The Handmaid's Tale: Here's Where the Harrowing Season 3 Finale Leaves Everyone

Taking a trip to Jezebel's, June strikes up a deal with Billy the bartender to sneak out 52 kids on a plane carrying cargo in exchange for Commander Lawrence's art. This works, but she has a terrifying night, as Commander Winslow tries to rape her. She kills him, and the Marthas help her clean up the evidence and burn his body.

This experience traumatizes June, of course. After Lawrence hands her a gun, she's not afraid to use it, even pointing it at a screaming child. On Mayday, she and the Marthas create a path in the woods to sneak out the children. They get close the night of, but see guards at the airport. Long story short, the kids get out as the Marthas and Handmaids throw rocks at the Guardians. June runs into the woods to distract the guards, shooting one of them and demanding that he tell his partner that everything's clear. The next morning, the Handmaids retrieve June, who's shot in the stomach but definitely can't be a goner yet.

Ah, the Waterfords, the couple we love to hate. In an uncomfortable turn, season three spends a significant amount of time forcing us to empathize with Serena Joy as she tries to get Nichole back. Anyway, Mrs. Waterford finally takes up on Mark Tuello's immunity deal as a last-ditch effort to see baby Nichole, which leads to her husband's arrest in Canada as a war criminal. While Fred is incarcerated, she intermittently visits Nichole.

But Fred realises what his wife has done and screws her over. While interrogated, he reveals that Serena forced Nick and June to have sex in order to have Nichole. This divulgence works, as Serena is then too arrested as a war criminal.

Rita is the real MVP of the season three finale. From setting up a path in the woods to protecting the kids, she proves herself to be indispensable to the cause. As the other Marthas fend off the guards, Rita sneaks the kids onto the plane to safety. In Canada, she meets Luke (who's helping out with Moira and Emily at the airport) and tearfully tells him that this was all June's doing.

June lays the guilt onto Commander Lawrence thickly, seeing as he's accountable for the hellscape that's Gilead. He agrees to help June, realising that it's an out for him and his wife, Eleanor, who's ill and needs mood stabilizers, not herbal tea. Mrs. Lawrence dies after overdosing on pills, which June witnesses but decides not to do anything about.

After the funeral, Commander Lawrence still sides with June. He almost pulls out last minute, when a Martha escapes and reports of a missing child circulate. But ultimately, he assists June, reading to a roomful of young girls ready to leave Gilead. Though June offers to bring him out, he stays behind.

Ofmatthew, or Natalie, is a goner long before the finale, but we ought to tell her story anyway. She's June's aggressively pious walking partner who lets slip that she has doubts about her pregnancy, which June uses to bully her. Eventually, Natalie snaps, grabbing a gun from a guard at the supermarket and getting shot as a consequence. The doctors aren't able to resuscitate her, but they do save her child while she's in a coma. It's her death that prompts June to save Gilead's children.

In Canada, Emily reunites with her wife and their son, but it's awkward and she obviously needs time to work through her PTSD. She develops a bond with Moira, who attempts at first to bond through their shared lesbian identity. But it's their experiences in Gilead that connect them with each other. During a protest, they confront the Canadian Immigration Minister for not protecting refugees from deportation and for not keeping baby Nichole from Gilead. While in jail, they admit to killing people under Gilead's rule. In the finale, we last see Emily with Luke and Moira at the airport helping the young girls from Gilead.

Other than surviving Emily's attack, Aunt Lydia's biggest moment in season three is a flashback of her life as a teacher. In the finale, she briefly appears in the beginning, telling June that the other girls look up to her as the Handmaids sneak food for Mayday. We can't even imagine what Lydia's going to do when Gilead figures out that a bunch of kids are missing.

Nick is decidedly NOT the MVP this season, disappearing somewhere halfway through. (This is perhaps because Max Minghella had been busy with his directorial debut Teen Spirit.) When he gets promoted to become a Commander, he leaves for Chicago. June seems him again when she and the Handmaids are in DC for a prayer, and she tries to recruit him to negotiate with the Swiss government. But he leaves for the warfront in Chicago, and Serena divulges to June that he used to be a soldier in the Crusades. As of now, Nick could be dead or in Canada. The show can't let him off the hook that easily.