When does it come out? While it was previously reported that season five will be released sometime in 2022, there has been no confirmed date.
June and Serena will continue to go toe-to-toe. Serena is not going to take Fred’s death lightly. “Even though Serena didn’t like Fred and they have a complicated relationship, it’s now a June-Serena thing. She will want to find a way to metaphorically or realistically get June for this,” Miller told THR in June 2021. “June hit her house and she wants to hit her back. There’s that absolute toe-to-toe, woman-to-woman venom, but also, what is the relationship between two women where one killed the other’s abuser? It’s complicated.”
Fred may be dead, but Joe Fiennes will likely return. “The character dying doesn’t mean Joe stops coming and being part of the cast. We do have quite a heavy flashback show,” Miller told THR. “It’s terribly sad. But it would be much worse if we thought we were never going to see Joe again on set. There’s two different aspects to it: the heartbreak of the story and the heartbreak of real life. And at least the heartbreak of real life is neutered a little bit by knowing we’re going to be seeing him again.”
However, Alexis Bledel will not. Bledel said she decided to “step away” from the series in a statement released by Variety on May 27, 2022. “After much thought, I felt I had to step away from The Handmaid’s Tale at this time,” the statement read. “I am forever grateful to Bruce Miller for writing such truthful and resonant scenes for Emily, and to Hulu, MGM, the cast and crew for their support.”
Alexis Bledel and Anne Dowd in The Handmaid’s Tale season two, episode 13, “The Word.”©Hulu/Courtesy Everett Collection
Will this be the last season? “Lizzie and I have talked about it, and the writing staff and I have talked about it extensively about where we’re going precisely, but I do feel like after this year, it’s a good time to reassess,” Miller told THR in 2020 after the series was renewed for season five. So I know where I am in the story, and I do feel like we’re kind of reaching kind of a pivot point, but whether that’s the end or not, I don’t know. It just feels like it’s a good time to reassess what you were thinking, just because the story world has opened up because the real world has changed so much.”
