The Handmaid’s Tale is finally in its rebellion era — but how was Taylor Swift involved?
Warning: Spoilers below for the newest episode of The Handmaid’s Tale:
During the penultimate episode of the hit Hulu series, which premiered on Tuesday, May 20, June (Elisabeth Moss) and the rest of the resistance stormed Gilead while Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” served as the rebellion’s soundtrack. Despite the song hyping up the well-awaited revenge plan, June and the others didn’t make it far before getting arrested.
June, Moira (Samira Wiley), Janine (Madeline Brewer), other members of the revolution and even Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) were set up to be publicly executed — with June nearly hung to death — before Luke (O-T Fagbenle) and the rest of Mayday saved the day. This led to a massacre of many high-ranking commanders — save Commander Wharton (Josh Charles), who managed to escape with his life. With Wharton, Nick (Max Minghella) and other big names within Gilead still at large, June was able to get Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) to tell her when all the commanders would be reuniting. This then paved the way for another partnership between June and Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford), who agreed to sacrifice himself in order to take the rest of the Gilead hierarchy down.
Lawrence joined Wharton and the other commanders on the plane — knowing he wouldn’t survive the trip. Then, in a last minute twist, Nick also got onboard despite not originally planning to go to Washington D.C. June had to watch as her ex got on the plan while knowing it would explode as soon as it was airborne. The last shot of the episode was June watching the wreckage.
There is only one episode left before The Handmaid’s Tale comes to an end following a six-season run on Hulu. Coshowrunners Yahlin Chang and Eric Tuchman recently teased to Us Weekly how the series wraps up.
“I think we can expect an honest conclusion to the story. We keep using the word honest because we try our best to be realistic,” Tuchman noted. “What would happen in real life — and what we hope people take away — is this feeling of hopefulness and resilience that June and many of the other characters have demonstrated and will demonstrate in the last couple of episodes.”
He continued: “When you’re up against an oppressive regime and when your rights are stripped away, you just never stop fighting. You keep going. Hopefully people will draw some optimism and feel empowered by what plays out.”
Luckily, The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t ending completely — Hulu has since picked up spinoff The Testaments to series.
The Testaments, which is set 15 years later, is narrated by Aunt Lydia as viewers are thrust back into the dystopian future. Fans will watch characters like Agnes from Gilead and Daisy from Canada as they secretly gather and smuggle incriminating information about Gilead’s regime out of the country. Agnes and Daisy pose as “Pearl Girls” to infiltrate Canada, while Aunt Lydia acts as a covert source within Gilead.
“Although I could not continue with the story of Offred, I could continue with three other people concerned in these events and tell the story of the beginning of the end, because we know from The Handmaid’s Tale that Gilead vanishes,” Atwood told journalists at an event in 2019. “It’s no longer present 200 years into the future, because they’re having a symposium on it. How did it collapse? How do these kinds of regimes disappear? I was interested in exploring that.”
She continued: “There [are] some new costume choices in this book. Human beings throughout time love outfits that tell you who you’re looking at, like football teams and things like that. So yes, we have some new outfits.”
The Handmaid’s Tale airs Tuesdays and new episodes stream on Hulu.
