40 years after Margaret Atwood’s book was released,The Handmaid’s Talenow has another ending with the conclusion of Hulu’s TV show. After six seasons across eight years,The Handmaid’s Tale’s endingpartially wraps up the story of June Osborne, aka Offred, and many others inside Gilead. I say partially because, like with Atwood’s books, there’ll be more to come on the TV side of things.
The Testamentsshowwill pick things up a few years after the series finale, much like how Atwood’s book of the same name, published in 2019, continued the story of Gilead many years later. There will, inevitably, be some discrepancies and differences between the two, and in part that’s because of justhow differentThe Handmaid’s Taleshow was from the bookby (and, really, long before) the end.
The Handmaid’s Tale Book Ending Was The End Of Season 1
The Show Continued Far Beyond Margaret Atwood’s Novel
The Handmaid’s Taleseason 1 finale finds June in a predicament: having continued her sexual relationship with Nick, she’s now pregnant with his child, and at risk of the Waterfords' anger and power because of it. That’s when a black van comes to pick her up - unbeknownst to the Waterfords.Nick encourages June to trust him, and she climbs into the van and is taken away, which is where the season ends.
That’s the exact point the book ends Offred’s story on too, with Atwood writing (from Offred’s POV):“And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else, the light.“We get to see the Waterfords' shock and anger as she heads out; Nick reassures her it’s Mayday. But,as readers, we never get to see what happens next.
In the show, of course, June’s story continued… and continued.
In the show, of course, June’s story continued… andcontinued. Ultimately, she was brought back to Gilead, before escaping, returning, and so on, all the way to season 6. That brought things full circle to the beginning of the show, and an important part of the book’s ending too.
It Also Goes Back To The Pilot Episode
Image via Hulu
June’s story ends with her back at the Waterfords' house, which has been severely damaged in the fighting, but remains standing, right down to the wardrobe with"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum"scrawled on it. This isn’t just taking her back to where it started, but has very specific callbacks to both the pilot episode and the book, too, as June begins her:“A chair, a table, a lamp…“speech.
Even more direct a connection, though, is June deciding to record her story.
That’s something June said in the very first episode (and second scene) of the show, with Elisabeth Moss syncing her new dialogue up with the audio from there, but it comes directly from the book’s second chapter. Even more direct a connection, though, is June deciding to record her story.That is something Offred did in the book, too, with the tapes found much later, and so this is the series' nod towards it.
Atwood’s Book Goes Into The Future
The end of June’s story inThe Handmaid’s Taleisn’t actually the end of the book, as Atwood adds in a “historical notes” section, which is set hundreds of years later in 2195. It covers the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies, and more specifically, the uncovering of the tapes left behind by a handmaid, Offred.
Crucially,this reveals that Gilead had fallen some time earlier, and that the world has returned to a sense of normalcy, with one speaker noting that the pressures that led to Gilead are not faced by the world now. That itself comes with its own misogyny, of course: the speaker refuses to pass judgment on Gilead’s actions, makes a sexist comment about a female professor (the existence of which at least highlights the progression from Gilead), and most of the chapter is about the authenticity of the tapes and the identity of the individuals it refers to.
The Testamentshas a series order from Hulu, but does not yet have a release date, though sometime in 2026 seems likely.
It makes sense thatThe Handmaid’s Tale’s series finale wouldn’t include this. Certainly, it helps to keep the focus squarely on June, which is a much more emotional farewell, and going so far into the future could’ve risked undermining that and even confusing some viewers. It also might’ve impactedThe Testaments, since that will show a Gilead that very much still exists. It works great in the book, and is even revisited in the sequel, but show’s ending did its own thing while honoring the source material too.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Cast
The Handmaid’s Tale is a television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel, released in 2017. It is set in a dystopian future where a woman is compelled to live as a concubine under a strict fundamentalist theocracy.
