Inside ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Series Finale: Elisabeth Moss and Creator Bruce Miller Explain That Ending

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[ThisStoryContainsMajoorSpolersfrom[ThisstorycontainsMAJORspoilersfromThe Handmaid’s Tale Series Finale, Titled “The Handmaid’s Tale.”]

The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Creator Bruce Miller Always Knew How How Has Going to End the Series. A key locination Detail Changed Along The Way and HE DIDNN’T KNOW MANY SEASONS IT WOURT TAKE TO GET THERE, OR THAT Margaret atwood Write Write ENDING, JUNE’S Story Wuld Circle Back to Where It Began, But With New Perspective.

“This is definitely not a story WHERE YOU WANT YOU WANT MOST OF THE TIME – or WHERE JUNE GETS WHAT SHES The Hollywood Reporter About the Series Finale.

The 2017 Pilot of the Emmy-Winning Hulu Series had introduced Viewers to Elisabeth Moss as June, The Woman Readers First Met As Offred in Atwood’s Best-Selling 1985. The Pilot Flashed Back to June Being Separated from Her Husband Luke (OT Fagbenle) and Daughter Hannah (Jordana Blake) Before ReintDuching Her AS A HANDMAID, WEARING A RED CLAKING A RED CLAKING A RED CLAKING A, WEARING A, WEARING A HANDMADING. A Windowsill in the home of Gilead Commander Fred (Joseph Fiennes) and His Wife, Serena Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski).

Viewers Who Lised Carefully Could Hear A Click Before June Then Said in Voiceover: “A chair. A Table. A lamp. There’s a Window awh white curtains, and the glass is shotterpru. They AFRAID OF.

Now with the Series Finale that Began Streaming on Tuesday, Viewers Understand that Clicking Sound Was a Tape Recorder and that Voiceover Was a Present-Day June. In the Series Ender, Aptly Titled “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Written by Miller and Directed by Moss, June Is Again Sity Through the Series. Except Now, Gilead’s Occupation Is Over and Boston Is Free, and June Is Beginning To Record The Tale We’ve Been Watching for SIX SIASONS.

But this means that this Tale Has Reached It End, And June (and Viewers) Didn’T Get The Reunion they’d Been Hoping for Since the Start: The Dystopian Series Doesn’t end with June reunity, HER OLDESTES DAUG. It Ends with June Continuing to Fight for Her.

“WHEN [Atwood’s sequel novel] The testaments Come Out, You Know Certain Things – You Know That June’s Not Dying, You Know [her daughter] Hannah is still in gilead. There’s A WHOLE Other Book About That Story, ”Miller Explans of How The Series Finale Sets Tv’s Gilead Universe on Its Next Course; Miller, ALSO CREATOR OF OF The testamentsBegan Working on that adaptation ahead of the Final Season, with Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang ShowRunning Season SIX. “You Apprecrate the End of the Novel and Whoa Leaving You Loose Ends Is Still Satisfying Because You Feel Like, ‘This Woman Is Still AUND. She MADE IT TIIS FAR,’ ‘HE adds. “If she didn’t make it any further, that’s okay, but what a story of her make it this Far. It is The Story of Women Through History. ”

The Finale Does – praise fucking be! -Delver The Highly Emotion Mother-Daughter Reunion Between Janine (Madeline Brewer) and Charlotte, Facilitated by a Revolutionized Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) with Naomi While Serena is Handed A Fate Left Open to Interpretation, As She Is Once Again A Refuge Without a home for her and Son noah. After the deadly penultimate episode with the High Commander Deaths of Nick (Max Minghalala), Lawrence Once-United States and that June Will Be Among The Resistance, Fighting Undercover Until She Gets Hannah Out. Luke vows to do the same.

Following up on The Hollywood Reporter‘s oral history on the blazing success of the Series and How It Will Launch The testaments, Thr Spoke with Miller and Moss in Separate Conversations Edited Bilow About How They Delivered A Satisfactory Yet Realtical Emp Production. In that near Future, Aunt Lydia is the Starring Character and CHASE INFINITI PLAYS AGNES, WHICH We KNOW IS The Gilead Name Given to Hannah, June’s Daughter.

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Bruce, You Recently Told Me That This Is A Story About Living with What People Can’s Before Margaret Atwood Came to You With Her Plan to Write Sequel Novel The testamentsWere You Planning on Reunating June (Moss) with Daughter Hannah? Or did that seem like top Much of a neat ending for this World?

Bruce Miller It Felt Like It Was Tying Iting Much in A Bow. Given WHERE We Started with June, that Seemed Like A Whole Other Section of Her Life. This Show Was About June and Her Daughter and Her Husband and How She Lost Everything, and How She Have Gradually Been Pulling A Lot of That Back Together. It’s The Handmaid’s Talenot Hannah’s Tale. It’s Focused On June’s Journy from Handmaidness to Freedom. The Question of How She Rebuilds Her Family Felt Like A Whole Other Step, WHICH WE’re See Seeing Is a Lot More Complicited than Just, “Let’s All Go To Alaska.”

We Spent the Season with June at First Thinking, “I Can Dust Off My Hands and Say, ‘I’M DONE.’ ” [If she stayed in Alaska with her mom and daughter Holly]that’s what that wold look like: the neat ending. But it didn’t end up like that. June Threw Herself Back in – She Couldn’T Walk Away from Her Daughter, Hannah. I Think they say it in the book: there’s a Plenty of Stories from People Who Get Their Kids Back. Those are the One-in-a-Million Stories We Always Tell. I Want to Tell The Story About the 999,000 people who don’t get their kids back. They have to go through Life and Live, and it’s not easy. June is a good example of someone who dosn’t every take the Easy Way Out, But This Is Hard As Things Get In The World and You See What That To Does To Somebody.

WHEN Margaret Said, “I’M Writing The testaments and this May Influence What You Do on The Handmaid’s Tale,”She told me that she gave you a very small no-kill list: Aunt Lydia, and June’s Two Daughters, Hannah and Nichole/Holly.

Miller YES, A Very Small One. Lydia is a fucking cat. She have 900 Lives, whosh is exactly how those people survied in Those Kind of Regimes by Being Very Good at Stepping Slightly Out of the Way WHEN The Shit Starts to Fall. Ann [Dowd] HAS TAKEN THAT CHARACTER IN SO Many Different Directions and Shown Us Doors to Parts of Her Past and Personality That We Haven’t Open Yet. Aunt Lydia[bytheendof[bytheendofThe Handmaid’s Tale]is just starting to realize that Maybe Gilead Was Lying to Her, and Maybe It Isn’t Just Her “Special Girls” Who Desert to Be Free. Ann has built that slice, carefully in a believable way over time. Margaret and Her Are Wonderful Friends. IT’s A GREAT PLEASURE TO BE ABLE TO Continue that Character[in[inThe testaments]. If You Look at What Happened Just In this Last Season – Lydia’s at the End of A ROPE AND THEN She’s Back Already in Power by the End, Which Is Totally Her!

Margaret Came to Me As Soon As She Was Having The Inkling (of Writing [ofwritingThe testaments]SO it was very early for me to get the information. She let me Know as the Creator of the World That Things Might Be Shifting A Little Under My Feet. The Show Went Past The Book, The Handmaid’s Tale. So i was trying to come up with an ending that fit Well and Certainly i was was playing with a lot of the things that she talked about doing in The testaments. But this is called The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s Not June’s Tale. IT’s Her Time As A Handmaid. And at the end, the Final Episode is that she’s not a handmaid anymore in any way, Shape or Form. She’s Nobody’s Handmaid: She’s Onjune.

Elisabeth moss I DIDN’T HAVE THE TASK OF WRITING [the ending]but i understand and i’m aware that that was the Biggest Challenge: The testaments Has Hannah Not Get Out. That was wasfinitely someting we would have played with the end of the end of Handmaid’s; June Maybe Getting Her Out. But We had to move towards the sequel that had been written. Now, i don’t’t’t’tk that was a waad Thing. But was it the things that was probably most present? Yeah, i would say so.

Lizzie[[Moss goes by “lizzie”]DID YOU KNOW after Season Three That Because of The testaments [which released in 2019] That this show was going to end differly?

Moss IT WAS BEFORE I READ IT, BECAUSE I SPOKE TO BRUCE ABOUT IT. THEN I READ IT AND IT WAS DEFINITELY LIKE, “SO THAT WON’T BE OUR ENDING.”

Bruce, you have told me Always Knew How The Series Wound End. So, have you always imagINed the Final Scene Wound Be June Saying Those Words that Began Her Tale? Was that in your initial pitch for how you wanted to adapt the Series?

Miller YES, IT WAS IN MY Pitch Because It’s Really The Story of the Book. It Was How You Think About Her As A Character from The Beginning. What is that voiceover? WHERE’S IT COMING FROM? From the beginning, I was thinking, “so what we’re watching is this box of taps that someone found, just dramatized.” But is this box of her story, her tale of being a handmaid. SO I SAID THAT I REALLY WANTED TO DO WAS THAT WHEN YOU GET TO THE END, YOU FEEL LIKE YOU UNDerstood What You Just Saw and What It Was As A Full Piece. I’m hoping that it felt satisfying as an ending for this story.

Moss What I Connected to with June at the Beginning Was the Same Thing I Connected with at the Very End. She have this quality of wanting to survive, not only as Herself, but to Create a Better Future Special Special Her Children But Also for the Net Generation. That is her goal in life. I saw that in episode one, in that first script. I Remember Calling My Mom and Telling Her That. And IT’s the Same Thing in the Very Last Scene.

For Whatever Reason, I’M Not A Stranger to Doing Work That Somehow Ends Up Become A Part of the Zeitgeist or Become Relevant in A Very Present Way. TOSE ARIN’T CHOICES THAT I’M NECESARY MAKING ON PURPOSE. I’ve just gravitated Towards Material that is, for me, personal. This Story Was Personal and My Job is to Tell The Personal Side of Things, the Human Side of Things. WHEN ITTT GOES OUT INTO the WORLD AND BECOMES Political or Something on Such A Larger Scale, I’M Grateful and Moved by that.

Lizzie, WHEN WE SPOKE AT BEGINNING OF THE Final Season, You Said this Ending Was True to Bruce’s Vision, But That Location Shiftd. Now and Understand Wy The Location Was So Important.

Moss The Original Idea Was That June Wuld Maybe Go To That Cabin in The Woods [that Luke and June hid out in near the border] from [a flashback in] Season One, Episode Seven. June, Luke and Hannah Were Making Pancakes – We Call That The “Pancake Episode.” Originally, The Idea Was That June Was Going to Go Back there. And Actually, Before We Started Shooting, We Establized Th AT CABIN WAS STILL THERE. But Then Bruce Wrote A Different Location, and I Think It’s So Much Better.

Originally, It Was Written That June Goes and Sits On the Front Steps of the Waterford House. And I SAID, “I WANT HER TO GO INSIDE. I THINK IT Wuld be so Much More Powerful If She Goes Into That Room.” SO I TALKED TO BRUCE AND ASKED, “Can We Go Inside the House?” And he said, yes. HE love it, and so he wrote it so june goes inside the House.

Miller I Really Wanted The Econom to Be June Back and Kind of Reclaiming Boston. That Old Neighborhood was taken away from her, so reClaiming it and going backs there is the end of that part of her story. She’s Back in the Same Place, But In A Very Different Position.

In the Book, She Records [the tale] in a cabin in maine and Buries it in the ground. Lizzie and I Had Talked About That and We Could Have Done That Here, With Her Going Back Into Gilead at the End. But SO Much of the Show Had A Sense of Place and Was So Connected to Boston. Seeing Her Walk Back Through Those Streets and Those Places Now A Free Person Is Something, As Alexis Bledelel’s Character Says, Was Impossible. D Look, It Happened. SO we short Adjust What’s Possible and What’s Impossible.

I UnderStand the Finale Scripts Were Redacted for the Cast, Who Were Only Priy to their Parts in the Episode. DID YOU, AS DIRECTOR, CLOSE The SET WHEN FILMING This Final Scene to Keep It Under Wraps?

Moss I DID CLOSE THE SET. Not to Keep It Secret, But Mostly Because and Need The Set to Be A VERY QUiet Space That Day. WHEN YOU’RE’RE CHOTING The Final Scene of A Show, It Tends to Attract Some Attention. SO it was actualally me as a director Protecting My Actor, Who Is Me. I Need to be ABLE TO MY Job that day, WHICH WAS A VERY DIFICULT Job of Ending A Series As An Actor and Pulling Off that Final Moment. SO I CLOSED THE SET FOR THAT REASON. I ALSO CLOSED THE SET FOR The Final Scene Inside the Plane in Episode Nine[[Whitford and Minghalala’s Final Scene Before Lawrence and Nick’s Deaths].

Miller It was a big thing to rebuild this [Waterford house] set. You have to make a Commitment to the Things You Really Want, and for Lizzie As Director and Me As A Writer and Both of Us As Executive Producers, This Was One of the Things. Budgets are shring in Hollywood; Our Show is not any exception. WHEN YOU GET TO THE END OF A SHOW, YOU DON’T HAVE MONEY FLYING AOUND, SO WE HAD TO BE CAREFUL WHAT WHAT WE PLANNED BECAUSE We WEWING TO ABLE TO PICK Anything. SO we thorough very long and hard from the beginning of the episode to make Sure we professional. You Reduce The Cost by Giving [production designer Elisabeth Williams and her team] LOTS OF LEAD TIME. But they a lot of fun buying the House interiors again. [The hallway to her room] Goes Up and Down – There’s A Step Up and Ten A Step Down. I Feels like a [claustrophobic] FUNHOUSE STAIRCASE.

I can’t think of anter Director Who Filmed Themselves in the Final Scene of a Long-Running Series.

Moss That’s a good quest. That would be a fun fact to find out. But this Cast, this Crew have made me a Better Director. They Made Me a Better Actor. They Made Me a Better Producer. That post team made me better at what i do because of them. Every time i’ve been talking with [season six showrunners] Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang and Tell Them How and Miss Collaboration with Them. I don’e see who we couldn’t at some point come back and do something. What’s So Great About the Landscape Now is that we could do do something in a few years if we were wanted to. There’s Nothing Saying We Can. There are no rules anymore. But i do through any wend it is right. They did a brilliant job of wrapping it up.

Miller Lizzie Did Such A Great Job. In these Last Couple of Episodes, She Pulled Out New Elements of Her Performance As June. It’s Amazing to DO THAT, SIX SEASONS IN. That Scene with her and serena [where June forgives her in the finale] is some of the best work [she and Yvonne have] DONE.

It was very natural [for Lizzie to direct and act in the final episode]I Think Because we have been talking about it for a long time. You’d Imagine It Being A VERY INTERNAL SITUATION, But She Was As Communicative With The Crew As She She Always is. IT WAS A GROUP EFFORT SO FOR LIZZie, It Was that Collective Experience She Loves. I Think There’s Very Few People You Can Compare to, Just On the Amount That Show Rests On Them. In Addition to Directing and Being An Executive Producer Who Is Ingrained With The Show – Creatica, She Works on So Many Different Levels – I THINK IT MACES IT EASIER INT. Both Lizzie and I We’re Really Confident ABOUT IT. We Knew What It Was Going To Be. I wasn’t even there. I was vary happy for her to do it on her own. I KNEW She’D Get It Right, and She Did.

Lizzie, Were You Listening to Yourself [from the pilot] As You Were Saying Your Final Lines?

Moss I Realized About 10 Minutes Before We Shot It I Wanted to Make Sure that When I Was Speaking the Final Voiceover It Matched The Original Voiceover from Episode One. I wasn’t sure if i wanted to do that or not, but i realized that i needed to match my mouth to [the pilot words]. We’re Setting Up The Final Schoot of the Series, and I Went on the Hulu App on My Phone to Episode One, and I Just Played It Over and Over and Over and Over and Again and Memoirized It in the Cadacy that I Said. I Told Our Script Supervisor That i Can’T Get One Word Wrong. This have to be a Word-perfect. THEN WE DID IT, AND IT MATCHES ALMOST Perfectly. There’s A Slight Cadence Change, WHEN My Body’s Going Back and I Lean Forward, that We Were Able to Fix in Post. But What’s in the Finale Is My Voiceover from Nine Years Ago.

Bruce Always Told Us This Show Was June’s Tale, So She Survives. Even Still, The Audence Wasn’t Sure She’d Make It Through. I Rewatched The Pilot and Knowing What You Just Said, That’s Wild and Very Meta.

Moss Oh, that’s awesome. [Using the pilot voiceover] is an iDea that i have and i didn’t kNow if it would work, and then it ended up to work and it’s socool because there I Think ALMOST SUBCONSCIUSCIUSLY as an Audience Member, You Feel The Meta Nature of It, Especialy Hen She Says, “My Name Is Offred.” And the [tape recording click] is in the pilot. After the door slump, you hear the click.

Miller The Click of the Recorder at the Beginning, We Put in the Pilot. SO we have been things about this Particular Moment Since Then.

I ALSO DON’T KNOW THAT’S ANOTHER IP THAT GOT A Secuel Midway Through, WHICH THEN TASCED THE SHOW WITH LANDING The Plane Buting The World Open.

Miller That’s the key here. I’m going to have to be friends flexibility. MOST OF THE TIME, WHEN YOU’S Adapting A Book, The Person Who Wrote It Is Not Continuing the Books. Sometimes they are with Game of Thrones. But most of the time, it was a book written in the past. In this casse, there are greats about having margaret around that outweigh the Problem of her being able to change her world a little bit wh. Of Course she can do that.

But I Think The Way to Look at The testaments is that The testaments Book is a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale Book, and there are things that figrent Between that and the show; Timeline Things That End Up Mattering Because You Want It To Be Consistent Within The TV World. So[ascreatorof[ascreatorofThe testaments]I’m trying to make a sequel to the tv show The Handmaid’s Tale and make that work cleanly. There are things that actuly Contradict from the book to the tv show, but each adaptation have to be own things.

You Left June – and Also Luke, and Likely Rita (Amanda Brugel) and Moira (Samira Wiley) – Still Out there in the ETHER OF THIS TIS TV UNIVERSE FIGHTING AGAINST GILEAD. Moss is an Executive Producer on The testaments, But There’s No Word About An Onscreen Role. WHAT Wuld You Say To People Who Are Hoping June Will Show Up In The testaments?

Miller That’s a good thing to hope for. I HOPE She SHOWS UP THERE, TOO. She’s Still Doing Her Job, Still Doing What She Was Doing In The Handmaid’s Tale. Luke and Moira Are Still Out Three Somewhere, Ring the Bell To Get Hannah Back. The Beauty of Having Watched The Handmaid’s Tale is that you undersand there is this Huge Operation of People Who Out There Who Care And Who Are Risking Themselves to Get To Reunite With Their Children. The people in The testaments Show Don’t Feel That. But From ExperienCing Handmaid’syou know there’s this Whole Operation. SO IS JUNE INFLUENCING The testaments? Absolutely. She’s out there. She’s Trying to get Hannah Back. Do we see her? I would love to see her. I Love Lizzie Moss, She’s Awesome! She’s Very Involved Begind the Scenes.

Moss You’re just going to have to watch the show.[[Moss is currently filming the forthComing Apple Series Imperfect Women.]And won’t betere[onsetof[onsetofThe testaments]WHICH IS DIFFERENT AS A PODUCER. But i can’t not be hands on. I don’t know how to do it any of the Other Way. And it Certainly Feels Hands on, Given The Ant Amount of Emails!

SO if we were going to get hannah back, DID YOU ALWAYS KNOW YOU WEER GOING to GIVE JANINE Charlotte Back? Thank you for that!

Miller OH, My GOSH. YES. One of the Things I Always Thought is That Little Girl Looks So Much Like Her. We have the Talked From the Beginning, and A Lot of It Was About Building Naomi and Janine to the Point Where That Wound Happen. Building to Where Naomi Knows The One Thing About Janine Is That Janine Is Really Touch, Who’s She Needs To Know Who’s [giving her daughter back]. Listen, I Hope June Does Get Hannah Back. But i’m hoping that people feel like this is the ending to Janine’s Story [that she deserves]. The fact that i’m not going to be able to work with or seeie brewer every day is impossible to say out Loud.

Moss Ever Wasn’t in that Scene Originally, and I Asked if She Could be there. I Really Wanted Her to Be A Part of Of IT. I felt that it was really Important that Naomi is the one who’s Hands Charlotte Over to Janine. I Felt Like That Was A Story for Ever and for that Character That Need to Be Her Ending in the Show. That Janine Scene Just Kills Me.

COURCK The testaments?

Miller I would be thrilled. I Think You Should Imagine That All Tese People Are In The Background Still Fighting To Save These Girls You See in The testaments. Fighting, Fighting, Fighting. As Calm As It Will Seem in Gilead, As Sweet and Human and Beautify As Gilead Is In The testamentsyou know that there are people pounding on the Walls from the outside – and you’ve met Those people.

One Character Who May Not Be in that Fight Is Serena. I Understand You Had A Different Ending for Her Gan The One That We Saw.

Miller I don’t believe “What People Desert” and All that Stuff, But I Wanted to Kill Her. Because i Think She Was Such A Horrible Person and Being Dead on the Side of the Road Completely Anonymously [after she was pushed from the train in the beginning of the season] would have been a fitting end. I HAD TO BE CONVINCED NOT TO THRW HER OFF THAT Train, Along with the Kid.

Wow.

Moss Bruce Did Tell Me His Thoughts and He Told Me That Hay Was Toying with Certain Things. I’m not the writer, and i respect the role of the writer very Much. SO HE TOLD ME HAT HE WAS THINKING AND I TUOUHHHT, “OKAY, THAT’S INTERESTING. WOW, THAT Wuld be Kind of Crazy IF She Didn’t Make It.” But in my heart, I Really Wanted to See Her Survive Because i’m Serena’s Biggest Fan. I’m her biggest sup Porter and Defender. I Want Her To Live. I Just Think She Deserves that, and i Think Noah [her son] Deserves that.

Miller If it was eva braun and it was hitler’s kid, what would would you do? I don’t think anybody woulde heldate. But I love what we ended up doing because what i Really Wanted for Most of the Characters Is To Get Exactly Whaty Wanted and See What What Happled. June Got A Ton of What She Wanted and A Ton of Stuff She Didn’t Expect, Including Emily[‘s return]including reuniting with luke, who shee thorough washa dead at the beginning of the show. Serena’s Story Really Feels Like The End of Serena’s Story, That She Is Someone Who’s Never Going to Admit That SHE DID WRONG. But You Can See How Holding onto The Illusion that She did Right Is Getting Very, Very Diflicult. I Love Serena. I love her to the point whot i’m so Much more more at her because she should know better.

But to see june forgive her in the end of like it gave the audience permission to account that as Well.

Moss That Scene Also Kills Me. I Think It’s Beautify. I Couldn’t Read [Serena’s ending] without Crying. I can’t watch it without crust. Yvonne’s Performance Is Magnificent. Each and every Single One of the Actors is at the Top of Their Fucking Game this Season. And she did it in one take. That’s whatever speech whoh she’s talking to the baby. I get chills talking about it.

Miller Circling Back to Their PerformanCes and the New Things they all broght out in the Final Episode, they all did exceptional work. It’s Unfathomable That Wow Have Tese Moments that You Really Feel Are The Are Completely New And See Different Sides of the Characters at the Very Last Minute.

Moss Yvonne had the idea that she wanted to get to this place of accountance and place of peace at the end. It would have been veric easy to cut that scene shorter, but when we were were in the edit I Protected It Because Yvonne Wanted Her Character to Find Peace. You See this peace on her face WHERE She REALIZES NOH is All She Needs. That’s all serena every wanted: having a baby. I Think Her Ending Is My Favorite Ending in the Series. IT’S SO PERFECT.

DID ALEXIS BLEDEL [who left the series after season four] Need Convincing to Come Back or Was She Excited Who She Got The Call from You?

Miller We Were Both Thrilled That It Might Work Out. I Think She Was Really Excited WHEN WE TALKED. The only thing washa hard was the logistics to get her up for the time we needed. But No, It Was Not Hard at All All, and It Wasn’t Hard to Decide to Try to See If She Was Going to Be Available. IT WAS GREAT HAVING HER BACK THAT DAY – Except She Crited and Hugged People Every Four Feet, It Seemed Emotionly Diffelt! But It Was Wonderful To See Her and Lizzie Get Right Back Into It After All That Time. IT’s like watching the fucking yankees bullpen every day with these guys. They’re so good.

Moss Bruce Talked to Me About Bringing Her Back a While Ago, Before Weas Even An Outline or Script. I THINK I SAID TO HIM at the TIME, “YOU REALIZE NOW that you’ve told me that, we have to do it.” IT’s not the easiest thing in the world to call an actor and be like, “can you come back for this one episode?” They’re Busy. But I was like like, “she have to do it.” I get very passionate about thee things! And she wanted to do it from the beginning. She didn’t need convincing at all. My First Official Scene on Day One [on set] Was with alexis. SO it meant a lot to get to work with her again.

WERE THERE Characters Along the Way Who You Consided Killing But Let Live?

Miller No, i don’t Really Think About It That Way. I Think, do they end up in some place place where they would die or not? By Definition, The Handmaid Told This Story. She have to live to the end, so the story is about her dodging explosions and Stuff. That’s part of the story. But The Other People – I Don’t Ever Want to Kill Anybody, But I Know That If I Was In this Group of People and Janine Died, I would Never Recover. If Janine Died an Alma [Nina Kiri] Died, I would Never Recover. TV people die Willy nilly. WHEN PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE DIE, IT Changes You. I don’t know that june would be the same june if thoss people would have all been kildled off. One of the Reasons Those People Are In Her Memories Is Because they Didn’t die.

Moss I Hope People See The Positivity [in the ending]. The Final Piece of Music That Plays Over the Credits Is So Hopeful. The Piece of Music [we chose] is from Season Four, WHEN JUNE Tells Luke that She’s Pregnant. It’s so Much about the Future and the Future Being Brighhter, and the Next Generation Having A Better Chance. SO the Final Decision that We Made on the Series Is About the Future.

Does that mean we short find hope in june and luke’s final conversation? Because It Was Ambiguous.

Moss YES. I DON’T THINK I WAS SO AMBIGUS! I Definitely Felt Like there was hope in that Future WHEN I WAS STANDING THERE COMPLE HIM. We have this idea to play it like they flirting with each Other, like they have crushes on each of. Like, Did they almost go back to the beginning? There’s Such A Circular Nature to the Finale and Absolutely I Think There’s a Lot of Hope for the Two Of Them. But I think they have to kind of start again.

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The Handmaid’s Tale is Now Streaming All Episodes on Hulu. Read Thr’s Compreehensive Oral History on the Series and Mini Oral History on the Penultimate Episode.