'The Handmaid's Story' Season 5 finale recap: 'Protected' indicators it is time to start chugging towards the present's finish

Editor’s Observe: The next incorporates spoilers about “The Handmaid’s Story” Season 5 finale, “Protected.”

Muricas News  — 

“The Handmaid’s Story” actually doesn’t undergo from an absence of media publicity or cultural capital, with current turns within the battle over abortion rights producing common references in progressive circles to the specter of America changing into Gilead, the repressive patriarchal society featured in Margaret Atwood’s novel.

The fifth season that concluded on Tuesday, nonetheless, merely bolstered that the sequence spun out of the guide has maybe held on too lengthy, and the truth that extending its run by a sixth and remaining season was, in hindsight, at the very least one too many. Appropriately, the finale wrapped up aboard a practice, as a result of whereas the present didn’t fairly go off the rails, it at instances appeared to come back perilously shut.

In the end, the final episode, “Protected,” reunited the 2 characters whose bond — solid in ache and hatred — fully outlined Season 5. Particularly, the story saved returning to June (Elisabeth Moss) and Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) within the context of what they’ll do, how far they’ll go and the way a lot torment they’ll endure for the sake of their youngsters.

Nothing speaks to that greater than June’s interactions with Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford, who has change into a significant asset), a sort-of reformer dangling the promise of reuniting June together with her daughter in an effort to win her over. A ugly assault on June and botched army operation to get better the misplaced ladies, underscored that that is certainly a warfare, with casualties because the inevitable byproduct.

The finale additionally highlighted the cruel realities of life in Gilead through Janine (Madeline Brewer) and her ill-advised second of bracing honesty with Naomi (Ever Carradine), additional pointed proof to her and even Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), if any was wanted, of the delicate nature of a Handmaid’s existence.

The story has change into more and more muddled, nonetheless, with the three-way political dynamic among the many US, Canada and Gilead, which turned June and Serena into refugees, and June’s husband Luke (O-T Fagbenle) right into a prisoner of the Canadian authorities.

Earlier than that occurred, it fell to June to warn him of the hazard they confronted, in a line about how democracies can crumble that, as icily delivered by Moss, carried a weight clearly meant to resonate past this fictional world.

“America wasn’t Gilead till it was,” she stated. “After which it was too f**kin’ late.”

In that second, anyway, “The Handmaid’s Story” supplied a riveting reminder of what made the sequence such an Emmy-winning sensation when it started. It can take extra of these sort of moments to information the sequence again to something approaching that stage as the ultimate season chugs towards its vacation spot, which needs to be fascinating, even when it feels a little bit too late.