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'The Handmaid's Tale' Creator & Elisabeth Moss Discuss June's Final Scene in Season 4 Finale

'The Handmaid's Tale' Creator & Elisabeth Moss Discuss June's Final Scene in Season 4 Finale

SPOILER ALERT - Do not continue reading if you haven’t finished season four of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Some major moments happened in the season four finale of The Handmaid’s Tale and the final scene of the episode has left fans wondering what will happen next.

Elisabeth Moss and series creator Bruce Miller are opening up about the meaning of that scene with June and her daughter Nichole, as well as what fans can expect for season five.

Click inside to read all of the spoilers…

In season four, June finally escaped Gilead and ended up in Canada, where Commander Waterford and his wife Serena were being held prisoner. In the penultimate episode, we learned that Waterford cut a deal to go free in exchange for information on the insides of Gilead. In the finale, June brokered a deal to get revenge on Waterford. He was handed over to her and she joined a group of refugee handmaids to murder him in the woods. At the end of the episode, June returned home to her husband Luke and told him to give her “five minutes” with Nichole and then she’d go.

So, what did that mean?

“I always have possibilities and lots of ideas. I try not to decide one season to the next, honestly, because all of the smart viewers would figure out what I’m leaning towards. She says, ‘I need five minutes’ — she’s five minutes from a reckoning. She doesn’t want to think about it or talk about what happened or what this means for five minutes,” Bruce told THR.

He continued, “Certainly, everyone has been there. ‘Just let me be who I was for five more minutes and then I’ll decide who I’m going to be next.’ What the hell is going to happen in five minutes? It can go a lot of ways and, the answer to your question is that I know what’s going to happen for the next five minutes, but I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t know because June doesn’t know. I know how she feels now, and that will lead me to the next thing.”

“That moment at the end is her as a mother knowing she had chosen something that makes her feel like she can never be a mother again. She’s holding that baby and she’s thinking to herself this way, as a mother, and then she thinks of herself that way in the woods with dead Fred, and then she thinks of herself as a mother again and that’s where she is. Those two things are pushing up against each other. On one side, she is a mother and a caregiver, for Janine or her daughter or her friends or lovers; and then on the other side, she is a person who is getting vengeance for all of those people and for herself. You put those two things together when she believes, and I think we as the audience believe, that those two things can’t coexist,” Bruce added.

“She’s balancing two things: How do I be a good mother to my daughter in a way that’s satisfying and how do I be a good mother to my daughter when I’m gone? Most of her life, she’s been thinking she’ll be gone and that the only impact she’ll be making on her children’s lives are the things she leaves behind; the fights she fights, the progress she makes. Now she has another chance: being a mother with babe in arms. Not just building a future, but having a present,” Bruce said. “But, has she committed herself so much to being a future-builder that she’s given up her present? That’s the journey for her, that’s the reckoning: Have I earned myself a present? Have I earned myself a now that is satisfying, or are we at a situation where she can’t stop fighting for the future and if it sacrifices her now and her relationships? She’s in it for the long haul and she’s in a generational fight.”

So, what will happen to June after she puts Nichole back in the crib?

Elisabeth said, “Her life is about this war. And her life is about creating a better future for her daughters. That is her purpose and, let us not forget, she still has a daughter that is in Gilead. This show is about the first episode with that first scene where her daughter is taken away. This show is about a woman creating a better future for the next generation and, specifically, for her own children. That’s the only thing that I’m thinking about and focusing on in season five right now, without knowing all the details. That it has been about her daughters and it will always be about her daughters.”

Joseph Fiennes has opened up about his character’s death in the finale.

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