The Handmaid’s Tale season 4, episode 6 recap: Latest instalment contains the most dramatic developments so far

As Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s classic reaches a turning point, Clémence Michallon recaps the events in ‘Vows’

Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale episode ‘Vows' (Hulu)

For four seasons now, The Handmaid’s Tale has kept us watching even as it denied us the one plot point we so yearned for – the one that had to be delayed, presumably, because it would have upended the show’s very premise: June’s departure from Gilead.

But even The Handmaid’s Tale could only hold off on that development for so long. And so, with “Vows”, we finally get what we’ve been waiting for.

Of course, this is Gilead we’re talking about. Any impression of progress, any fleeting victory is just that: fleeting. The authoritarian regime has dismantled families, separated parents from their children, and made life as it used to be a distant, unattainable dream. “Vows”, the sixth episode in the fourth season, poignantly brings that background into focus. You can get people out of Gilead, you can reunite families, and still, nothing will ever be the same. And, crucially, you can get June out of Gilead and still have plenty of material for the show to go on.

Moira’s back

We begin this week’s episode where we left off, ie, with June having just encountered Moira after emerging from the rubble of a bombing ordered by Gilead. As of last week, it remained unclear whether Janine, June’s companion and ally for much of this season so far, had survived the blast.

We don’t get to investigate this question for very long in “Vows”. Instead, we must shift our attention to the fact that Oona, an NGO worker and Moira’s new love interest, tells Moira that getting June out of Gilead is a no-go. If they do, she says, there will be “no more missions, no more food, no more medicine – nothing, for any of these people [other victims of Gilead]”. This roughly makes sense, but I am moved to ponder: how much is Gilead cooperating with the NGO workers, anyway? Oona appears to be making the case that rescuing June would result in the destruction of whatever fragile rapport they have with the regime, but that regime just injured and killed a bunch of people. How much of a rapport is there to destroy?

Still, Oona’s objection introduces an interesting conflict. It hadn’t occurred to me, by the end of last week’s episode, that Moira wouldn’t even be allowed to extract June from Gilead. I was way too busy anticipating the ways in which June herself might resist that plan, given that she has yet to rescue her daughter Hannah.

June does exactly that, but Moira has had enough. Unbeknownst to Oona, she hides June on the NGO’s Canada-bound ship – a decision that seems it will work out for the best, until Oona mentions that Gilead soldiers will sweep the ship before it can depart for good. Moira owns up to what she did, and the NGO workers are left having to decide whether to attempt to smuggle June or give her up.

Let’s pause for a second to acknowledge Samira Wiley’s performance in this episode: she’s magnificent. There is something so believable, so palpable about Moira’s determination to finally get June out of here. She’s saying what we viewers have been thinking for a while now, and she’s saying it so well, with the perfect mix of outrage and latent compassion for June’s plight (which makes sense: Moira is a Gilead survivor too).

After some tense back and forth, the NGO workers agree to try to pass off June as one of their own. They print her an ID and give her a vest with the organisation’s logo. A Gilead soldier questions her, then lets her through.

Reader, it has happened. This is The Handmaid’s Tale, and June is officially out of Gilead.

About those flashbacks…

The Handmaid’s Tale is fond of using flashbacks to the characters’ pre-Gilead lives. They serve as a handy exposition device, but the best flashbacks serve a dual purpose by raising the stakes of a given episode.

Such is the case in “Vows”, which alternates between the present timelines and scenes from June and Luke’s engagement and life as a married couple, including with their daughter Hannah. The full meaning of those flashbacks is felt when June, aboard the ship, wrestles with her agonising decision to leave Gilead without Hannah.

Her despair is such that Moira finds her at night, attempting to untie a lifeboat that she intends to sail back to Gilead to find her daughter. Moira talks her out of it, but the moment feels heavy, decisive. June will not forgive herself for this. The consequences of her departure will be long-lasting, and we can expect them to play out over the next episodes.

So what now?

“Vows” is a captivating episode, in that it gives us everything we thought we wanted, while showing us that perhaps we’ve been wanting the wrong things, or have wanted them incorrectly. June gets out. She’s reunited with Luke. We’ve waited so long for this moment that it’s hard to believe that O-T Fagbenle actually just stumbled into June’s ship cabin, but after rewatching that scene more times than I care to admit, I can confirm that it’s real.

Fagbenle and Elisabeth Moss convey so much emotion as Luke and June finally lay eyes on each other again. There are so many words left unsaid, so many feelings each character can’t fully make sense of before another one presents itself. June is the one to break the silence. “I’m sorry I don’t have her,” she tells him about Hannah. Then, sobbing: “I’m sorry it’s just me. I’m sorry.”

The moment rings true. The Handmaid’s Tale has spent a lot of time building June up as a survivor and a member of the resistance, but in that moment, we’re reminded of the toll Gilead has taken on her: she’s riddled with guilt, physically and mentally harmed, traumatised. Her body has left Gilead, but her mind hasn’t. The life she left behind – the one we have revisited throughout the episode’s flashbacks – is over, presumably forever. There is so much for her to process and rebuild, and as far as the show is concerned, so much left to resolve. June is out, but nothing is over.