Fresh off her blink-and-you-missed-it return in The Handmaid’s Tale series finale, Alexis Bledel joined her former costars at a panel discussing how the show ended.
“When she arrived in Canada and was reunited with her family, she was still processing so much emotion,” Bledel, 43, said during a post-finale talkback held on Wednesday, May 28. “Her trauma was very fresh [and] she had been through so much in Gilead.”
She continued, “When she settles, I think she still has a lot of underlying rage and unprocessed emotions to work through, but she gets drawn back to Gilead instead of finding a way to work through it in Canada. I think she wants to go back and finish what [she] started.”
The Gilmore Girls alum played Emily/Ofglen on the first four seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, based on Margaret Atwood’s bestselling novel of the same name. The actress left the show ahead of season 5, when Emily escaped the dystopian regime and reunited with her wife and son up north in Canada. She later made a brief appearance in the finale, meeting up with June/Offred (Elisabeth Moss) after Boston was freed from Gileadian control.
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“I love the opportunity to offer a satisfying conclusion to our audience to Emily’s story line,” Bledel added during the cast panel. “It was such a beautifully written role from the pilot and, you know, to the fact that the finale brings us full circle and has June and Emily walking together in freedom felt so meaningful and seemed to inform so much about each of their journeys.”
While Bledel was eager to return to The Handmaid’s Tale to wrap up her character’s story, she did note walking back on set “felt very different.”
“I almost expected to have the bonnet on again and have to peek around it,” she joked, referring to her costume headpiece. “But, no, it’s a totally different feeling. It’s amazing.”
Bledel’s return was also particularly exciting to her castmates.
“When I heard the idea that Emily could be back in the finale, I said, ‘OK, the problem is now that you’ve told me, we have to do it,’” Moss, 42, said during the panel discussion on Wednesday. “It was so perfect, and it felt like it’s an essential piece of the show, not just June’s journey. My first … official day [of filming] was with Alexis, and she’s why June became who she is. She was the first Mayday resistance fighter [who June] met and was her inspiration.”
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Moss, who directed the finale, further gushed about how impactful it was that Bledel agreed to return to the series.
“It meant so much to me personally as a friend, and she was such a huge part of the show for so long,” Moss concluded.
The Handmaid’s Tale is currently streaming on Hulu.
