10 things you need to know to watch The Handmaid’s Tale season 4

The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 begins on Hulu on April 28th, and it’s been a long time coming. It’s been about a year and a half since the season 3 finale and with so much apocalyptic-feeling stuff going on in the real world you may have forgotten some key details about what’s happened to June in Gilead.

Or, you may want to jump into season 4 but don’t have time to watch seasons 1-3 so you need to know the major events in order to watch the new episodes. Either way, here’s a quick guide to get you caught up before The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 kicks off.

**As a warning – there are major spoilers ahead so if you don’t want to know the major events in The Handmaid’s Tale stop reading now and go watch seasons 1-3.**

Seasons 1-3 are still worth watching or rewatching because there are a lot of details and events that won’t fit in this quick catch-up guide. But if you don’t remember or haven’t watched before these are the important things for you to know from seasons 1-3 of The Handmaid’s Tale.

1. June Osborne is a wife and mother who was captured and enslaved when the Sons of Jacob overthrew the U.S. government to establish a militant theocracy. She is a Handmaid, a person whose role in Gilead is to produce children for the high-ranking Commanders of the state.

As the series begins, she is sent to the home of Commander Fred Waterford and his wife Serena Joys. Handmaids have no names, only monikers that establish them as the property of the Commander, so June’s name becomes Ofred. (Get it? “Of Fred”.)

2. June becomes aware of an underground resistance fighting against Gilead through her walking partner, another Handmaid who is part of the resistance group, Mayday. Ofsteven, whose real name is Emily, is caught having an affair with a Martha and subjected to genital mutilation as a punishment while the Martha is hanged. Emily tries to escape later in the season and is sent to the colonies to clean up toxic waste.

June gets in touch with Mayday through other Handmaids and is able to smuggle a parcel of handwritten notes and cards from Handmaids and other captive women in Gilead to get them out to the world. She also finds her closest friend Moira who was forced to work at the Commander’s brothel, Jezebels. Moira is able to escape to Canada after fighting her way out of Jezebels. In Canada, she connects with Luke, June’s husband.

3. As time goes by in season 1, it’s clear that Fred isn’t getting the job done to impregnate June. Serena Joy decides that June should have a secret liaison with the Waterford’s trusted driver, Nick, in order to get pregnant. But Nick isn’t just a driver, he’s an Eye. Eyes are part of the military force in Gilead. Nick and June have an actual relationship unknown to the Waterfords and June becomes pregnant.

June’s pregnancy gives her some protection from punishment, which she uses to push some of the boundaries imposed on her. She leads a rebellion among the Handmaids when they are required to stone another Handmaid and at the end of the season is shown being bundled into one of the black vans that the Eyes use to take people off to be tortured or killed.

4. In season 2, June manages to escape from a hospital where she and the baby are being treated. She is on the run for some time, but ultimately her escape is thwarted. She returns to the Waterfords’ home and her escape is concealed as a “kidnapping”.

As her pregnancy nears its end Serena Joy holds June down while Fred brutally rapes her trying to induce labor. Out of guilt over his actions, Waterford arranges for June to see her daughter, Hannah, at an abandoned home in the country. Things go sideways there and Nick is shot and taken away, leaving June to give birth alone in the abandoned house.

5. After her tongue was cut out because she spoke up for the Handmaid who was to be stoned in season 1, another Handmaid detonated a suicide bomb at the opening of the new Handmaid training facility, killing dozens of Commanders and injuring hundreds more. Fred Waterford is hurt, and Serena Joy secretly fulfills his duties at home while he recovers so that they don’t lose their privileged status.

6. Serena Joy’s finger is cut off as a punishment for reading and writing during Fred’s recovery. She knows that June is planning an escape with the help of the Marthas and Mayday and she gives June’s baby, Nicole, to her and tells her to get Nicole out of Gilead.

In the meantime, Emily has been brought back from the colonies to serve as a Handmaid because there is a shortage of them.

Once back, she attacks Aunt Lydia and escapes with the help of her Commander, one of the creators of Gilead named Commander Lawrence. At the last minute, June gives Nicole to Emily and tells her to get the child to Canada and give her to Luke. June refuses to leave Gilead without her daughter Hannah. Emily makes it safely to Canada with Nicole but her escape with Nicole becomes front-page news.

7.  In Season 3, June desperately tried to rescue her daughter Hannah. She was placed with Command Lawrence after the Waterfords’ home burned down and she manipulated Commander Lawrence’s wife into helping her to try to take her child back.

She was not able to get Hannah though and the family that has her moved so June wouldn’t know where they were. Commander Lawrence is ambivalent about what Gilead has become and helps June in some ways but his loyalty remains divided.

8.  As a rescued child of Gilead, Baby Nicole becomes famous. Serena Joy sees Luke with baby Nicole on TV at a protest against Gilead and goes to June to get her to arrange a meeting with Luke for Serena Joy in Canada.

While she is there, a journalist who was acting as a mediator for the event tried to get Serena Joy to turn against her husband and Gilead and offered to help her get out if she ever decided in the future to take him up on the offer.

9.  Serena Joy, desperate to have Nicole back, agrees to turn on Fred if it means she can stay in Canada with Nicole.

She lies to Fred and manipulates him into mistakenly driving over the border into Canada where he is immediately arrested for his crimes. He turns on her, and she is also arrested for participating in the rape of June.

10.   June plots to hurt Gilead and rescue the innocent by getting as many stolen children as she can out of Gilead.

Through a daring plan in cooperation with Mayday and with the help of a network of Marthas and Handmaids she is able to get 87 children on a plane to Canada with a few Marthas, including Rita.

When the plane arrives it is met by a crew of volunteer rescue workers including Luke, Emily, and Moira. Luke is devastated when Hannah isn’t on the plane but he knows that June stayed behind to try and rescue their daughter.

Rita tells him that June was the one who got the children out of Gilead. June is shot in the process of making sure the plane gets off the ground but the other Handmaids find her and begin to carry her to safety at the very end of The Handmaid’s Tale season 3.

Now you’re relatively caught up and ready for the new episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale which start airing on Hulu on April 28th, 2021. Praised Be.