What happened in The Handmaid's Tale season 6 episode 9?

The last ever season of The Handmaid’s Tale is nearing its conclusion with the penultimate episode having just aired.

Based on a novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, the show is an American dystopian television series that follows the life and reckoning of June Osbourne (played by Elisabeth Moss).

In the penultimate episode of season six, episode nine, titled Execution, June faces her toughest challenge as Gilead is preparing to crack down on rebels like her.

Here's what went down:

Spoilers ahead!

Hulu

The striking opening scene featured a debut of Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)” as the handmaids ran into the back of a truck.

Among the group are June, Moira, Janine, and Ava, who choose to stay and finish what needs to be done. They say, “I love you,” before June is dragged off.

When Aunt Lydia is brought to the stage alongside June and sees a sea of red uniforms and nooses, she doesn’t realise what’s happening at first, until a brief moment of reckoning that fans have been waiting for.

Rather than pray out loud for the men in Gilead, she prays for “her precious girls” who she knows have been mistreated and “prisoners of wicked Godless men”.

June also issues one last prayer and a guttural cry before gunfire rings out, and people other than them are the ones dying.

Elsewhere, Serena does the decent thing and gives June the Commander’s flight plan.

June and Commander Joseph drive to the hangar, where they both know what is going to happen.

When Nick arrives, June is devastated as she knows that this will be the last time she sees two men she loves.

Joseph, aware of what will happen once they are onboard the plane, tells Nick, “Someone better than me will have to see it through.” We see the plane explode in the reflection of June’s eyes with both of them on it.

With one episode left of the whole show, the story of trauma, transformation and survival will be wrapped up for good.

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