

Along with a pair of Eyes, he enters the house and heads to June's room, where he informs her that this is Mayday's doing. They're getting her out. But she doesn't know if he's telling the truth or if this is just a means of encouraging her to climb into the black van that’s waiting, without any fuss, which she does.

"And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light."

And that's the last we hear of June, that is until the epilogue, which is a partial transcript from a Symposium on Gileadean Studies conducted by two professors in the year 2195.

We learn that she recorded part of what happened to her onto tapes, which were discovered on the edges of Gilead, which has long since fallen, near the Canadian border, and have since been written up into 'The Handmaid’s Tale'.

So, it seems that Nick was likely telling the truth, that he was indeed part of the resistance, and that June managed to make it all way to the border, although we do not find out if she made it across or if she was captured, right at the death.

The Handmaid's Tale airs on Hulu in the US and Channel 4 in the UK.

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