The Handmaid’s Tale Finally Answers the Question of What Happened to This Fan-Favorite Character

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This article contains major spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-2025) series finale, now streaming on Hulu.

Since 2017, The Handmaid’s Tale has been one of the best and most disturbing series Hulu has to offer. As a cautionary tale about an oppressive government, many viewers find the series uncomfortably realistic, especially as political turmoil continues to run rampant throughout the United States. On Tuesday, May 27, 2025, Hulu released Season 6, Episode 10 – “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is the series finale, and it wrapped up a lot of loose threads. It also helped set the groundwork for Testaments, a sequel series now in the works at Hulu.

One of the biggest questions the series finale answered was what happened to Emily Malek. Emily was first introduced in Season 1 as June’s (Offred at the time) shopping partner and fellow Handmaid. Emily was a major character for the first four seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, but at the end of Season 4, Emily decided to return to Gilead to fight the oppression from the inside. She was never seen again, at least until the series finale.

Emily Returns for The Handmaid’s Tale’s Series Finale

June & Emily Have a Heartwarming Reunion

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Alexis Bledel’s Emily Malek is one of the most complex characters in The Handmaid’s Tale. As a lesbian punished for being a “gender traitor,” Emily was turned into a Handmaid and tortured for her previous lifestyle. Emily never lost her fighting spirit, though, which eventually led her to seek asylum in Canada, and then return to the fight in Gilead. Fans loved Emily for her shockingly realistic portrayal of a survivor of serious abuse and cruelty. She never quite settled into her life in Canada, which made it hard for her to find safety, security, and happiness with her wife, Sylvia, and her young son, Oliver.

Season 6, Episode 10 – “The Handmaid’s Tale” finally discloses what happened to Emily after she left the show at the end of Season 4. The episode didn’t just mention Emily, either. Alexis Bledel shocked everyone when she agreed to make an appearance in the series finale, allowing her character to reunite with Elisabeth Moss’ June Osborne. They reunite in Boston, which has been liberated by the American government after June, Commander Joseph Lawrence, and Mayday’s plan to kill all the major Boston Commanders in one go actually succeeds. Lawrence even sacrifices himself by getting on a plane heading to Washington, D.C., which is full of other Commanders and explosives. Lawrence knew if he didn’t get on the plane, it would look suspicious, so he killed himself to ensure the plan succeeded.

Handmaid’s Tale is a stunning series, and Emily is a main character who has kept audiences coming back time and time again.

Lawrence’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain, either, because with so many important Commanders gone, Boston is free of Gilead control. It becomes one of three stars on the U.S. flag, with the other two confirmed states that remained free of Gilead control being Alaska and Hawaii. Alaska and Hawaii were always free of Gilead, but Boston is the first real victory of the States successfully fighting back.

In the series finale, June takes a stroll through Boston, including her old neighborhood. While walking, she stops in front of an empty building with “FREEDOM” written on the window. She stares through the window for a few minutes, clearly lost in thought. Then a voice pulls her attention to her left, and she’s shocked to find Emily standing there. Emily’s first words to June are extremely familiar ones.

“This used to be an ice cream place. They had this amazing salted caramel. It’d be cool if they reopened, wouldn’t it? Blessed be the fruit.” – Emily Malek

Emily & June’s Reunion Perfectly Mirrors Their Season 1 Meeting

They Retrace Their Steps, Now as Free Women

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When June first realizes that Emily is standing beside her, she’s beside herself. She almost can’t believe her eyes, and when she says, “My f**king God,” Emily replies with a morbidly hilarious one-liner, “That’s blasphemy.” Both women are holding back tears, and it’s clear that June never thought she would see Emily again. Emily making jokes about Gilead’s religious and oppressive regime also shows just how far she’s come since their first meeting. June’s response as she hugs Emily is absolutely perfect, though.

“Pious little sh*t.” – June to Emily

Within the first few sentences spoken to each other, this tear-jerking scene makes it clear that it’s drawing parallels between June and Emily’s first meeting in Season 1 and how they interacted with one another as Handmaids. In Season 1, June (known as Offred) and Emily (known as Ofglen) become shopping partners. Handmaids are never allowed to travel alone, so when they go to pick up groceries or run errands for their house, they have to go in pairs. Since June and Emily were stationed in neighboring houses, they were paired up together.

At first, June despised Emily. She believed that Emily was a “true believer” of the Gilead regime and one of the first ways June describes Emily to the audience is “pious little sh*t.” Emily feels much the same about June, proving that most Handmaids have to put on a strict act whether they believe in Gilead’s ways or not. If they step out of line or draw too much attention to themselves, they could be sent to the Jezebels, the Colonies, or they could end up on the Wall. June and Emily soon form a friendship, where they feel safe sharing details of their lives before the rise of Gilead, something that is strictly prohibited.

After their reunion in front of the old ice cream parlor, which was something Emily told June about back in Season 1, they decide to go for a walk. Their walk retraces the path they first walked when they got to know one another in Season 1. A path along the river where they passed by bodies hung for display to warn other Gilead citizens about the cost of sin. During their journey together, Emily tells June that after she left Canada, she was in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for seven months. Emily describes Bridgeport as a “hotspot for rebellion” for some reason. While in Bridgeport, she posed as a Martha under a Commander who turned out to be her friend.