"The Handmaid's Tale" season 4 began airing on Hulu in April 2021, and it drastically
altered the course of Hulu's acclaimed dystopian series. After fighting to bring down Gilead
from the inside, protagonist June Osborne escapes to Canada and is reunited with her
friends, husband Luke, and baby daughter Nichole.
But assimilating back into ordinary life proves incredibly difficult for June, leaving her
loved ones and viewers to wonder what healing and "moving on" from Gilead could possibly
look like for her. June is still preoccupied with rescuing her older daughter Hannah from
Gilead's clutches, and longs for revenge against those who had directly oppressed her during
her time as a Handmaid, particularly the now-imprisoned Fred and Serena Waterford .
While the Waterfords started off the season at odds, they're forced to come back together
to devise their freedom from Canadian authorities after Serena discovers she is somehow pregnant.
But their freedom is precarious, and their facade as an ideal Gilead family has been
obliterated. More than any other season, this installment of "The Handmaid's Tale" asks
how we move forward from times of intense trauma, how we seek justice, and what it means
to heal. Here's the ending of "The Handmaid's Tale" Season 4, explained.
"I made a promise to hurt them the way we hurt."
After narrowly surviving a gunshot wound at the beginning of Season 4, June makes it to
Chicago and is brought to Canada by her best friend Moira. But as this season explores
through June's journey and experiences, Gilead lives within its victims — even after they
escape its borders. She becomes consumed with a desire for vengeance, emotionally detaching
from her loved ones to plot the Waterfords' takedown as a proxy for getting revenge on
Gilead as a whole.
By the finale, when June learns that Fred and Serena will likely be freed for giving
the Canadian government Gilead intelligence secrets, she takes matters into her own hands
and arranges for Fred to be captured and taken to the "No Man's Land" between Canada and
Gilead.
Recreating the Salvaging, June and several other former Handmaids brutally kill Fred
in the woods and leave his body hanging on The Wall. However, June could face heartbreaking
personal consequences for her revenge plot, and even tells Luke she'll leave after he
realizes what she's done. She has powerful contacts within Gilead like Commander Lawrence
and her lover Nick Blaine who could bring her Hannah, but her self-destructive, untreated
trauma could prevent her from bringing about actual change. June's need for vengeance is
understandable... but it could lead to horrible ramifications down the road.
"I just… I need Fred to get what he deserves."
Although Serena and Fred are forced to put up a united front throughout Season 4 in hopes
of escaping Canadian custody and living freely with their son, their relationship gets even
more strained as the series progresses. Fred has a renewed interest in Serena now that
she's carrying his son, while Serena is moved by the pro-Gilead protesters who applaud her
on their way to June's testimony.
The Waterfords' personal conflicts have always shown how people who directly work to uphold
patriarchal structures are often hurt by the very laws and expectations they helped create.
This theme comes full-circle in Season 4, as Serena faces the possibility of being separated
from her son at birth and being turned into a Handmaid should she return to Gilead — a
dark mirror to Serena's violation of June and attempt to steal baby Nichole as her own.
Fred, who hides behind chivalry and theological goodness to cover up his spineless misogyny,
is ultimately taken down by his own blindness to women's capabilities and complexities.
He easily allows June to coax him into believing she still cares for him, and is killed through
a Gilead ritual he helped create. Next season, Serena will likely find herself truly on her
own for the first time, as she reckons with the world she chose for herself, and how she
subjugated other women in the process.
While June's Season 4 character arc shows how unprocessed trauma can consume you and
change your perception of the world in major ways, her loved ones in Canada spend the season
attempting to find new ways forward. Luke, Moira, and Emily continue working to help
Gilead refugees enter Canada and begin new lives outside of the theocracy.
They're also helping nurture the next generation, as Luke and Moira are Nichole's primary caregivers
and Emily continues reconnecting with her son Oliver. Moira also gets a second chance
at love through her burgeoning relationship with her headstrong coworker Oona.
Meanwhile, a recently freed Rita grapples with unlearning all the behaviors Gilead has
taught her, such as her automatic tendency to serve people through cooking and housework.
One of the most striking scenes of the season is her work with a little boy who was recently
freed from Gilead, but has no memories of a time before then and struggles to adjust.
June's friends and family are fighting for the possibility of a post-Gilead world, but
the most well-adjusted characters are still struggling to accept that such a world may
never truly exist, a journey which will surely continue next season as the characters grapple
with the new society they've worked to craft together.
"I am a citizen of the United States, and I seek asylum in the country of Canada."
"The Handmaid's Tale" Season 4 spent less time in Gilead than ever before, but the scenes
set there reinforced how precarious the country's rigid system is, and how this uncertainty
affects the next generation.
A new recurring character is Esther Keyes, a 14-year-old Wife who hopes to get revenge
on the Commanders who have brutally assaulted her. She's punished and turned into a Handmaid
alongside June's friend Janine, but Aunt Lydia is rapidly losing control over the Handmaids,
who resist her with a food strike. Season 5 could mark a full-on Handmaid revolution
if things go well... or as well as they can go in Gilead.
The men left in Gilead are also torn between standing with their rocky new country and
accepting the growing revolution. Commander Lawrence, who was the original architect of
Gilead, initially asks for 10 Gilead child refugees in exchange for Hannah. Later, he
went against the grain and helped her destroy Fred.
And Nick continues working for Gilead throughout the season, but seemingly defects after reuniting
with June and their baby daughter.
Season 5 is bound to push the "Handmaid's Tale" characters to the brink even more, and
challenge what exactly freedom could look like in a world of patriarchal violence. Blessed
be the fruit.
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