If you’ve been following io9’s coverage of The Handmaid’s Tale season six, you might have caught our list of five things viewers needed to remember about season five. There was a long gap between seasons, and quite a few high-stakes plot threads to keep track of.
One of the items on that list was the departure of fan-favorite character, whose absence was explained away in the season five premiere. We wondered if perhaps that person might return in season six, and, well…
Yes! Alexis Bledel’s Emily, fearless fighter and noted salted caramel ice cream fan, did indeed show up for some closure in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the series finale episode. In season five, we learned she’d left her wife and son—after a hard-fought escape to safety—to return to Gilead and keep fighting.
It was an abrupt end for a character who’d been so important as both a friend to June (Elisabeth Moss) as well as to the plot of The Handmaid’s Tale as a whole; it’s because of Emily that we learned about Mayday. She’s the reason why Bradley Whitford’s Commander Lawrence entered the story. Her experiences also illuminated the bleak life for exiles in the Colonies, as well as the genital mutilation forced upon women who refused to obey Gilead’s draconian laws.
Though the character’s absence was due to Bledel choosing to leave the series, it was tempting to imagine Emily would soon pop up again. But she was MIA throughout season five and all of season six until the very end. In interviews with the Hollywood Reporter, Bledel as well as Moss and show creator Bruce Miller discussed how they planned her cameo.
“We were both thrilled that it might work out,” Miller told THR. “I think she was really excited when we talked. The only thing that was hard was the logistics to get her up for the time we needed … It was wonderful to see her and [Moss] get right back into it after all that time.”
Moss added, “She wanted to do it from the beginning. She didn’t need convincing at all. My first official scene on day one [on set] was with Alexis. So it meant a lot to get to work with her again.”
In a separate interview with THR, Bledel said returning to The Handmaid’s Tale was “an immediate yes” because “it felt right to bring closure to Emily’s journey and offer the audience a sense of completion … I hope viewers take away to keep hope alive when things seem impossible. Even if it seems like seeds you plant couldn’t possibly grow, plant seeds of hope anyway. You never know; they might find a way.”
The Handmaid’s Tale finale is now streaming on Hulu.
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