What ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ star Elisabeth Moss ‘stressed about’ for a year and a half while filming the final season

WARNING: This story contains spoilers from Season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Fresh off the series finale, The Handmaid’s Tale cast and creatives gathered Wednesday at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles to reflect on the Emmy-winning show’s full-circle moments — and to reveal a surprise guest.

Calling the final scenes of the six-season series “a very meta experience to film,” star, director, and executive producer Elisabeth Moss described the moment her character, June Osborne, walks through the ruins of the Waterfords’ home and reflects on her past as a handmaid, known as Offred, in the Boston household.

“It was a really beautiful experience, because we had a closed set just to keep it really nice and calm,” said Moss, who directed four episodes this season, including the finale, during the FYC event. “Every single member of this crew took it upon themselves that this was going to be the best scene they had ever done, and everything had to be perfect.”

Based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale imagines an alternate America overtaken by Gilead, a theocratic totalitarian regime where women are forced into reproductive servitude. The dystopian series premiered on Hulu in 2017, as a new political administration took power in the United States — coincidentally led by the same official who entered office as Season 6 debuted earlier this year.

“When I read [creator] Bruce Miller's words, I felt that it was such a powerful message of rebellion, of fighting — a very feminist story,” said executive producer Warren Littlefield during the panel. “This was developed in the Obama years. We could see the far right on the horizon throughout the world. But we loved the message, echoed so much in this final season: Don’t give up the fight.”

In the finale, Boston is liberated from Gilead’s control by American forces. June, now a free woman, walks the city and reconnects with a familiar face — Emily Malek, the first resistance fighter she encountered in the series, played by Alexis Bledel.

Bledel joined the panel onstage as a surprise guest and reflected on what it meant to reunite the two characters.

“The fact that the finale brings us full circle and has June and Emily walking together in freedom felt so meaningful and seemed to inform so much about each of their journeys, as well as the way they were intertwined from the beginning,” Bledel said. “Being back on set in the context of freedom felt very different. I almost expected to have the bonnet on again.”

Moss admitted she had heard early on that Emily’s character might return for the finale — but making it happen was the challenge.

“Our first official day one was with Alexis. And she’s why June became who she is,” Moss said. “Once I heard that, I was just basically stressed about it for the next year and a half — whether or not we were actually going to be able to get her to come back and then keep it a secret for so long.”

The two-part panel also featured co-showrunners Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang, as well as cast members Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd, O-T Fagbenle, Madeline Brewer, Amanda Brugel, Sam Jaeger, Ever Carradine, and Josh Charles, who shared pivotal turning points for their characters.

Strahovski said getting Serena to a point of apology by the series’ end had everything to do with June.

“I think so much of her journey has to do with June’s belief in Serena — that she can ultimately change — and that never wavered,” Strahovski said. “That’s what allows her to evolve. If she didn’t have someone in her life forcing her to see what she has done, I don’t think she would have gotten there.”

While The Handmaid’s Tale is concluding, the story will continue in The Testaments, a sequel that will center on Dowd’s character, Aunt Lydia.

Littlefield gave a preview of the upcoming Hulu series, which Moss is also executive producing. It’s based on Atwood’s 2019 novel of the same name.

“Four years after the end of Handmaid’s Tale, and we’re in a world that is Virginia, Maryland,” Littlefield said. “We’re away from the Boston area, and this is from the point of view of the young women coming of age in Lydia’s school.”

He continued, “These young women have never known a world other than Gilead, and that world is bright and beautiful and seductive — and yet it’s still Gilead. And so that’s the realization. Lydia has started the school to try and reform from within, rather than blow up Gilead.”

Moss herself has grown significantly since the show’s first season, a transformation she credits to Miller and Littlefield.

“They were the original executive producers that I worked with the most, and they recognized that the female voice was really necessary in that position to the show, and they gave me a seat at the table when they honestly didn’t have to,” Moss said. “I’ll always be forever grateful to the both of them for that.”