It is a day for trailers. The latest is for the sixth and final season of The Handmaid's Tale, Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel about a totalitarian government that forces the few remaining women capable of bearing children to be slaves called handmaids. Technically, the show finished adapting Atwood's book pretty quickly, but it has gone on and on and on. Watch the trailer for the final episodes above.
We pick up with main character June (Elisabeth Moss), as she resolves once again to take down the the tyrannical state of Gilead, which rules over most of what used to be the United States. She's been at this for a while now, but we'll finally see whether she succeeds or fails, because at long last there is no time left.
“In the final season ofThe Handmaid’s Tale, June’s unyielding spirit and determination pull her back into the fight to take down Gilead,” reads the official synopsis for the season, per The A.V. Club. “Luke (O.T. Fagbenle) and Moira (Samira Wiley) join the resistance. Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) tries to reform Gilead while Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) and Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) reckon with what they have wrought, and Nick (Max Minghella) faces challenging tests of character. This final chapter of June’s journey highlights the importance of hope, courage, solidarity, and resilience in the pursuit of justice and freedom.”
The description and trailer keep things pretty general, but clearly June will step up her efforts in this final season. At one point she quotes Psalm 23:4, adopting the religious rationalizes that Gilead uses to enslave handmaids and using it against them.
The Handmaid's Tale began during the first presidency of Donald Trump, and imagery from the show popped up often in popular culture as a way to express anxiety about Trump rolling back the rights of women. Since then, the national right to abortion was overturned by Supreme Court judges appointed by Trump, so it seemed like the metaphor had legs. But the show itself seemed to fade into the background. It's funny — not "funny ha ha," but funny — that the final season will air during the first year of Trump's second presidency as he embraces authoritarianism. Will the show return to cultural relevance, or just please those fans who have stuck around? We'll find out when new episodes start to drop on April 8.
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