Those who love The Handmaid’s Tale have waited eagerly for the series to resume with its sixth and final season. The dystopian series based on the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel premiered on Hulu in 2017 and aired new seasons consistently through 2022. But it was a grueling, almost three-year wait between seasons five and six.

Now that the story has come to an end, fans can rest easy that there’s a resolution, even if it’s not one as cut and dry as they had hoped. In fact, how things ended was, in a way, actually spoiled long ago. Some just might not have noticed the not-so-subtle clues.

Note: spoilers for the series finale of The Handmaid’s Tale.

The Spin-off Sort of Ruins the Ending

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Image via Hulu

Since the beginning, The Handmaid’s Tale has been about June Osborne’s (Elisabeth Moss) quest to not only escape from the clutches of the totalitarian, theocratic, oppressive society known as Gilead, but also to save her daughter Hannah (Jordana Blake). Both she and Hannah were taken and forced into servitude.

June was made a handmaid, required to engage in a “ritualistic” ceremony to try and become impregnated by a wealthy commander. The idea was that she would then carry the child to term so he and his wife could raise the baby as their own. Hannah, meanwhile, was placed with a wealthy and infertile couple, awaiting the day when she could be married off herself. Every day, June yearned to be reunited with her daughter.

Way back in 2019, Hulu and MGM confirmed that a sequel series was in the works, based on Margaret Atwood’s novel from that same year, The Testaments. While the book is set 15 years in the future, the TV adaptation will take place 4 to 5 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6. The series will show an entirely new side of Gilead. But its very premise, revealed long before the finale of The Handmaid’s Tale, confirms a few key details about how The Handmaid’s Tale ended.

First off, since it’s set in the future in Gilead, it’s clear that the efforts of June and the entire Mayday team were futile. While they were able to take down Boston, Gilead still very much exists in other states across America. June discusses her desire to take down New York next, maybe Colorado. Then, there’s also Washington, D.C. Based on filming sightings of The Testaments in and around Canada, including in the author’s own home city, many of the same awful rules and actions of Gilead still clearly apply, even a handful of years later.

Second, the sequel series will be narrated in part by Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd). Knowing this, which has been heavily publicized, all but confirms that the character would be alive by the end. Thus, the tease of Aunt Lydia being hanged in the penultimate episode didn’t scare fans who are aware of The Testaments. It was obvious she would be saved before being killed. It’s also evident that she not only continues to live, but still resides in Gilead many years later.

Third, the story in The Testaments is also told by Agnes, another bit that has been heavily publicized about the new show. Agnes is, as fans of The Handmaid’s Tale know, the new name given to Hannah as a young woman still living in Gilead. The character is played by Chase Infiniti in the new series. This confirmed that Agnes/Hannah wasn’t going to be reunited with her parents by the end of The Handmaid’s Tale. If she were, of course, that would mean she was rescued from the clutches of Gilead and couldn’t still be there years later.

Furthermore, if the series closely follows the story in the book, Hannah only learns later on that she’s the daughter of a handmaid. Based on the ending of The Handmaid’s Tale, it might be through June’s book that she discovers this.

Also in Atwood’s book, Aunt Lydia eventually discovers a young street urchin named Jade, who turns out to be Nicole/Holly. Together with Agnes and another young woman named Daisy (Lucy Halliday), they set out to feed information about Gilead to Canada. The women become the new forces looking to take down the society once and for all, serving as secret members of the resistance.

Of course, it’s not confirmed that the series will indeed follow the same exact stories as in the book. But the fact that Aunt Lydia is returning along with actors playing the roles of Agnes and Daisy, it can be presumed that the plot will be fairly true to Atwood’s writings. But most notably, it spoiled a lot of crucial information about how The Handmaid’s Tale would end.

The Finale Still Answered Other Questions

Despite these unintentional plot spoilers from the already confirmed sequel series, there was still a lot that fans didn’t know going into the final episode. The presumption was that June, Luke (O-T Fagbenle), or both, may die, but that never materialized; both are alive and well by the end. Fans couldn’t understand how Agnes/Hannah would still be in Gilead years later, and the finale provided context for this. While June continued to try to get Hannah out, she was clearly never successful in her goal. It’s possible June died between the present day and when The Testaments pick back up. Or Gilead simply continued to keep her far away from her daughter.

While the fates of Commander Joseph Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) and Nick Blaine (Max Minghella) were solidified in the penultimate episode, there were still a lot of questions about what happens to others that knowledge of The Testaments so far doesn’t answer. One crucial character is Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), who had turned things around so much in the final episodes that fans almost hoped for a full redemption, or at least sweet karma. She got a little bit of both.

There’s also Janine (Madeline Brewer), and while Brewer teased a darker story for her character, she was not only released from Gilead but also reunited with her daughter. Further, Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger) seemed hellbent on continuing the fight against Gilead, believing as much as June that he needed to do it for the sake of his child. With Mark still in the picture by the end, fans are hopeful that the character could return as the person liaising with Aunt Lydia on the outside.

There are also characters who disappeared without closure. In a surprise cameo, Dr. Emily Malek (Alexis Bledel) returned in the finale, joining June as she stood by a storefront that was once a thriving ice cream shop. She revealed where she had been and how she had continued the fight as a Martha while still keeping in touch with her family. It finally provided a better answer than what fans got when Bledel initially decided to leave the series. So, there was plenty more story to tell regarding subplots that weren’t ruined by the existence of this spin-off sequel.

How The Handmaid’s Tale Sets Up Aunt Lydia’s Journey

Despite knowing about The Testaments, The Handmaid’s Tale ending was crucial in setting up Aunt Lydia for the future. After learning of Esther’s (McKenna Grace) pregnancy, even though she wasn’t posted as a handmaid and seeing what was being done to Janine, Aunt Lydia started to question her own beliefs. She began to see things she was blind to in Gilead, and even some of her own mistreatment of the ladies.

In Season 6, Episode 8, “Exodus,” she makes the decision to let the handmaids proceed with their plan after Serena’s wedding, even after discovering what they were doing. Her soft spot for Janine proves to be her one weakness. While she begs God for forgiveness, she can’t bring herself to stop them.

In Season 6, Episode 9, “Execution,” Aunt Lydia faces what seems to be certain death by hanging. Right before having the rope placed around her neck, she screams, calling them “wicked, Godless men,” her first overt disobedience of Gilead and its Commanders. In The Testaments, she is supposedly working as a Mayday mole within Gilead.

This also means that who Aunt Lydia becomes by the end of The Handmaid’s Tale is setting her up for redemption in The Testaments. Most notable is her final appearance, helping Naomi (Ever Carradine) release Janine and her daughter to June.

Starting with Aunt Lydia’s survival, fans of The Handmaid’s Tale who knew even surface-level details about The Testaments might have felt that the ending was ruined before the series finale even aired. Gilead still exists, and they still do horrible things. Aunt Lydia is still alive, but her views have changed, and her eyes have opened. And there was no happy reunion between Hannah and June and Luke.

For now, even knowing that The Testaments is coming and that bits and pieces of the ending of The Handmaid’s Tale have already been spoiled by it, seeing how the story comes to an end is still compelling for fans. The emotional wrap-up was the catharsis fans needed, even if the story of Gilead continues years into the future, with others picking up where June left off.