Moira Strand taking June Osborne from Gilead on The Handmaid's Tale raises moral and ethical questions, but it was still the right thing to do. Season 4 of the dystopian drama, currently streaming on Hulu, expands the scope of the series outside the confines of Boston. Still, The Handmaid's Tale's violence and June's story arc were causing frustration among fans and critics alike. June's bad and sometimes inscrutable decisions caused her allies to dwindle. Her prospects of rescuing her eldest daughter Hannah faded, and her chances of escaping Gilead alive seemed unlikely, making the show almost too unbearably depressing to watch. Finally, with June out of Gilead, the trajectory of the series is about to shift in a new direction.
After June and Janine finally made it to Chicago, the country launched a deadly airstrike against the city, one place in America still not fully under Gilead's control, before the arrival of the Canadian NGO. In the immediate aftermath, June is reunited with Moira, who is desperate to rescue her best friend. However, getting June out comes at a steep cost. Moira's girlfriend Oona makes it clear that if they help June escape, it puts any future NGO access to Gilead at risk, which means abandoning thousands of civilians who need their help. Yet, Moira sneaks June aboard the ship anyway, betraying Oona and losing her in the process.
Moira's decision to rescue June isn't entirely selfless. She's racked with survivor's guilt after making it out of Gilead during season 1, leaving June behind. How could she possibly go back and tell Luke that she abandoned his wife? Even though Moira has reached a point where she's trying to put Gilead behind her, she could never be truly happy knowing June's would still be stuck there. The series constantly explores the tough choices characters make despite the far-reaching consequences, and Moira, like many others, acts on her immediate impulse. Oona and the other members of the NGO debate whether June's life is more valuable than those of the other people they are trying to help, and the short answer is yes. She served in the houses of two powerful commanders, one of whom was the architect of Gilead's economy. She will provide Mark Tuello with the information he desperately wanted from Serena Waterford, whose pregnancy forces her to reconsider her allegiance to her husband. The inner workings of Gilead's political and social hierarchical structure don't appear to be widely understood or acknowledged by other countries, and defeating the totalitarian regime means exposing the severity of its human rights violations and the corruption among high-ranking officials.
Just as the letters from those trapped in Gilead caused a public outcry and stopped diplomatic relations in their tracks, June's story could have a similar impact on a global scale. The NGO doesn't yield any political power. Episode 5, "Chicago," shows that Gilead, spearheaded by the enigmatic Commander Lawrence, is more interested in maintaining a stranglehold on disputed territories than currying favor with other countries, even to its own detriment (Commander Lawrence''s contradictory behavior indicates he has a plan to destroy Gilead in its current incarnation if not altogether.) The bombing basically rendered the NGO powerless to fulfill its mission. What the NGO represents is a band-aid, while June could be the cure.
In addition to being an invaluable resource to America, June's also a wife and mother. June's lost one daughter, and Moira knows she's at risk of losing another if she doesn't leave Gilead. June equates freedom with abandonment, but in Canada, she'll have access to more resources to save Hannah than she does in Gilead. Moria's not wrong when she points out that Hannah, who is scared of June and doesn't recognize her, will be safer if Gilead doesn't view and treat her as a torture device. Whether bringing June back will ease some of the anguish her absence has caused Luke Bankole remains to be seen. Moira's conscience and her affection for June clouded her judgment, and the repercussions will be felt moving forward on The Handmaid's Tale, but saving June from Gilead was the right decision.