The Handmaid's Tale: Season 3: Ending Explained Breakdown

After a pretty slow Season 3, the ending of the Handmaids Tale has arguably dropped one of it’s most shocking cliffhangers ever.

Throughout this, I’ll be breaking down everything that you need to know about the finale as well as giving my thoughts on the season as a whole.

There will be Heavy Spoilers here, so if you don’t want to know anything about the final episode then I highly recommend that you turn off now.

With that out the way, I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this now let’s get into my ending explained breakdown of The Handmaid’s Tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale: Season 3 Plot Recap

So Season 3 has pretty much been about June having enough with life in Gilead and after seeing many characters die over the last 13 episodes decided that enough was enough and that it was time to break the children out of the country.

Alongside Commander Lawrence, things throughout the season seemed to be going June’s way and it could be argued that she’s had quite an easy ride this time around….well in comparison to other seasons anyway. A lot of her plans have fallen into place throughout the series. You might even be able to throw a handmaid’s tale party to celebrate…..yeah maybe not.

Her main mission this time was to get 52 children free from Gilead and the finale opened with a flashback of her from when she was first captured seeing many mothers, including herself losing their children. This of course mirrors her plan which is to take the children back and you really get the feeling that this is a completely personal mission for June who finally wishes to right all the wrongs that have been dealt to her and the women of Gilead.

She even powers past Commander Lawrence, refusing to quit the plan when things look like they could go awry. Whilst things do have a rather positive end, that doesn’t mean that it’s all smooth sailing for all characters and we pick up with Serena, who after the last episode was exposed by her husband for her war crimes. Serena is arressted and it finally looks like we can dance in the streets singing ding dong the witch is dead.

June doesn’t have time to celebrate though and after Lawrence tells June that he won’t escape due to the fact he too will probably be arressted as a war criminal, he deicides to remain behind to let her go and be the Moses of her own story.

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3 Ending Explained

Alongside the Marthas, June and the children head towards the airport through the woods and if you’re not having an Anxiety attack by this point then don’t worry because the show still has some surprises up it’s sleeve.

At the Airport the police show up June sees no other option but to distract the authorities and to sacrifice herself which allows the children time to escape to Canada and to reunite with Moira, Emily and Luke which is a really triumphant moment.

June isn’t out of the woods yet literally and she is shot during the final few scenes of the season. We close with June in the forest being carried away as handmaids gather around her. She begins to dream of Hannah and Luke and in the final look we see her close her eyes, smiling as she thinks of all the lives that she saved.

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Predictions

This ends the show on a huge cliffhanger and there’s actually a lot of speculation on the internet as to whether June is alive or dead. There are a couple of hints that this may have been her final episode throughout with the character pretty much becoming a Martyr in the storyline. Personally, I actually think that the showrunners may kill the character off and potentially focus on a new main character that is sort of inspired by June’s heroic acts.

The Handmaid’s tale has never been one for cliches and with there being a slightly negative feeling towards the third season and it’s repetitive feeling, I think this would be the perfect opportunity to veer off into uncharted territory with a new perspective and someone that could really go on a huge arc in the upcoming seasons. June is no longer afraid of the consequences of her actions and she is almost above those in Gilead, flat out disobeying them at the majority of times which I think completes her arc.

However, if they do decide to keep her alive then I can see her possibly getting out of Gilead in the next season and our focus shifting to a new character or potentially showing her work on the outside as she tries to bring down Gilead from Canada.

Either way, there’s a lot of new directions that the show could take and I am excited to see where it heads in the future.

Handmaid’s Tale Season 3 Review

But what did I think of the Season overall, well I think on the whole this has probably been the weakest of all three seasons, with the show veering off into meandering territory on several occasions that left it feeling slightly underwhelming. Until probably the latter part of the season there just weren’t the gut punches that we had become accustomed to and this, on the whole, left me feeling slightly disappointed in the overall run.

I’m not saying it’s time to completely close the book on the characters but I do think that there is an opportunity here to discover new and exciting venues and hopefully going forward the show takes it.

Whilst it wasn’t terrible, Season 3 didn’t live up to the highs and lows of the prior series and that’s why it gets a…

7/10

Your Thoughts

Obviously, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the finale of The Handmaids Tale Season 3, do you think June is alive or dead and what you hope to see in the future? Comment below and let me know!