The Handmaid's Tale Boss Reveals The Character He Almost Killed Off In The Series Finale (But Didn't)
This post contains spoilers from The Handmaid's Tale's series finale. Proceed accordingly.
Though June Osborne had several very close calls over The Handmaid's Tale's six-season run, Tuesday's series finale ended with Elisabeth Moss' character alive, well and ready to continue the fight against Gilead. (Read a full finale recap here.)
June's survival got us thinking: Was any character on the Hulu series in real danger of not being alive by the time the finale's credits rolled? For an answer, we went directly to executive producer Bruce Miller, who wrote the episode. Come to see who narrowly avoided danger, stay for the discussion about the change in June's dialogue as the seasons progressed. (And for Moss' thoughts on directing the series' ending, go here.)
TVLINE | Was there any character whose fate was up in the air as you were writing the finale? Did anyone have a near-miss in the mind of Bruce Miller?
Certainly Serena [played by Yvonne Strahovski], because I felt like, in that situation, what would really happen is probably at some checkpoint they would pull her out, find out who she is and execute her by the side of the road. That's what Mayday would do if they found her. Because that's what almost happened every time she runs into a group of people is that they almost execute her! [Laughs] So that really was in my mind for a long time.
But I also felt like there was something about the way June — and as you see by the end, this is really her telling the story — I think she would have told Serena's story differently if the end was that she was dead. I don't know why, but it feels like Serena wins if she dies. [In that case] she gets the last word. And I don't want June feeling sorry for her. June forgives Serena for June, not for Serena, because as she said, "You gotta start somewhere." [Serena was kept alive] more for June and for the story, and also for what I consider real retribution for Serena: You know, 20 years, 30 years from now, when her son says, "What did you do, Mom?" That's what you want.
TVLINE | I also do not doubt that Serena will end up on her feet again, like, with her own island somewhere.
She's so f—king capable! [Laughs] I wish I had that confidence.
TVLINE | Tell me if I'm looking too closely at this: It seemed to me that June's language got a little more religious this season, particularly in the second half of the season. She tells Serena to "go with grace." She quotes Scripture to Aunt Lydia. Earlier in the show, she had a lot of anger about organized religion and how it was being yielded. So tell me what you all were thinking about this at the end of the series.
It's something I've been thinking about from the beginning with June. She has a genuine affection for religion, where she went to church with her dad, it was a choice. She really liked all the trappings of Catholicism. It was big and fun and pretty and had a lot of songs and all sorts of stuff. But also, I think she comes to religion primarily as a reader. There's a million times where people quote the Bible to her and she immediately comes back quoting it correctly. I always loved that about her. For me, it was very simply: They took it away from her, she's taking it back, and she's not gonna let them... co-opt "go with grace." "Go with grace" is a beautiful expression, and it means something to June. She's taking it back and reclaiming all the things that they took.
Religious language is definitely something where I feel like she feels like when they say it, they don't believe it. And so for a while, she wouldn't say it. But now she says it with the belief behind it that's a countermeasure to their taking away all the meaning from that stuff or turning it.
I love when she goes toe-to-toe with [High Commander Wharton]. Josh Charles' character thinks he knows everything and thinks he knows everything about the Bible and is so certain. She's just as well-versed as he is! She's a book editor. She's f—king smart and also, she's smart in that word way where she's like, "No, that wasn't that phrase. It was this that I read 25 years ago," because she's good at that. I always love when she's arguing from a position of strength that completely supersedes the other person's position of strength. And in this case, memory and understanding of text is really her wheelhouse. I love that right there at the end, she's so calm. She's not panicked. She's ready to make her mental arguments, even under that stress.
TVLINE | Is there a scene or shot in the finale that hit you harder than you expected it would?
In the finale, when June returns to the Waterford house, we have this absolutely beautiful shot. It moved me in a lot of ways. First of all, I was there, and I hadn't been back to that location for a while. We haven't been there for a while. We were there quite a bit at the beginning [of the show's run], and that neighborhood was very kind to us and let us park in their driveways and things, and we were a pain in the a–. [Laughs]
The shot is so beautiful. It's one of the more beautiful shots of that house that we've ever done. And the way that they did it is, it's a drone, but it's also that they figured out when the sun on that day was going to rise right behind the house, and exactly when it was going to peep over, and then shot then... It was so much effort to make it iconic in the last episode.
That was the thing: Everybody was f—king bringing it the very last day. Lizzy [Moss] and I had a conversation about what it's gonna be like the last day, and I said, "It's just gonna be like the first day. We're just gonna do good work, and go home."
And when you look at the first day we shot, Day Zero, was the aquarium. And we have the shots of June, Luke and Hannah in the aquarium, and they're in the finale. Shots from the first day of shooting, we used in the very last.