[SPOILER] Makes Surprise Return for 'The Handmaid's Tale' Final Season in Emotional Episode 1 Moment
The Handmaid’s Tale is back for its sixth and final season and there was a very special, surprise return of a former cast member in the season premiere.
Hulu debuted the first three episodes of the season on Tuesday (April 8) and the remaining seven episodes will drop weekly until the series finale on May 27.
The first episode of the season follows June (Elisabeth Moss) on a journey away from Toronto in hopes of finding salvation elsewhere. When she gets to her destination, she is reunited with someone very special to her.
Keep reading to find out more…
June finds her mother Holly (Cherry Jones) when she arrives at a refugee camp in Alaska!
Holly has only been seen in three episodes in the past and always through flashbacks. She was last seen in season three and it was presumed that she died in the Colonies. We learn in episode two that Holly survived thanks to her skills as a doctor, which made her useful in the Colonies. She later escaped when the U.S. Army arrived.
Elisabeth Moss opened up about Holly’s return in an interview with TheWrap.
“I think in the story of June in The Handmaid’s Tale, literally in the definition of the title, it’s her story of her as a mother. In order to really, fully explore that story and the complexity of it and the arc of it that happens,” she said. “As a child your relationship changes with your parents as you get older that dynamic shifts a bit as you both change. So I feel like in order to fully explore that story for June, her mother has be a part of it. Her mother has taught her how to fight, her mother taught her to be the person that she is, her mother gave her the strength that she has to go and fight for her own daughters. I don’t know how you tell June’s story without Holly.”
Showrunner and executive producer Eric Tuchman added, “We wanted the end of the first episode to have a feeling of uplift and hopefulness, and that came in the form of this reunion that she has with her mom that she thought was dead. And June, through her experience, has now become more like her mother. She was taught to fight, she was taught to be resilient. She was taught to be concerned and empathetic with about other people. So the two of them really kind of have kind of this kind of give and take that by the end of the second episode, they find this balance with each other — this beautiful balance and appreciation for each other.”
The full cast for the upcoming The Handmaid’s Tale follow-up series has been announced!