Over six seasons, “The Handmaid’s Tale” has been gripping, emotional and sometimes draining. And that’s why, as the show draws to a close, the team behind the Emmy-winning Hulu series were determined to bring more light to the story. Speaking Wednesday at PaleyFest LA, co-showrunner and exec producer Yahlin Chang said that the writers wanted the final season to be “a love letter to our fans” and noted that “you guys have really stuck with us through thick and thin.”
She added that by a certain point in the series, after all the emotionally distressing storylines, she became drawn to creating more “feel-good” episodes. Said Chang: “I only want to end with victory and feelings of hope and triumph and uplift.”
“The Handmaid’s Tale” panel at PaleyFest provided a look back at the show’s evolution through retrospective clips highlighting crucial character moments as well as a clip from the upcoming sixth and final season. Audience members also got to see a clip from Season 6 featuring an interaction between Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and Janine (Madeline Brewer).
The cast and creative team discussed the individual scenes and their experience working on the show. Elisabeth Moss, who leads the series as June Osborne and has also served as a producer and director, talked about the show’s impact on her career: “I love acting so much. It’s my first love. But after doing it for so long, you do need to kind of grow as an artist,” Moss said.
Moss called expanding her experience through producing and directing “incredibly fulfilling” and commended the cast. “I’d never directed like a short film before. Okay, then, like the first person you’re directing is Bradley Whitford,” she said.
One of the clips shown was from Season 2, and featured a harrowing reunion between June and her daughter Hannah. Moss was asked about rehearsing these kinds of difficult scenes, to which Whitford began laughing. Moss said that he was laughing because he knew that for her, “there is no rehearsal.”
But Moss said the strength of the show’s writing allowed her to approach that type of scene without rehearsal: “I think that when you have material like that, it doesn’t, for me anyway, it doesn’t take a whole lot to go to the place that I need to go.”
Another clip from Season 3, Episode 13 also provided an emotional glimpse into the show. The scene featured the characters Moira, Emily and Luke greeting children that had made it out of Gilead and into Canada. As Samira Wiley (who plays Moira) noted, “This show is rough,” to audience laughs and cheers.
Wiley discussed watching O-T Fagbenle as Luke, looking for his daughter and ultimately not seeing her among the new arrivals. Wiley said becoming a mother has changed her perspective on the series: “I feel like at the beginning I was like, ‘that was a really good performance,’ but now, to understand the weight and the depth of being a mother, what that means, being able to watch this now, I just, I have so much respect for you Lizzie and you O-T,” Wiley said.
Fagbenle provided insight into crafting that scene. Originally, Luke wasn’t meant to be looking for Hannah, and the moment was unintentional. “I just stopped everything I was supposed to be doing, and I was just watching,” Fagbenle said.
He shared that director Mike Barker encouraged him to continue what he was doing and worked with him to shift the scene. “The fact that there’s space in there, that in the world of TV where it’s like, go, go, go, go, the fact that they create space, I think it’s part of what’s made this show so extraordinary,” Fagbenle said.
Whitford also discussed a scene from Season 5, in which his character awkwardly proposes marriage to another. It’s one of the more humorous moments from the show (he also directed the episode). He reiterated how much space actors have to explore on “The Handmaid’s Tale,” quipping that Moss is “doing ‘Sophie’s Choice: The Series.’”
“I do think the space that was created for her, for this character, for her to take agency of the telling of this story in an atmosphere that allowed that kind of collaboration was one of the moving and inspiring things for me as an actor, because usually we’re pawns: ‘Stand on the tape and talk!’” Whitford said.
Whitford added that “this is a fear-based business. You have to have wise, secure people who like good parents, allow their children to occasionally surprise them. That was this experience.”