A recent Elizabeth Moss interview guaranteed that The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 will deliver action and continue to build on season 4’s best change of June Osborne’s circumstances. While The Handmaid’s Tale season 5’s release date is yet to be revealed, its renewal was confirmed ahead of season 4’s premiere in 2021. The show’s season 1 was based on the 1985 dystopian novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood, but The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 2-4 built on the Gilead created by Atwood, expanding its universe.
Throughout the show’s course, The Handmaid’s Tale’s reception worsened according to both critics and viewers. While The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 1 and 2 boast a very high critics score and audience score, ranging from 94% and 89% to 91% and 83% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes, seasons 3 and 4 have a much lower score. The widespread criticism of The Handmaid’s Tale’s seasons 3 and 4 revolves around the plot promising revolution and action before going back to its usual doom and horror, with the Handmaids finding themselves exactly where they started more often than not. However, Elizabeth Moss’s reassurance on the many things happening in The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 suggests its latest season will be more similar to The Handmaid’s Tale season 4’s second part than the show’s season 3.
In an interview, Moss teases that The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 is “one of the wilder rides” ever had, revealing that she “almost can’t keep up with the amount of activity happening.” The Handmaid’s Tale season 5’s latest casting announcement saw Hawaii Five-0’s Christine Ko being cast in the role of a powerful resistance leader, Lucy. Both teases predict that The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 will not only be full of action, even going as far as suggesting a showdown between Gilead and the Resistance, but also pick up from where June (Elizabeth Moss) was left at the end of season 4, as a free woman in Canada, still trying to fight for those trapped in Gilead. This change gives June greater agency and allows for a much more dynamic, action-led narrative moving forwards.
While The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 1 and 2 were packed with action, with the plot moving forward, season 3 and the first half of season 4 were slightly stuck in a disaster scenario rut, where June and the other Handmaids would be cyclically subjected to horrors and pointless suffering. The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 episode 6 finally overhauled that pattern, as June in Canada could achieve something that would have been impossible inside Gilead, such as letting the rest of the world hear her story. Her presence in Canada at the same time that Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) were detained there also modified the balance of June’s relationship with them, as they always had the upper hand in the past, while in Canada June’s words and testimony had power.
Indeed, The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 3 and 4’s slow nature gave the show the chance to explore more sides of Gilead’s theocratic dictatorship and the Resistance to it. Without June and Janine’s (Madeline Brewer) journey, it would have been impossible to see the work of the armed Resistance in Chicago in The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 episode 5. If season 3 hadn’t ended with June wounded, season 4 couldn’t have shown the workings of Mayday, the network of Marthas, Handmaids, and even a Commander’s wife that made possible the escape of Gilead children to Canada. The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 3 and 4 offered worldbuilding but not enough action to bring on the revolution wanted by June and many others. Moss’s promise of a season packed with happenings for The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 suggests that the story will build upon season 4’s big June change, guaranteeing a shift in balance and possibly even in the world order.