Warning: This article contains MANY spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale season three, including for the upcoming season finale. If you’re not caught up yet, or want to watch the final without knowing any spoilers, bookmark us and come back once you’re ready to properly debrief. Ready? Let’s go!
Like a Martha smuggling a stolen child across Boston to the Lawrence house, we are REALLY BLOODY NERVOUS.
We’ve even been stress-baking muffins (or at least thinking about stress-baking muffins) because muffins mean yes, and YES we’re about to watch the The Handmaid’s Tale season three finale and YES those children better make it to Canada.
Here’s the trailer for the season finale and… Oh my god it’s going to be good. Post continues below video.
If you’ve also been stressed, look, we have news. It may or may not bring you comfort, but at least you’ll be able to stop anxiously tapping your fingers in anticipation for approximately two minutes.
After gathering information from the interwebs, we’ve put together a list of things you can expect from The Handmaid’s Tale season 3, episode 13, Mayday.
This is your final warning: If you don’t want to know any spoilers for the upcoming finale, turn back now.
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Before you read about the final, Mamamia recaps The Handmaid’s Tale season 3, episode 12, Sacrifice. Post continues below audio.
Is everyone who doesn’t want to see spoilers gone?
Okay, let’s do this.
Commander Lawrence will have second thoughts.
I mean, sure, his wife just died and he’s risking his life by doing this but SERIOUSLY DUDE COME ON.
“I’m pulling the plug,” he tells June in the trailer, but nothing is going to stop her at this point.
“You are not in charge,” she says.
He probably regrets giving her that gun now, huh?
We won’t find out if Lawrence knows about June’s hand in Eleanor’s death.
Showrunner Bruce Miller told Variety‘s TV Take podcast that the scary look Commander Lawrence gave June at the end of episode 12, Sacrifice, was Lawrence trying to figure June out.
"He has a great understanding of human nature but not such great intuition of human nature, so in some ways he’s looking at her and trying to puzzle out, ‘Could she be this? Could she be that?'" Miller said.
But, he admitted that the finale won't tackle that question because there is just too much else to get through in one episode, but it's a story he wants to flesh out in season 4.
Serena will face consequences.
PRAISE BE.
For some reason, the Israeli trailer (which is usually released not quite a day after the standard one) is always so much juicier than the one Hulu puts out.
Why? We don't know, but we are forever grateful.
In the Israeli trailer for the finale (which you can watch on Reddit here), we get an extra glimpse into what is going to go down with Fred and Serena and it looks like Fred's about to get some serious payback on his wife.
Serena has immunity for crimes committed in Gilead, because 1. She made a deal with Tuello and 2. It can be argued her crimes were committed under duress.
"What Serena did is far beyond the laws of Gilead," Fred tells who we assume from the back of his head is Mr Coconuts and Treason.
Then a shot shows Serena, who's somehow managed to have another visit with Nichole and the social worker, being approached by Tuello and another officer, who grabs her as she says "I don't understand what's going on".
What could Fred have on her that's 'beyond the laws' of Gilead?
He knows Nichole is Nick's child... and so does Luke. Could Luke's folder - which is left in Fred's cell in episode 12 and may include the tape June sent him - provide Fred with the proof he needs to take Serena down for this?
There will be a flashback of June, Luke and Hannah.
The finale's director Mike Barker shared a still to Instagram that shows there's going to be at least one flashback to June, Luke and Hannah's life before Gilead.
The flashback shows the family at a park and um... we have no idea what it means.
Rita makes it out of Gilead.
This bodes well for the plane full of children!
In a (now deleted) interview, actress Amanda Brugal said Rita meets Luke in the finale, and there's really only one way that could happen.
The children will (probably) get to Canada.
The Handmaid's Tale is dark, but is it dark enough to put dozens of children at risk or worse - kill them off?
Surely not.
Leaked images from behind-the-scenes show that they at least make it to the plane. Whether that plane makes it out of Gilead is not 100 per cent confirmed, but the photos show what appears to be a giant red and white flag hanging from the ceiling... which looks very much like the Maple Leaf.
Of course, if Rita makes it to Canada there's basically no chance it would be separate from the plane, and honestly THANK GOD WE ALL NEED THIS.
Okay. That's it. For everything else - including what happens to June, Lawrence, Janine but probably not Nick - we'll have to wait just a couple more days.
Time to bake another batch of muffins!
For more on this topic:
- The 9 things you may have missed in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 12, Sacrifice.
- The 9 things you may have missed in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 11, Liars.
- The 5 things you may have missed in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 10, Witness.
- The 5 things you may have missed in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 9, Heroic.
- The 8 things you may have missed in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 8, Unfit.
- The 7 things you may have missed in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 7, Under His Eye.
- The 7 things you may have missed in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 6, Household.
- The 7 things you may have missed in The Handmaid's Tale season 3, episode 5, Unknown Caller.
- Well, sh*t. Emily might be sent back to Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale.
- There's a new Handmaid's Tale fan theory that claims Nick is a rebellious American spy.
- "36 minutes into the new Handmaid’s Tale, I saw how refugees could be treated. It left me in tears."
- Just a bunch of juicy fan theories about the Handmaid's Tale in one convenient place.